Readers: Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr. Should Resign
Given that two years ago readers wanted Ald. Bosley out of office the results of the poll last week shouldn’t be a surprise:
Q: Ald Bosley sent a letter to supporters asking for help paying the remaining $14,276 private college tuition for his daughter he couldn’t cover. Reaction:
- Bosley has lost the public trust, he should resign 58 [42.03%]
- Missouri legislature should tighten ethics laws 43 [31.16%]
- If constituents are upset, they should start a recall campaign 23 [16.67%]
- Meh, no big deal 11 [7.97%]
- Unsure/no opinion 3 [2.17%]
Ok, “only” 42% said he should resign, not a majority. But I’m pretty sure many of the 31% who picked the answer about state ethics laws wouldn’t mind if Bosley resigned.
But he’s not going to do so. Why? He has no clue how out of touch he really is, the original letter is proof of that. Unfortunately, he’ll be in office until he’s dead or physically incapacitated.
— Steve Patterson
Your statement that “he’ll be in office until he’s dead or physically incapacitated” elicited several immediate responses in my mind – one, if so, it’s a sad statement on the state of city politics and an indictment of city voters – no seat or office should be viewed as impregnable. Two, why assume that he WILL be renominated in the next primary and reelected in the next election? I get the power of incumbency, but I also get the power of grass-roots organizing. Three, no politician will ever represent any constituent’s interests “correctly” on every issue – you vote for the best candidate, not the perfect one. Bosley may not be perfect in eyes of many voters in his ward, but he’s obviously been viewed by a majority to be the best option (out of a bad lot?). Four, I’m not a big fan of politicians resigning or being impeached, especially over non-criminal issues. A lot of us had issues with Sarah Palin just quitting as Alaska’s governor, and filling vacancies usually skews toward insider politics, anyways – if Bosley DID resign, who would fill the position? Would he or she be any better? Would anything really change? Finally, while the letter was clumsy and ham handed, I viewed it more as a tempest in a teapot than as a major “issue”.
Politicians are always asking for money, and money is always finding its way to politicians. Potential donors can and do say no, and other donors that want to curry favor figure out how to get around any legal limitations that we can dream up. I’m much more concerned about the high “cost of entry” to run an election (which keeps many good people from running) and the misuse of tax dollars (that our elected representatives are supposed to be the stewards of) than I am in how and where a politician uses his or her “donations”. We will never eliminate the practice of trying to “buy” politicians, but we can certainly “follow the money”. If big donations are leading to corrupt spending, we need to know. If donors are getting contracts when there are lower responsible bidders, we need to know. And if non-donors and supporters of opponents are being ignored and marginalized, we need to know – a politician (is SUPPOSED to) represents ALL of his or her constituents, not just those who “supported” him or her or voted for him or her in the last election.
Bosley, Sr. (and Jr., for that matter) is really no different from all of the other corrupt losers calling themselves alderman. I won’t name names, but let me just state by omission that the only ones in whom I see any decent future are Ogilvie (like that guy, he’s all over the place; good outreach), Cohn, and French. One may guess at the absence of the other 25, and it’s meaning. The 25 are supported by misguided people who seem to believe that installing yet another stop sign (contravening considerable data on traffic engineering, and just plain bloody common sense) at a ‘dangerous corner’, or seemingly on a whim, is somehow part of their job description. And the notion that alderman are ‘facilitators’ in the development process says volumes about the outdated manner in which this podunk burg is run. Alderman basically exploit not only their constituents ignorance, but also the slapdash and inefficient departmental structure, in addition to the City’s inability to upgrade and modernized its communications and computer systems to 21st Century standards. Unfortunately, as most residents see that ‘their’ alderman is pure golden child, and the rest crooks, this dynamic is not likely to change soon.
Sure, what Bosley, Sr. did was wrong, and outlandishly crass, tactless, and hoosier, but he just made the mistake of being too open about it. Most of the other 25 (with the possible exception of Schmid, he’s at least possessed of THAT much integrity), do the same thing, they are merely more circumspect and disceet about it.
So far I’ve been impressed with newly elected 6th ward Ald Ingrassia.
Yes, I support her, and she is not the same old.
The whole aldermanic process and results are suspect given the 60 years of decline St. Louis has experienced. Yeah I’m not sure how this becomes an elected post for life, and then what’s worse the position is passed down to relatives.
Obviously the democratic system is flawed, in part oddly enough I think some of it, and maybe much more than we realize, can be attributed to the poor choices made in the environment.
Public space has no meaning, where are the squares where people gather? (by design that collects transit, creates density and so on)
As public forums have declined, internet has stepped up, but it is not a substitute for a living environment that encourages discussion and debate.
Freeman Bosley is a symptom of a larger failure of democracy.
By the way I miss the comments showing up in the sidebar, the biggest thing was comments on previous subjects, sometimes very old that made things interesting.
Still working on getting the site back together, I’ll work on getting the comments to show in the sidebar.
Funny,
When no one would go anywhere in the Ville, Mr. Bosley ran a business there. When some of the people I worked with in my career were kids: Mr. Bosley was there for them. In some cases, I understand that one or tow of the kids may have received a little more spirited coaching and discipline, but they tended behave a little better if Mr. Bosley was around. Perfect Alderman, probably not. A good man who believes in the city, believes in his community and I think believes in his family. Yeah. Has he made some bad choices? Of course…But I belive that you look at the measue of the man to judge him. By the way, I have never met Alderman Bosley personally, but I would be honored to introduce myself!