By Mike Anthony
Executive Editor
news1@callnewspapers.com

The hits keep coming, as the third quarter of the year offered an abundance of candidates for the Call’s Most Misguided Quotes in which we chronicle the most misguided, misinformed and misleading statements of the year.
County Auditor Mark Tucker recently told another publication that he has to work nights and weekends because the deputy auditor quit shortly after Tucker took office in March.
“If I only did it between 9 to 5, nothing would get done,” Tucker said.
But Tucker has worked one weekend day and has regularly missed Wednesdays, according to a review of his badge logs through Aug. 29.
His first 20 business days in office, he missed eight days entirely.
Furthermore, county documents show he has not taken any paid time off, the county’s version of vacation and sick days.
While Tucker claims he’s working hard, the appearance is that he’s hardly working, especially since he has yet to produce a single audit.
In Sunset Hills, Des Peres physician Dr. George Despotis and other property owners who make an “alliance” hope to develop tornado-ravaged Court Drive with a subdivision of 15 attached villas and rezone the corner of Lindbergh and West Watson as commercial for a credit union.
Despite the wishes of current Court Drive residents, the alliance does not want to build single-family houses on the property it owns because “we don’t feel that would generate the same dollar amount as this,” said Jim Hall of Hall + Associates, who represented the alliance to aldermen in September.
“So that’s the bottom line, it’s money,” Ward 1 Alderman Dee Baebler said.
Baebler indeed hit the nail on the head, as greed seems to be the driving force behind the alliance’s proposal.
In Crestwood, aldermen barely discussed whether they should levy the full 45 cents of a tax-rate increase voters approved in April. They ultimately voted 6-2 to levy the entire amount of Proposition C.
One of those voting in favor of levying the 45 cents was Ward 3 Alderman Grant Mabie, who said, “… I think people expect us to be fiscally responsible, and part of that is having a balanced budget …”
Mabie’s right — citizens do expect their elected officials to be fiscally responsible and make difficult budgetary decisions.
Unfortunately, Mabie has yet to vote for a balanced budget as an alderman.