This is my first diary – from the west side of the state! We are wild and wooly over here. If anyone has been following our mayoral brouhaha – let me  tell you, if I hadn’t voted for the guy, it would be fun to watch. But a little humble pie is in order.

Mayor Funk, as we KCitians like to call our populist funkster, has been slipping and sliding on his faux pas since he was elected and sworn in back in May! From his wife telling him it was ok to accept a Honda from a local dealer instead of having the city pay a Lincoln Town Car (what? you ask? Yes, our previous mayor rode in style and with lots of bodyguards, which the Funkmeister also did not want) to his wife requesting police backup when the candidate Funk went into the “scary” black neighborhoods. (yes, she did, but not when he was in the ‘safe’ white neighborhoods up north!)

This set up for a rough start, especially when you consider he only won the office by less than 800 votes to veteran police officer, former mayor protem and city council member/activist and beloved member of the African American community – Alvin Brooks.

So many just kinda cut him some slack. ‘He’s getting his footing. He’s not a politician.’

Which is all fine and ‘good for the people’ kinda thing, but he just shoulda drove his old car, ’cause accepting a car from a potential constituent? Not so good. We find out later it was his wife’s idea. (more about her later) and he never shoulda let Gloria (wifey) into a permanent volunteer position in his office.

His inauguration was a split level – what Funk likes to call ‘everyday folks’ and the big donors. Yes, you could pay to go to a different event with the mayor. An up-close-and -personal kinda thing. But it’s ok. Their money won’t affect me (as “never saw a rich white man I didn’t love Tom Delay used to say!)

So off to a rocky start. Things just went from bad to worse and all along color lines.

I would love to believe that everything that happened was innocent. But hey, I was a politician, too, so, you know?

I backed him on the Frances Semler appointment (people can’t be excluded from serving their community just because they belong to stupid organizations – !) but when his wife called the Black woman in her office ‘mammy’ and he passed it off by saying ‘ oh she calls herself ‘mammy’ and ‘she adds an ‘e’ to lots of words’ – that was pretty much it.

Gloria has to go! And the Funk has to get some actual political advice!

So there it is, Missourians. The latest from the Gateway to the West!