I
I hope that Kenner District 5 Councilman Dominick Impastato
has small feet because, if he doesn’t, his mouth is surely hurting today since
his foot was squarely in his mouth at last night’s Kenner City Council meeting.
During the public comment period for the resolution
requesting that former Kenner Mayor and current Jefferson Parish Sexual
Predator-In-Chief Mike Yenni resign, Impastato got a little hot under the
collar at a suggestion by Kenner Mayoral candidate Al Morella that the
resolution should have come up at the last council meeting. Morella inferred
that the reason the resolution didn’t come up sooner was that several members
of the Council were dragging their feet because they owed Yenni for their
seats.
The Council, without much discussion other than from the
resolution’s author District 1 Councilman (and Mayoral candidate himself) Greg
Carroll, passed the resolution unanimously.
While Al’s inference of foot dragging may have been in error (the Council prudently waited until
Yenni admitted to sexting a 17-year-old Minor while Yenni was Mayor of Kenner),
Impastato vehemently denied any allegiance to Yenni.
“I owe Mike Yenni nothing”, Impastato said.
What???
While Impastato, who has been rumored to be jockeying to
move up to the Jefferson Parish Council seat if Ben Zahn wins the Mayor job,
may be attempting to create as much distance as possible between himself and
Yenni, the fact is that Impastato owes EVERYTHING
to Yenni.
To be fair, Impastato did campaign hard for his seat on the
Council.
However, Impastato has long been a friend of Yenni and was
handpicked and groomed by Yenni.
Despite never employing more than 5 people in his entire
life, Impastato was named Chairman of Yenni’s Economic Development Committee.
By the way, whatever happened to that committee? I guess when they recruited
ZERO businesses to Kenner, created ZERO jobs for Kenner, sat back as The
Esplanade crumbled and Rivertown wilted, their job was done and there was no
need for them to continue.
Or, perhaps more accurately, since they maxed out Kenner’s
credit card by taking on the largest debt in Kenner’s history to fund public
art and aesthetic projects like bike paths, they fulfilled Yenni’s mission of
providing for Millions of Dollars in no-bid contracts for Yenni’s campaign
contributors, many of whom subsequently donated to a then-unknown Dominick
Impastato in his city council campaign.
In addition, Yenni had Impastato speak at several public
meetings regarding Yenni’s 2030 Plan, furthering Impastato’s profile and name
recognition.
Yenni also hosted and attended fundraisers for Impastato as
Yenni did for other members of Yenni’s Consensus Team including District 2
Councilman (and current Acting Mayor) Mike Sigur, District 4 Councilman Lenny
Cline, formere Councilman-At-Large Keith Conley, and current
Councilwoman-At-Large and Mayoral candidate Maria DeFrancesch.
District 3 Councilman, and also a Mayoral candidate, Keith
Reynaud, also benefited from his relationship with Yenni (and Zahn before Zahn
became a Mayoral candidate himself).
Cline, DeFrancesch and Reynaud were appointed to the council
when no one ran against them. Having Yenni’s endorsement, access to campaign
funding and support (as well as threats of retribution if anyone were bold
enough to run against Yenni’s Consensus Team) led many to decide to not run for
the City Council seats.
I bring this up because EVERYONE on the Kenner City Council,
except for Greg Carroll, owes their seat
(or a large portion of it), to Mike Yenni.
Everyone except Greg Carroll.
Now that things have taken a turn and the people of Kenner
and Jefferson Parish have learned that Mike Yenni is not quite the person he
portrayed himself to be (something you knew long ago if you’ve been reading
this blog), everyone is trying to save their own political lives and separate
themselves from Yenni.
As voters, we can’t let that happen. For us to be clean and
restore our faith in government, those close to Yenni like Zahn, Impastato,
Sigur, Cline, DeFrancesch and others, need to be purged along with Yenni.
Local and Parish Government needs to be given a Mike Yenni
Enema (no jokes about Yenn’s sexual orientation but I really couldn’t think of
a better term than enema). How about “Clensing”.
That might work – a Mike Yenni Clensing.
But, let’s get back to Impastato.
So, you’re handpicked
and groomed by Yenni, you have access to Yenni’s campaign contributors, you use
Yenni’s campaign manager, Yenni fundraises for you and raises your profile in
the community, and you claim to owe Mike Yenni nothing?
How does that work Dominick?
Anyone with half a brain knew that you would try to bury the
Yenni resolution and you were pressuring members of the council to vote on it
without any commentary.
In fact, Lenny Cline, appointed At-Large Councilman Brian
Brennan and Acting Mayor Mike Sigur said NOTHING.
That’s right.
ZIP. ZILCH. NADA.
Not a word from three of the seven Kenner City Councilmen.
For their parts, DeFrancesch (who was suffering from a sore
throat) and Reynaud said very litte, but they did speak. I don’t know if they
felt guilty due to their participation in Yenni’s schemes or why they said so
little.
In fact, Reynaud spoke more about improper political signs
and the lack of enforcement by Sigur and Code Enforcement Director Stephen
Petit (a Ben Zahn supporter) than he did about Yenni sexting a Minor while
Mayor of Kenner.
As I mentioned, even Impastato didn’t address Yenni’s
immoral actions as Mayor reserving his indignation for Morella’s comment about
the time delay of the resolution.
And that’s sad.
As citizens, we should all be disgusted by Yenni’s actions.
Yenni certainly was elected and reelected as Mayor and elected Parish President
so that he could have free range to use his position of authority to hookup
with our children.
As Kenner residents, we should be equally disgusted that our
elected and appointed officials were not equally disgusted at Yenni’s actions
while Kenner Mayor.
At least, they weren’t disgusted enough to publicly comment
and show that the actions of Yenni are not acceptable.
While I appreciate Councilman Reynaud praying for Yenni and
his family, as we all should, no one on the Council adequately expressed that
Yenni’s actions were disgraceful and have made Kenner (and Jefferson Parish) an
embarrassment.
Thankfully, as he has done in the past, Councilman Carroll
stood up and did the right thing.
Thankfully, someone on the Kenner City Council did.
While Councilman Impastato can act indignant in front of the
TV cameras and try to distance himself from Yenni, we shouldn’t allow him to.
During his exchange with Impastato, Al Morella said several
times, “If the shoe fits Councilman”.
Well Dominick, I think we’ve shown that the shoe fits very
well.
