Thursday, January 29, 2015

Joplin mayor on Wallace-Bajjali: People don't understand how master developers work

Less than one month after the Turner Report, using federal court documents, showed that David Wallace of Wallace-Bajjali Development Partners had failed to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars to investors and was using fees from the city of Joplin to keep his company afloat, Mayor Michael Seibert staunchly defended the firm in an interview with an Amarillo television station.

At the same time, Seibert took a shot at those who were skeptical that the city's master developer was ever going to accomplish anything, indicating that those people were not as knowledgeable as the mayor about how development projects work.

From the July 30 report from Amarillo's ABC affiliate:

The mayor of Joplin told us that his relationship with Wallace-Bajjali Development Partners is strong, and that most people are unaware of the amount of work that goes into a project even before breaking ground.

“The vast majority of people don’t understand that the bulk of the effort and time is put into a project prior to the project coming out of the ground,” said Mike Seibert, the mayor of Joplin. “People unfortunately judge the speed of a project based on when it breaks ground, and that means development gets cast in a negative light.”

Not all elected Joplin officials felt the same way. In the same interview, Councilman Ben Rosenberg was skeptical about Wallace-Bajjali.:

“He’s always looking for a co-developer and Wallace-Bajjali never seems to develop anything on their own, they always have a co-developer,” said Rosenberg.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The mayor of Joplin is a pharmaceutical salesman. Not a developer. SALESMAN. Need I say more?

Anonymous said...

So he makes the people in his town look dumb so he can look cool on TV? I for one am not dumb, I know a crook when I see in, I also know a knife in the back when I feel one. Thanks a bunch chump!

Anonymous said...

First of all, I would like to say that I believe Mayor Seibert is at heart a good man. However, I believe he and several other members of the Council failed to exercise prudent and sound judgment in their decision to suport Mr. Rohr (and his policies) and Wallace-Bajjali (WB) because they believed this would benefit the special interest groups and their own personal interests. WB presented a redevelopment plan that was custom made with all of the features and amenities that these special interest groups wanted and Mr. Seibert, and the others mentioned, readily accepted it and WB because it catered directly to those special interests that they wanted to make happy.

When the state auditor's report is eventually released, I believe we will discover just how inept and irresponsible certain members of our council really are. It is a shame that we may have to wait for this report before there is a change for the better with our city leadership. I can only hope that they will now start listening to the citizens as a whole and not just the privileged few who do not really represent our community or understand our real needs.

Anonymous said...

What kind of pharmaceuticals does he sell?

Hopium?

I'd really think it was funny if he was selling those miracle p@nis pills.

Anonymous said...

Why is no one asking about joplins Gary Box? He worked for them....

Anonymous said...

apperently he didn't either

Anonymous said...

Where is Raymond the other scammer that worked crossland and then went to wallace to make sure crossland would get all the contracts.

Anonymous said...

Is it some kind of requirement that Joplin's leaders be corrupt and inept? School board, superintendent, mayor, councilmen, city manager. It's amazing. Why do you people stand for it?

Anonymous said...

Is it some kind of requirement that Joplin's leaders be corrupt and inept?

I would make that "corrupt and/or inept".

As I commented in another thread, the US has a very large number of small-medium sized towns, school districts and colleges. Compared to that demand, the supply, the talent pool to run them, is thin. That, plus stunning ineptness on the part of the committees that selected them, resulted in the trifecta of Rohr, Huff and Speck.

We might have made do with them (well, not Speck) if not for the tornado, which resulted in terrible costs when inept thugs like Rohr and Huff had to perform way beyond the normal duties of their offices, in a environment where money and publicity were plentiful.

The tornado made it crystal clear that adversary does not always bring out the best of people.

Anonymous said...

Please Mr. Mayor, explain what the word "develop" means in the context of "master developer."

Anonymous said...

I agree completely with the comments at 6:20 and 6:36. This whole thing makes me sick and outraged. It's so painfully obvious how pompous and ignorant Mayor Seibert truly is. The fact that he turned a blind eye to the corruption of Wallace-Bajjali and then have the audacity to defend them and insult the citizens of Joplin in the same breath!?! Are you freaking kidding me! I would love to see a grass roots effort to have all these city council crooks removed from office. I also think we need to drag Rohr back up here to face criminal charges since he was in bed with Wallace-Bajjali all along.