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No matter how many rehashes of Kansas City first lady Gloria Squitiro’s alleged missteps find their way into the media and/or talk radio, she has no intention of staying home and baking cookies.
“I’m staying as long as my husband needs me,” Squitiro says of her role as volunteer for husband KC Mayor Mark Funkhouser.
Some people may wonder why Squitiro chooses to stay despite being criticized so widely. Here’s their answer:
“You know what my gauge is,” she explains. “When I go out with Funk — and we’re out constantly, all over the city — people literally adore this guy. They absolutely adore him to the point where it surprises my family. So my gauge is the people. ... Don’t you think if they didn’t want me there, it’d be bleeding over into his popularity?”
That said, Squitiro and Funkhouser do not take their critics lightly.
“It’s not like we’re just throwing criticism to the wind; we’re not,” she says. “We’re looking at (all) the gauges. But shouldn’t the second gauge be the mayor’s e-mail? And there’s three separate e-mails into him personally in the office. And, Hearne, when people are upset about an issue, those e-mails all light up. Like right now there’s a chimpanzee ad at the airport and we have hundreds of e-mails protesting that. And during the budget cuts talks we had hundreds of e-mails from people who didn’t like the cuts to the zoo.
“The point being that on the mayor’s site there’s only been two criticisms of me, and the rest have all been, ‘What’s the witch hunt? We think it’s great that your wife is volunteering.’ ”
Squitiro can’t help but be disappointed by the fact that some people have been quick to pre-judge her role in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission controversy levied by a former City Hall staffer. There are two sides to every story, but with litigation pending, it’s fairly obvious she is now unable to fully relate her side of the story.
Speaking of her outspoken style and controversies ...
Will there be a family Christmas letter going out again this year?
“Yes,” she says firmly. “But I have a better idea of who my friends are.”
In last year’s letter Squitiro joked about attending her husband’s prostate exam and was skewered when the contents of the letter became public.
Squitiro’s message to people who don’t understand why she insists on sticking with her husband at City Hall: “What kind of woman would I be if I let a few nasty words from a few nasty people stop me from serving my husband?”
Her shout-out to Kansas Citians wondering how she is holding up: “I don’t have any real problems. The mothers on the East Side, now they have real problems. Their babies are being shot at. And the children of Kansas City, they have real problems, too. They live in a city that says they aren’t worth being educated. So I ask you again, what kind of woman would I be if I couldn’t stand strong in the face of name-calling? I can answer that for you. It’s not the kind of woman that I am, and it’s certainly not the kind of woman that I would ever be proud to be associated with.”
Big wheel keeps on turning
When former KC mayoral candidate Stan Glazer is not explaining the accusations that he was a bad dad — made by son Craig Glazer in his hot-selling true crime book, The King of Sting — he is continuing to run a behind-the-scenes campaign to bring a St. Louis Arch-scale observation wheel to Kansas City’s riverfront.
“I’m still all about that Observation Wheel,” Glazer says. “I don’t understand it; Kansas City doesn’t have one tourist attraction and that wheel could bring in millions of dollars. It’d be our answer to the St. Louis Arch.”
Here’s the deal: “It’s not a Ferris wheel,” Glazer stresses. “And underneath it would be like Gates and Stroud’s and all the entrepreneurs in Kansas City who couldn’t get into the Power & Light District.”
Is another mayoral run in Glazer’s KC cards? Not likely.
“Oh, no. I’m through with politics — I don’t want to get involved anymore,” he says. “That’s why I moved out of Kansas City. I bought a patio home in Mission.”
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