Quitmeier Announces Commission Run
Launching a broadside against “Republican leadership from top to bottom,” former Parkville Mayor Bill Quitmeier announced to The Luminary that he will run for Platte County Commissioner in 2008.
“They call themselves conservatives, but they don’t conserve anything,” Quitmeier said. “From Bush to Blunt, they don’t conserve anything.”
Quitmeier served as a Parkville alderman from 1985 to 1991 and served as mayor from 1991 to 2002. Now a Weatherby Lake resident, Quitmeier is a partner in the Quitmeier Martsching law firm.
Slated to become the next president of the Parkville Chamber of Commerce, he is also on the board of directors for the Platte Land Trust, a group dedicated to preserving the rural character of the county – something he believes the county has done a poor job at.
“I am tired of [the county] rezoning everything,” Quitmeier said. “We have our trails, but I don’t see any real parks program.”
Quitmeier, a Chicago native, said he would like to see the county adopt a system like they have in that city’s Cook County area. There, Quitmeier
Quitmeier, who has represented various neighborhood groups at meetings of the Platte County Planning and Zoning Board, said the county was not paying attention to property owners that purchased property next to rural estates.
“They’re changing [the zoning] with inadequate buffers,” Quitmeier said. “I don’t think that’s right.”
Quitmeier said he was an independent politician before the election who came from Republican roots but that he couldn’t stomach running as a Republican in the upcoming election. He pointed to the last District 1 commission election and said that religion was unfairly used in campaigns.
“[Republicans] use the religion thing to trick people into supporting them. They say they’re real Christians, then they cut funding for the mentally ill. President Bush says he’s a real Christian, then starts a war.”
Quitmeier said he was approached by various members of the Democratic Central Committee and enjoyed the support of last election’s candidate Pauli Kendrick. Kendrick is the former mayor of Weatherby Lake. She waged a last minute write-in campaign last election, losing to current District 1 Commissioner Tom Pryor.
Pryor told The Luminary he wasn’t surprised to hear that Quitmeier was running.
“I figured the Democrats would run somebody,” Pryor told The Luminary.
Prior bristled at Quitmeier’s assertion that the commission was haphazardly rezoning land, however.
“Landowners come to the county to rezone their properties,” Pryor said. “We don’t initiate the rezoing requests. Landowners have the right to request these changes. It’s their property – not the governments.”
Pryor is set to be challenged by current Parkville Mayor Kathryn Dusenbery in the Republican primary. Dusenbery, who won the last Parkville mayoral race in a landslide reserved comment on Quitmeier’s entry into the race.