Harry Truman famously warned anyone entering high public office, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
De Soto ex-Mayor Rich McCane got out last year, announcing his resignation in an Aug. 30, 2018, letter, in which he said he and his family had been harassed.
He came to the Sept. 16 meeting of the De Soto City Council to provide more detail, and to sharply jab at his former colleagues on the council.
His most stinging remark came near the end of his 15-minute narrative, delivered during the council’s guest period for public comments, when he said a better council could be assembled from five people, “drunk or sober,” on barstools in town.
“The best thing I ever did was walk away from here and from these people,” McCane said in front of the council. “It was a burden to me to carry this around and not tell about it.”
McCane made no specific allegations of wrongdoing against the council and, while detailing various kinds of abuse and threats he received, did not attribute them to the council. He did, however, refer to “the vindictive nature of stuff that goes on here.”
The 40-year-old businessman, who owns and operates the construction and property-management firm R.W. McCane Constructors in De Soto, was elected to the City Council in 2010. The council elected him mayor on April 16, 2018, after former Mayor Larry Sanders lost his council seat in the April 2018 municipal election.
Sanders was appointed to replace McCane on the council.
McCane’s statement when he resigned from the council and as mayor said, in part: “During my tenure I have received mailings, threats and false allegations directed at me and my family, intended to intimidate me and undermine my reputation. Those things in combination with my workload have been a burden.”
Fast forward to Sept. 16. Although more than a year had gone by, McCane said in an interview he “had a little bit of a hard time getting over it” – the circumstances around his resignation – “and I just want ed to get it off my chest.”
So, at the meeting he recounted some of the abuse he received, including getting an anonymous package in the mail containing a pair of women’s panties, with a note insinuating an extramarital affair.
That incident happened during McCane’s tenure as mayor, and he said he called the city’s Police Department about it.
On Sept. 16, he read the entire text of an anonymous handwritten letter from January.
“You are powerless now and forever,” the letter stated. “You are done, along with your bitch wife and mother who covers for you.”
The letter included a threat about the outcome of the April 2 municipal election in De Soto: “If any of these things (offices and issues on the ballot) go (the) wrong way you will pay big.”
McCane described another anonymous letter, from September 2018, alleging that he had abused his power as mayor to extract an unfair discount on tap-on fees paid for water service on his construction projects. The letter came from “Concerned Citizens of De Soto” and was mailed to business owners in town, McCane said.
He said in the interview that he had received a discount in 2007, directly from then-City Manager David Dews and before McCane was elected to the City Council, that was specific to the Thomas Street subdivision.
McCane said he told the council about that handshake deal on the night the council appointed him as mayor, and the council rescinded the discount.
Council members did not respond to McCane’s comments immediately at the Sept. 16 meeting.
But shortly before adjourning the meeting, and after McCane and his wife, Stacy, had left the council chambers, two council members were unambiguous in their reaction to what they heard.
“Damnedest thing I ever heard in my life,” Sanders said. “It was demeaning.”
Councilman Jim Akers also didn’t mince words.
“Consider the source,” Akers said. “It’s what you’d expect.”
Councilman Roger Charleville had a more measured response after the meeting.
“The only thing I would say about the Rich McCane situation is, I’m sorry he has the hard feelings toward the council, and the way things transpired, that he had to leave,” Charleville said. “I have no animosity toward the man, whatsoever. It was just unfortunate the way things ended.”
Mayor Rick Lane said nothing at the meeting and afterward declined to comment.
Reflecting back on his council meeting speech in the interview, McCane struck a more circumspect tone.
“Whenever I served as mayor, the city government was definitely going through some difficult times,” he said. “I felt like the council was not working together as a unit to solve some pretty tough challenges, be it the Police Department or whatever.
“I don’t harbor ill will toward the community or anything like that. But it was a lot for me and my family to deal with.”
McCane said he came to the council meeting to explain that, but said he also wants to move on.
“I just felt like I was trampled on for trying to do some good for the community and for trying to be honest there. I felt like the way a lot of things were handled down there (at City Hall) was not right, but as far as I am concerned it’s in the past,” he said. “There were a lot of rumors circulated around the community about bits and pieces of that (issues the council had discussed but not acted upon) and most of it was not accurate. For me, it was just about clearing the air about it.”
McCane added that while he’s not sure what effect his talk might have on city government, he believes city leaders made two good moves during his time as mayor in hiring Jeff McCreary as chief of police (July 2018) and Todd Melkus as city manager (August 2018, just before McCane resigned).
But as he sees it, there’s more work to do.
“The city government is just going to have to decide what it wants to be. Does it want to be the good-old-boys club that handles things the way they have for all these years, or do they want to stand on principle and make good choices and try to improve the community and be transparent?”