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Source: St.迷你倉 Louis Post-DispatchJan. 18--Some five years ago, this reporter first revealed the existence, after having made it up, of Earl P. Bollix, the St. Louis City Dysfunctioner, "the man in charge of making sure things around here get screwed up." Mr. Bollix proudly boasted that his few friends call him "The commissioner of FUBAR."Last week, after Mayor Francis Slay obtained permission from his Twitter followers to make the sun come out and melt all the snow and ice, I again visited Mr. Bollix's secret subterranean office at City Hall. I wanted to congratulate him not just for bringing the city to a standstill for three days, but for making people so angry about it."It was nothing," he said modestly. "Once a foot of snow fell and the temperature hit six below, all of my procedures kicked in automatically. Our people train constantly for these sorts of things."What do you mean? I asked the spry 88-year-old Wilford Brimley look-alike."Decades ago I decided that we wouldn't run snow plows up residential streets, but would claim to be focused on arterial roads with chemicals like beet juice and salt brine. That way, people could get out of their neighborhoods until the snow was packed down into sheet ice. Then they could get to the big roads and slide around on fake beet juice. There is nothing that screws up traffic like a beet-juice fender-bender. Of course, I never told our crews that they were actually spreading beet-flavored Kool-Aid."What changed this year? I asked."Social media," he said. "This was the first big storm since Facebook and Twitter took off. People on social media have a huge influence on politicians. They respond to the 5 percent of people who complain, not the 95 percent who don't. That's why I created 10,000 fake Twitter accounts so I could drive the conversation."You're 88 years old and you have 10,000 fake Twitter accounts?"You've got to keep up with the times, boy. You send out enough tweets whining that you can't get to Niche or your favorite coffee bar, suddenly plows are running up side streets, snow is piling up on the arterials and cars are being plowed in all over town."Brilliant, I said."Yes, it was," Mr. Bollix said, "particularly because I've been spending so much of my time lately working in St. Louis County."Whoa, this was news. The office of City Dysfunctioner was created, apparently accidentally, by the 1914 City Charter. There are a ridiculous number of independently elected offices in city government, but the charter 迷你倉將軍澳orgot to put anyone in charge of the dysfunctioner. Mr. Bollix's grandfather, Hiram Bollix, was the first dysfunctioner. In keeping with the city's hallowed traditions of nepotism, he passed the office onto his son, Hiram (Skip) Bollix Jr., who passed it on to his son, who has held the job since the Truman administration.You don't have any authority in St. Louis County, I said. This is a city job.Mr. Bollix smiled. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? What happened was, when the city and the county combined their economic development offices, I slipped myself into the deal."That would explain a lot, I said."You bet," he said. "As long as I've worked for the city, people in the county have been sneering at people who live in the city, talking about political interference and ineptitude. You don't hear that so much any more, do you?"Not so much, I said."I found some people who appreciate dysfunction," said the city-county dysfunctioner.Don't tell me, I said."I started small," he said. "Red light cameras. The Charlack speeding camera. The police department in Uplands Park, for crying out loud. Fish in a barrel. You have 90 municipalities, some of them so small they can't take care of themselves, and it's pretty easy to stir up dysfunction."Even a bigger suburb, some place like Ellisville. Can you imagine impeaching a mayor because he doesn't like Wal-Mart?"Hard to imagine, I said."It was great fun. Then I moved into a closet on the ninth floor of the County Government Center and really got to work. Talk about your target-rich environment. For years the county was growing and didn't have money problems. Then things started tightening up and people started fighting over scraps."You remember when the county executive said he was going to close some parks because he had budget trouble?"Was that you who talked him into threatening to sell the elk and buffalo at Lone Elk Park and the moo-cows and piggies at Suson Park?"Yep. Don't forget the Children's Services Fund that wasn't providing services to children. Or the courthouse construction bonds. Or the police lab contract. Or the real estate guy who'd been convicted of embezzling federal housing funds. Or the tax collector who was delinquent on her own taxes."All that was you, I said in amazement."Sure," said Earl Bollix. "This kind of government doesn't happen by accident."Copyright: ___ (c)2014 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at .stltoday.com Distributed by MCT Information Services倉