“Greetings from Paradise!” read the beginning of a recent letter addressed to Bill and Elaine Guenther and handwritten on yellow lined tablet paper. It came from their friend Gordon Wiser, mayor of St. Joseph for one term from 1978 to 1982.

He’s living in Paradise now and selling real estate there. Paradise, California.

“And it truly is Paradise,” Mr. Wiser said during a recent phone conversation.

His tenure in St. Joseph was anything but nirvanic.

The West Point graduate was both admired and hated for his strong beliefs and outspoken politics. He angered local firefighters enough, with his refusal to sign a pay increase, to cause them to initiate a recall vote on his election.

A solid Republican, he often squabbled with his all-Democratic City Council. He even once refused to greet delegates from the Republic of China on a visit to St. Joseph because he didn’t believe in supporting communism.

But Civic Arena was built on his watch and he managed to get strong voter approval for a city sales tax.

Mr. Wiser said that he was in the news so much during his four years in office that he sent a bill to the News-Press.

“We have been front page, above the fold, every week for four years, so we sent them a bill. It was a joke, of course,” he said

But Bob Slater, a News-Press editor at the time, said that Mr. Wiser was one of the most honest, decent men he’d ever met in his life.

“Everything Gordon did he did because he thought it was right,” Mr. Slater said. “He just kind of shot from the hip.”

But Mr. Wiser’s downfall came by way of “Soda Boy,” the soda pop business he started while mayor. The business failed miserably, causing him to file bankruptcy and eventually lose his home and marriage.

Mr. Guenther issued a public plea to raise money to save the mayor’s home from foreclosure. And the public came up with the $9,000 to pay the overdue loan and interest, saving his home from the auction block.

“He was just a real likable guy that got into a very bad situation,” Mr. Guenther said. “Politics is pretty thankless at times.”

Mr. Wiser stayed in St. Joseph for a year afterward before moving to California. He has nothing but good memories about the people of St. Joseph.

“People there are the heart and soul of America,” he said. “You couldn’t find any better people in the world.”

Alonzo Weston can be reached

at alonzow@npgco.com.