Today I offer my plan on how to bring the Gloria Squitiro crisis at City Hall to a peaceful end.

I do so in my official capacity as a key adviser to Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser.

Was it not the Funk, after all, who once allowed as how he didn’t need to hire a political consultant when he already had 1.8 million unpaid advisers — meaning all of us who live in the metro area?

I’ve given my advice sparingly. Let the other 1,799,999 advisers carry most of the load, was my thinking.

Still, civic duty compels me to step forward at this time in the same spirit as when I tried to settle the transportation crisis in the mayor’s office early in his administration.

“Quit driving that ratty old Toyota around town, Mr. Mayor,” I said. “Buy my 10-year-old (now 11) conversion van and use that as your official mayor-mobile. It has a TV and everything.”

Alas, he didn’t take my advice then and I don’t expect he will now.

But here, anyway, is how I think Funkhouser might end the current showdown at City Hall, so that both he and the City Council can get back to work on things far more important than whether the mayor’s wife, Squitiro, is a full-time volunteer at City Hall:

Get the heck out of City Hall, Mr. Mayor.

Blow.

Keep the job you were elected to, by all means. But instead of showing up at the office every day with Gloria, do as I and millions of other Americans workers do.

Work from home full time. That way, the whole issue about your wife working in City Hall goes away.

Bye-bye, controversy. Hello, consensus.

From now on, telecommute. Even if you do veto the ordinance keeping your wife from serving as a full-time volunteer outside your office in City Hall, an override is virtually certain.

And that practically ensures further confrontation, because you have no intention of letting go then, right?

Look, what say we end this thing? You could quit driving back and forth to the hall. Work at home, where Gloria never need leave your side and no one on the council will ever have to consider having you arrested.

It could work. Nothing stops the mayor from handling official business at home in his bathrobe, or a T-shirt and boxer shorts.

Or let’s say you did put on some clothes, as we stay-at-home workers feel compelled to do at times. You could have brainstorming sessions with staff on the real front porch, rather than the virtual one on the mayoral Web site.

Take your laptop to a coffee shop and use the free WiFi to communicate. A Webcam costs a measly $20 or $30, if face time is important.

And if you really need to meet someone in the flesh to do business — council members and other VIPs — then a table at the Plaza III, Bryant’s or even a place like the Brooksider beats a stuffy office in City Hall.

Anyway, I see it as a win-win, and I told the mayor just that over his cell phone Tuesday afternoon, as he and his “personal assistant,” Squitiro’s new title, drove back from Jefferson City.

To which his response, though polite, could be summed up in two words, one of them being “no.”

“I don’t see any practical benefits for the citizens,” he said.

Besides, it would be as if the council had successfully pushed both him and Gloria out of City Hall.

“I might get beat, but I’m not going to give up,” he said.

He’s so stubborn. Still, I don’t see why, in 2008, the mayor of Kansas City needs to go to City Hall, other than to attend weekly council meetings.

Running the affairs of city government day in and day out, that’s the city manager’s job.

Plus, it’s not as if there isn’t precedent for the city’s most important business to be conducted off site.

While he was never the mayor, old T.J. Pendergast ran KC for many years. And he did it not from an office at City Hall, but a nondescript building at 1908 Main St. — right up until feds put him in handcuffs and led him off to Leavenworth.

So maybe that’s not such a good example.

But I still think it would be best for all if Funkhouser would take my advice.

And by the way, Mark and Gloria, if you’re at all interested. I’ve still got the van, and she’s a cream puff.