Sunshine Primer: How to Get Info

I thought I’d put together a short description of Missouri’s Sunshine Law and how you can use it to get information from our local governments.  This is a tool I have used a number of times, and anyone can use it, not just journalists or big-time bloggers.

The Sunshine Law is enshrined in state statutes and sets out the requirements for what information a government must share, and in what cases it can keep items confidential. It also sets out how citizens can make requests for information that the government entities are legally required to respond to. In cases of violation of the law, the state attorney general can get involved to force the entity to fulfill the request.

Meetings

Part of the law pertains to the notice that must be given in advance of meetings of government bodies, and that those meetings must be open to the public, except for closed sessions. The agenda of the meeting is included in this notice. Sometimes, a government entity will just post the notice on the door of city hall. This is sufficient, but it is weak, and cities should be posting full agendas and meeting schedules on their websites. Some cities in JeffCo are good at this (Pevely, Arnold) and others are abysmal (Hillsboro, DeSoto [but the latter has improved slightly]).

If you are interested in keeping close tabs on a government body, it is a good idea to check each agenda before the meeting to see what will be discussed. This may offer the only chance to learn about or comment on something before it gets voted on.

These provisions also prevent elected officials from gathering in a quorum to discuss official business outside of an announced meeting.

Regarding closed sessions, the law outlines what reasons are permissible for going into closed sessions (closed sessions are allowed, but rarely required). Governing bodies are supposed to cite in the agenda the specific reason they are going into closed session (legal issue, real estate, personnel issue, etc). Results of votes in closed sessions regarding hiring, firing, disciplining or promoting of particular employees must be released within 72 hours of the vote.

Police Reports

There are three types of police reports mentioned in the Sunshine Law: arrest reports, incident reports and investigative reports. The first two of these are basic reports that describe the initial facts related to an arrest or the initial report of a crime or incident. These reports are open records and can be requested right away after the arrest or incident. They may not have very much information other than date, time, and location of the incident, but can often serve to indicate that something happened, pursuant to a rumor or unconfirmed report that a noteworthy event occurred.

Investigative reports offer a detailed account of the facts behind an incident, and the results of any investigation done by law enforcement. These reports are not available until the investigation becomes inactive, either because charges aren’t being pursued or the accused are convicted. But if charges are filed, a lot of this information shows up in the case records.

Government Documents

The Sunshine Law can be used to acquire a number of government documents, including contracts (for professional services, employees, purchases, etc), legal settlements (unlike in private lawsuits, settlements involving governments can’t be kept secret), budgets, even emails and internal memos.

Submitting Requests and Costs

Sunshine requests can be sent most often to city clerks or board secretaries by email. The Missouri AG provides some sample language for Sunshine requests; some cities have forms they want you to fill out. Government bodies are required to respond to your request within 3 business days. This doesn’t mean they have to give you the requested info in that time frame, but they have to acknowledge your request and let you know they are working on it.

Entities are limited in what they can charge you for these requests; 10 cents per page for copies and “the hourly fee for duplicating time not to exceed the average hourly rate of pay for clerical staff of the public governmental body.” Also, “based on the scope of the request, the public governmental body shall produce the copies using employees of the body that result in the lowest amount of charges for search, research, and duplication time.”

But the entity doesn’t have to charge you. “Documents may be furnished without charge or at a reduced charge when the public governmental body determines that waiver or reduction of the fee is in the public interest.” Some bodies will waive the fees, some won’t, but it is worth asking.

Sometimes entities will try to charge you a lot up front to dissuade you from making a request. For example, on one occasion Pevely tried to make me pay $125 up front so the city attorney could redact documents before they were given to me. After this happened, a St. Louis County judge ruled that governments cannot charge fees for redacting and segregating closed records. This case reportedly only applies to St. Louis County, but I suspect the ruling would weigh heavily if someone filed suit in another county over this practice.

Enforcement

If you think a government entity is screwing you over in refusing to release information, you can complain to the state Attorney General. The AG takes these complaints seriously, and the AG’s office has intervened several times in recent years in response to Sunshine complaints out of JeffCo. And if you aren’t sure, you can call them and get some guidance on whether you might have a case.

A Powerful Tool

I hope this post is useful to anyone out there that is interested in local government and holding elected and appointed officials accountable. As I said, the Sunshine Law can be used by anyone, and it is a powerful tool that provides citizens with the ability to acquire information from governments.

 

 

Pevely & Sweeney Form Unholy Alliance

Pevely, the city locally famous for cronyism and police abuse, has hired a new city attorney in a special meeting. It is the law firm of Bob Sweeney, who is known for weak legal knowledge and interfering in politics on behalf of the regimes that employ him, particularly in Arnold and Byrnes Mill, as I have written about often. Seems like a perfect match.

The law firm and the city have some history. In September 2015, Sweeney appeared before the board of aldermen on behalf of McCain Towing, demanding that the board stop trying to put a city contract that was held by McCain out for bids. He threatened to file personal lawsuits against the aldermen if they did not desist. As I have noted here before, the owner of McCain Towing is the live-in partner of Pevely mayor Steph Haas, and the city and the company are intertwined in several ways, including this recent trailer purchase.

Sweeney’s daughter and law partner, Allison, represented Haas’ hand-picked police chief, Tony Moutray, when he was being investigated for domestic violence, an incident I uncovered which led to his departure from the chief job in 2019.

I can’t wait to see what Pevely and the Sweeneys do when they are (officially) on the same side.

Strange Glitch

Speaking of McCain, Pevely recently experienced a “glitch.” This is from the June 29 board workshop:

What are the odds that of all the city vendors that could have been accidentally overpaid multiple times, it happened to a McCain company (which is what I-55 Auto Center is)?

Yet Another Lawsuit Reveals Continued Repercussions of Pevely Mayor’s Choice of Moutray for Chief

The decision by Pevely mayor Steph Haas to select Tony Moutray as chief of police in spring 2018 (after he unofficially took over in fall 2016) over objections from the board of aldermen has caused several black eyes, and several big lawsuit payouts, for the city. While Moutray was forced out in March 2019 over domestic violence accusations (first reported by me), the repercussions of his reign continue to unfold. Another lawsuit is the latest aftershock.

In this case, Pevely officer Amanda Kula, who worked for the city from 2015 until she was fired in December 2018, is suing for sex discrimination (read the lawsuit here). In the lawsuit, she gives a list of incidents where she was reprimanded and claims the reprimands were unfair and that male officers were not written up for similar actions. The main players identified in the lawsuit as engaging in discrimination are:

-Moutray, who in addition to the domestic violence accusation, was involved in a police abuse case that netted a $300,000 settlement for the abused party.

-Ryan Watson, who was hired and promoted to corporal by Moutray, and was fired in May 2019 and pled guilty to a federal misdemeanor after being caught on video abusing a prisoner at the city jail.

-Ben Litteral, who was promoted to sergeant by Moutray. He is alleged in the suit to have had a sexual encounter with Kula, and that this later affected his supervision of her.

Disparate Treatment

Here are some examples from the lawsuit of behavior Kula was punished or treated differently for, compared to specific male counterparts who engaged in the same activity during the same time period:

• Required to provide a doctor’s note because she left work early to care for a sick child. Watson had done the same thing two weeks previously but was not asked for a note.
• Was not allowed to bring home her patrol car because she lived more that 15 miles from Pevely. Watson, however, was allowed to take his car home despite living over 15 miles away.
• Had to provide documentation for needing to miss work during a city movie night, while two male officers were able to miss that night without documentation.
• Her patrol car was reassigned to another officer while she was on medical leave. Two male officers did not lose their cars while on medical leave.
• Written up for being involved in a police pursuit just outside city limits. Litterall and Watson had previously violated pursuit policy and were not punished.
  • I’m not sure if this is what the lawsuit refers to, but in 2014 Litterall was part of a police chase that led to the deaths of three passengers and cost the city almost $350,000 in a lawsuit settlement.
• Reprimanded for missing an official photo shoot after being sent home because her dress pants did not fit. A male officer missed the shoot but was not written up.
• Kula now works for the Herculaneum PD, but is not allowed to access the Pevely jail, which Herculaneum uses. When she was hired there, Pevely cut off jail access to the entire PD, but eight months later restored access to all Herky officers but Kula.

One of the most damning allegations is that Watson, in front of several officers, yelled “I can’t wait to fire that dyke bitch!” He was upset he had to work on Halloween to cover her shift while she was on medical leave. Throughout the suit, Watson is described as being the most antagonistic to Kula, and other officers witnessed this behavior.

The city will argue that the reprimands and the firing were justified. However, personnel records should exist to prove or disprove the above examples of disparate treatment. Furthermore, what is the city going to do? Put Moutray on the stand? Fetch Watson from a jail cell and put him on the stand? That would be a disaster for the city; with their records, these two witnesses would be destroyed on cross-examination. Expect yet another settlement.

Greivances Aired and Ignored

In January 2019, about a month after she was fired, Kula and another former officer, Tim Schiele, appeared before the Pevely board of aldermen to lay out a list of issues they had observed with the PD. The board, which is beholden to mayor Haas and was buddies with Moutray, refused to act on the allegations, just like they refused to act when Alderman Larry Coulson threatened officers with consequences if they persisted in investigating him for harassment.

Pevely Alderman Makes Appalling Comment in Defense of Cop-Threatening Coulson

On November 4, the Pevely Board of Aldermen held its first meeting since it was revealed here that alderman Larry Coulson allegedly threatened four city police officers, including the acting chief, with “consequences” earlier this year if they completed a police report concerning allegations against him.  Coulson also threatened to block the acting chief from getting the chief job and pressed him to illegally search the vehicle of Coulson’s political opponent.

The only mention of this explosive information at the meeting was a cryptic comment by alderman William Brooks at the very end. If you didn’t know about the aforementioned reports, you would have had no idea what Brooks was talking about, because he refused to directly state what happened, presumably to protect Coulson from further exposure. Here is the beginning part of his statement (you can watch it here, starting at the 22:59 mark). Let me note that he is apparently addressing these comments to Alderwoman Linda Hahn, who filed the original Sunshine request that indirectly brought Coulson’s threats to light.

I’m a little disheartened about the latest information that was misrepresented in a
sunshine request. As chairman of the police board, it would have prudent to at least come to me first about these kind of matters before we approach them and you would have gotten some different insights. So as you know I believe in a lot of transparency, especially on this board, so if you would have come to me it would have been very very nice. However, there was never a coverup in any of this, it needs to be mentioned that this was a citizen vs. a police matter, not an alderman vs. a police matter. And finally, to include the police chief in this matter is irresponsible behavior on such reporting in that he wasn’t even here at the time of this concern.

Pevely alderman William Brooks

There are several things to unpack there, but let’s focus on the line in bold. That is an amazingly audacious and asinine statement and a transparent attempt to cover Coulson’s ass. We are supposed to believe that a city alderman can just take off his alderman hat and claim to be a regular citizen whenever it is convenient for him? I don’t think so. Here’s why:

• Almost all of the activity described in the complaints by police against Coulson happened at city hall, including the uncorroborated police report by his wife that he supported, the eviction stunt against Dave Bewig he participated in, and the interviews between Coulson and the police. The only exception is, we don’t know where Coulson was when he called the acting police chief to berate and threaten him for an hour and forty-five minutes.
• All of the activity described took place between Coulson and city of Pevely employees. He wasn’t interacting with a gas station attendant at On the Run. In no way can Coulson take off his alderman hat in such situations.
• Coulson threatened the police with “consequences” if they defied him. What possible consequences could a regular citizen bring down upon police officers? Virtually none. But an alderman who was head of the city police board and a crony with the mayor could definitely arrange for some consequences.
• What would happen, do you think, if a regular citizen threatened the police with consequences and attempted to forestall a police investigation? That citizen would be laughed at at the very least, if not arrested and charged with interfering with police.
• Coulson told the acting chief that he would not allow him to become police chief. But a regular citizen does not have the power to impact city hiring processes.

 

Some Analogies

Here are some other incidents that have happened recently that I think are relevant:

-Alderman Dave Bewig was impeached by the Pevely board in 2015 over alleged harassment. Instead of fighting the allegations, what if Bewig had just said “I was acting as a citizen, not an alderman?” Would the board have accepted that explanation?

-Former Pevely police chief Tony Moutray resigned in March (as part of a separation agreement) after being accused of domestic abuse against his wife. Now, Moutray was actually acting as a private citizen, not a chief, when he did that, but he still had to go. Would Brooks have given him a pass in that case?

-Three Pevely cops, including Moutray, were sued for excessive force for a beating that allegedly occurred during a 2016 traffic stop, and the city settled for $300,000. Can those officers claim the beating was a citizen-citizen interaction, and not a police-citizen interaction? Would Brooks buy that?

 

Some Other Points

Allow me to address a few other things Brooks said:

• I do not agree that he believes in transparency, and I do believe there was a coverup.
• The “different insights” Brooks would have offered to Hahn would probably have been more BS to cover Coulson’s ass and suppress the story.
• It is appropriate to involve the current chief, Alan Eickhoff, in all this (I don’t know how he was brought in) because there is an alderman that has threatened city officers and gotten away with it (so far). The chief needs to be aware of the treatment his department might get from the elected leadership of the city so he is prepared to protect his officers and go to bat for them. This seems like another example of Brooks not liking transparency and wanting to keep the chief in the dark about these concerning allegations.
• Brooks went on to introduce a “Sunshine Request Audit” program, which will basically involve the board being informed of who is making requests for what information and what the requests costs the city in man hours. Since this idea is coming on the heels of a Sunshine request that Brooks is not happy about, one must be skeptical of his motives. It appears that the board is trying to stick its nose into the Sunshine process, potentially to intimidate requestors and attempt to suppress information. Since the Sunshine process for making and fulfilling information requests to governments is laid out in state law, it seems like a bad idea for the board to interfere in this process. The city has gotten in enough trouble in the last few years, and I suspect more is coming on several fronts.

Pevely Alderman Threatens Cops, Acting Chief That Were Investigating Him

Three Pevely police officers, including the acting chief at the time, allege that alderman Larry Coulson threatened them and a fourth officer with “consequences” in May of this year if they wrote a police report concerning allegations of harassment made against Coulson by former alderman David Bewig, according to memos written by the officers. Given Coulson’s position on the board of aldermen, and as the then-head of the city police board, these consequences presumably related to the continuing employment of the officers with the city if they did not act as Coulson wanted them to do against his political opponent.

The acting chief, Larry Miller, stated that Coulson (himself a former airport cop) targeted him and created “a hostile work environment for me and my officers when anything involves him.” Miller also alleges that Coulson improperly interfered in the hiring process for the new Pevely police chief, a job Miller applied for. In July, the city hired Alan Eickhoff to be the new chief. Miller stated that Coulson was using his positions with the city to influence him and the department, calling this “very unethical behavior.” Coulson also wanted Miller to arrest and handcuff Bewig and search his car in order to bust him for drug dealing. Miller does not specify how Coulson expected the drugs to appear in Bewig’s car.

Pevely alderman Larry Coulson

You may recall that I wrote back in May about a dubious claim from Coulson’s wife Diane that Bewig threatened her and/or Larry, and subsequently in June about a stunt that Larry Coulson participated in that resulted in Bewig being banned from board meetings. The alleged intimidation of police outlined above stems from those incidents. After the Coulsons filed a police complaint against Bewig, he countered with a harassment complaint of his own. Police were asking Coulson about the Bewig complaint when the aforementioned threats were delivered.

The Complaints

Here is a memo that Miller sent in April to Pevely mayor Steph Haas, who banned Bewig from board meetings after the aforementioned eviction stunt:

View this document on Scribd

The first paragraph outlines Coulson’s desires to have Bewig arrested. The second paragraph mentions “one hour and forty five minutes of being berated” and claims that Coulson told Miller he would not allow him to become chief of police. In the final paragraph, Miller lays out the gist of what this is all about: Coulson using his position and his power to intimidate the police into doing what Coulson wanted regarding an incident involving him and his political opponent.

I don’t know at this time if or how Haas responded to this memo.

This pair of memos outlines the other officers’ versions of their interactions with Coulson. I decided to redact their names, since their specific identities are beside the point. You can see that these officers also allege berating and threats of consequences from Coulson. They also suggest Coulson doesn’t really know what he is talking about when it comes to modern policing. From the information at the end of the document, where Miller states how Coulson interfered in the hiring process for the new chief, I’m thinking Miller might even have grounds for a lawsuit, if he wanted to go that route.

View this document on Scribd

In addition to this, I have the memos written by the other officers. Both of them state that Coulson threatened consequences against the officers and their entire chain of command if they completed a police report about Bewig’s complaint, regardless of what the complaint actually even said.

The police report was, however, completed. No charges were brought against Bewig or the Coulsons by the Jefferson County prosecutor. It appears that all of the officers involved are still employed by Pevely; as I mentioned above, Miller did not get the chief job, but remains with the force.

Impeachment?

Recall that in 2015, Haas led the charge to impeach Bewig from the board of aldermen. The charges, in summary, were “bullying behavior and interference with city business.” That description matches closely what Coulson is accused of. Will Haas initiate impeachment proceedings against Coulson? It seems unlikely, since she has known about this behavior since April but has apparently done nothing about it.

Also note this city ordinance:

Section 115.220 Interference by Members of the Board of Aldermen. 

No member of the Board of Aldermen shall directly interfere with the duties of the City Administrator or any department under his/her supervision, unless such member shall have been authorized to take such action by the Board of Aldermen.

Pevely Buys Trailer from Mayor’s Bae

At the July 15, 2019 board of aldermen meeting, the board approved (page 10 of the minutes) the purchase of a used 2004 trailer (approximately 24 feet long, 10,000 lb. GVWR) for $4,800. What was not mentioned at the meeting or in the board packet was that the trailer was owned by McCain Towing & Auto Body of Herculaneum, whose owner is in a live-in partner relationship with Pevely Mayor Steph Haas. The city also paid McCain over $700 for repairs to the trailer. While this arrangement may pass legal muster, it does not look good.

The only hint that something was going on during the meeting was that Haas handed over the gavel for the discussion of the purchase to her ally, board member Steve Markus. Evidently, this was an ethical fig leaf to remove herself from the act of approving the purchase of the trailer.

It should also be noted that McCain has the city contract for repairing police vehicles(page 2).

The trailer

Convenient Price?

I found some Pevely city ordinances that shed some possible light on the particular sale price of this trailer:

• Informal bids: The city is required to use the Informal Purchasing Procedure for purchases of items of a value between $5,000 and $10,000. This procedure calls for the collection of at least three bids on such purchases. The difference between the formal and informal procedures is that the formal one requires publishing a public request for bids.
• Open market: The city can use the Open Market Procedure for purchases of items with a value between $1,500 and $5,000. The ordinance says  “open market purchases shall, wherever possible, be based on at least three (3) competitive bids.”

$4,800 is, of course, just under $5,000. Coincidence? The “whenever possible” language in the open market rules seems like a truck-sized loophole that was used here. I’ve seen no indication that bids were requested for the trailer.

Perhaps Technically Not a Conflict

Here is the Pevely ordinance on conflicts of interest:

“Any purchase order or contract within the purview of this Chapter in which any officer or employee of the City is financially interested, directly or indirectly, shall be void unless the Board of Aldermen waives compliance with this Section before the execution of a purchase order or contract.”

While one could have a discussion over the applicability of the word “indirectly,” since Haas doesn’t have an official ownership interest in McCain, she probably doesn’t violate the above.

In addition, the city can argue that it wasn’t the mayor who bought the trailer, it was the board. Even though the board and this mayor have a crony relationship, and we don’t know who proposed or arranged the sale, it is the board that’s ultimately responsible for buying stuff.

The city will probably argue that it doesn’t matter anyway because the trailer supposedly came at a good price. Markus said at the board meeting that someone told him the trailer was a good deal. But we kind of have to take his word at that.

Conclusion

As I stated above, this probably passes the legal tests for avoiding conflict of interest. But it doesn’t seem very ethical. At the least, the city should have been up front about this, and explained why buying this trailer was a good idea despite the questions it raises. Transparency is a good policy.

Eviction Stunt at Pevely Board Meeting

I wrote here about an uncorroborated claim of a threat levied by Pevely alderman Larry Coulson and his wife Diane against former alderman Dave Bewig, and Diane’s subsequent, fully documented threat against Bewig. This series of events led to Bewig being banned indefinitely from board meetings, and to the Coulsons both being appointed to the Pevely Park Board (although Diane only squeaked by on a 3-2 vote by the park board).

I mentioned in that post that the way Bewig was evicted from the May 20 BoA meeting was strange. I put together some video to show you. But first, here is a crude graphic to point out the major players:

Here is video #1. It does not have audio. Below I will post an annotated timeline:

Claims from Wife of Pevely Alderman Have No Corroboration; Leader Article on the Accusation is Fake News

The May 23 Leader contains a report of an accusation by Diane Coulson, wife of Pevely alderman Larry Coulson, that former alderman Dave Bewig threatened her and/or her husband. Mayor Steph Haas used this threat as a pretext to expel Bewig from the May 20 board meeting and ban him from future meetings. The Leader describes the accusation as a he-said, she-said kind of event, quoting the Coulsons’ accusation from the police report and Bewig’s denials to the paper. However, the police report contains several items that call into question the reliability of the Coulsons. The Leader ignored all of these items.

First of all, here is the police report. Go read it. I will wait.

Here are the items that I believe speak to the lack of trustworthiness of the Coulsons:

• They made three contradictory statements about who Bewig threatened to “shoot in the back of the head.” First it was Larry, then it was Diane, then it was “not sure.”

• Diane twice lied (or was very confused) in front of a police officer (Greg Long) about whether she had been talking to Long about filing a police report. Long stated in the report that Diane said she was going to get a restraining order. Then the mayor, and later her husband, approached her. She told both of them that she was talking to Long about filing a police report. Long denied this both times, since she had only mentioned a restraining order, and he explained the difference. Diane continued to insist that she told the cop she wanted to file a police report. Alternatively, it is possible that Diane was confused about the difference between a police report and an order of protection. But given that Larry had been a cop, I doubt it.

• Diane stated twice to officer Long that SHE was going to kill Bewig.

• Despite several people, including police officers, being nearby when Bewig supposedly made his threat, nobody else heard him say it. And Dave Bewig is not one who speaks softly.

Given these facts, we have ample reason to doubt the Coulsons’ claims. One could explain this as Diane merely mishearing something, but given the way the mayor and her cronies jumped at the chance to use the report to their advantage, this starts to look like a manufactured stunt. The way that the Bewig eviction from the May 20 meeting played out adds additional reason to believe this is all a stunt. I will explore that in a later post.

Note also that no restraining order has been served against Bewig, so either the judge denied it or the Coulsons did not follow through on their announced intention to pursue one. Bewig filed for a restraining order against Diane, but he was denied.

The reporting officer stated that she wants the incident forwarded to the county prosecutor “due to this incident involving two Alderman (sic).” It is clear that the officer is doing this because of the political sensitivity, not because of the abundance of evidence of a crime. But city attorney Sean Westhoff used that statement to justify the expulsion of Bewig.

But when is Diane Coulson going to be banned from meetings? She is the only person in this incident for whom we have proof of a stated threat of violence. Haas said “we will not tolerate that type of behavior,” but apparently she is very selective of what she will and will not tolerate.

It is true that Bewig was impeached by the board in 2015 (under questionable circumstances), and that he can be abrasive and use salty language, but Pevely can’t ban him from board meetings based on such weak sauce as this.

Leader Fake News

Now, I don’t use the term “fake news” lightly, but we know that the Leader reviewed the police report described above, as it is mentioned in the article. How is it that the Leader failed to mention all of the evidence that serves to discount the Coulson claim? The paper included the above-mentioned statement by Westhoff in the article, but said nothing of the numerous holes in the Coulson story. In fact, the Leader takes two of the contradictory statements from the Coulsons about who was threatened, and treats them as two separate claims:

According to the report, Coulson’s wife allegedly heard Bewig threaten her husband.

Larry Coulson told police that Bewig “has continued with a course of conduct over the past year” that is a “direct attempt to intimidate a city official.” [Note – no evidence is provided to back this up.]

A police officer is quoted as saying Diane Coulson told him that Bewig had threatened her, too.

The fact is that Larry told one officer that Diane heard Bewig threaten Larry. But Diane told another officer that Bewig threatened her. These are not separate incidents, these are two descriptions of the same incident. Instead of treating this as a contradiction, the Leader treats it as a pattern of conduct by Bewig. They completely twisted evidence that makes one party look bad 180 degrees to make the other party look bad. Five days after the incident, Diane told police she wasn’t sure who Bewig threatened.

I made a comment the other day on my Facebook page that certain county politicians and officials should donate generously to the Leader‘s plea for donations, in thanks for all the friendly, favorable coverage the paper gives them. Mayor Haas was one politician I mentioned. Give the way the Leader article on these “threats” is spun against Bewig, Haas should give an even larger donation.

Pevely Officer Blows The Whistle Again

On the same night that the Pevely board of aldermen voted to fire two police officers (the one who assaulted a detained man and the one who helped cover it up), they also voted 6-0 to give officer Joe St. Clair a letter of commendation.

In the full version of the video of the Robert “Ryan” Watson assault incident at the Pevely police booking area (starting at the 38-second mark here), you can see an officer step in front of Watson (his superior officer) as Watson heads around the counter in a hot rage. Watson ignores the officer and blows past him. That officer was St. Clair.

In addition, acting police chief Larry Miller said that it was an officer that initially alerted him to the incident, which occurred on April 23. Watson was fired on May 8.

Adding all this evidence together, we can assess that it was St. Clair who alerted Miller about the incident. We know that he witnessed it firsthand, after all.

This is not the first time that St. Clair has raised alarms about improper police conduct. In 2015, after leaving his previous job with the Bellefontaine Neighbors police, St. Clair let KMOV know that the mayor and police chief there had enacted a per-officer quota of 50 traffic tickets, ordinance violations, parking violations, etc, per month. St. Clair provided paperwork to prove it. The mayor and chief said they were doing nothing wrong, in typical corrupt north St. Louis County municipal fashion. However, these allegations led to the Dept. of Justice getting involved in the situation.

Officer St. Clair deserves commendation for holding other officers accountable for wrongdoing. And Miller and the board deserve credit for acting quickly to get rid of Watson and his thin blue line partner, Wayne Casey.

However, the fact is that an outside investigation is needed of the Pevely PD. There have been too many misdeeds in the past few years. The JeffCo Sheriff’s Department uncovered lots of problems in recent investigations of the Hillsboro and DeSoto police. I’m sure if given the chance to take a comprehensive look, they could find a lot of things to fix in Pevely. But it seems like Mayor Stephanie Haas and the board don’t want to let that happen. Haas denied to media outlets after the Watson video emerged that there were any problems with the Pevely PD. But here is a video from January in which two former officers outlined many problems they had seen in the Pevely PD. They asked for an outside investigation, but no action was taken on that. I think that, if Watson’s victim chooses to file a lawsuit, which is a no-brainer decision, actions such as these by the city will only help raise the dollar amount of the final settlement.

Better Together JeffCo Proposal

The STL region is all atwitter about the Better Together proposal, which suggests a merger of the city of St. Louis and unincorporated St. Louis County, as well as consolidating some of the functions of the municipalities of the county. The plan is to vote on this statewide in 2020 in order to make changes to the state constitution to enable the new governing structure. Overall, I am in favor of this proposal because there is indeed too much duplication of functions in the area, along with uneven quality of service, and significant savings could be found by streamlining – if they actually go through with getting rid of unnecessary employees and offices. This would also reduce the instances of cities competing with each other with tax breaks to get Walmarts and other businesses to come to their specific areas.

The duplication is most visible is the existence of so many small, corrupt and/or incompetent municipal police departments within STL County. In addition, the city of St. Louis is a basket case and governance there can only be improved through this proposal.

How About Here?

Along the same lines, I would like to lay out a proposal for Better Together JeffCo. I believe there are a number of functions in this county that could be merged to save money and stem the constant tax increases that we have been seeing. A lot of people crow about “local control,” but in small jurisdictions that too often leads to a lack of candidates for election to boards, which leads to uncontested elections, which leads to unaccountable politicians, which often leads to abuses, bad decisions, unethical actions, and even criminal wrongdoing.

The wave of revelations of incompetence and wrongdoing in local police departments in DeSoto, Hillsboro, Byrnes Mill, and Pevely provide further evidence that my proposal is needed. Despite all of the shocking deficiencies that have been uncovered, each city has refused to shut down its police department. This doesn’t just affect finances, it affects the administration of justice, as innocent people get assaulted by unqualified police officers, incompetent chiefs chase away good cops, and guilty people go free due to shoddy evidence storage. As you can imagine, police issues are a big part of my proposal, which is as follows:

Elements of the Plan

-Merge all 911 dispatch into one entity. The majority of the county is on the same system, but Crystal City, Pevely, Festus, and DeSoto do their own police dispatching and Festus does its own fire dispatch. According to the state tax table, CC and DeSoto pay the 1/2-cent 911 sales tax, even though they have their own dispatchers. Festus and Pevely residents would start paying the tax, but the cities would save money by cutting their own dispatch services.

-Merge Pevely and Herculaneum. While Pevely is a constant source of drama and dischord, Herculaneum is a relative bastion of calm. I hardly ever write about events there, because there is not much to report. At the same time, Herculaneum looked into turning its policing over to the county sheriff last year due to its desperate financial situation (but foolishly declined). Herky is using Pevely’s jail and was using Pevely for dispatch before switching to the county 911 system. It is hard to see how Herky, with the loss of Doe Run, can afford to sustain its police. By merging the cities, they can pool resources, and the additional population will dilute the Pevely craziness, so you may end up with one functional, solvent city with reduced drama. These two cities already share a school district.

-Merge Festus and Crystal City. Come on now, we know that this split is ridiculous. I mean, the Walmart is shared by the two cities, and half the time you don’t know which of the two cities you are in. This would prevent things like Crystal City having its own separate water system instead of joining in with Festus and Herculaneum. In 2013 there was a discussion of merging the two cities fire departments into a fire district, but it went nowhere. This proposal could also include merging the school districts.

-Merge fire and ambulance districts. There are currently 7 ambulance and 18 fire districts (including municipal ones) in the county.

Maps from Jefferson County Data Book

Most of the time, from what I have seen, when there is an ambulance somewhere, you will also see a fire truck. Or you will see trucks from multiple districts at the same incident. In addition, there are places like Highway M where you have a Rock ambulance district building within a mile of one Antonia firehouse and within two miles of another one. If these entities would share facilities, we would not need to build so many of them. This would also allow for fewer administrators and officers. We are seeing requests for fire and ambulance tax increases nearly every election. Mergers would save money and reduce the need for tax hikes. The boundaries don’t line up perfectly, but I think you could have each ambulance district absorb the fire districts within it.

-Get rid of municipal police departments except for Arnold, Festus/CC, and Pevely/Herky (assuming the latter two pairs are merged as per above). The other cities would turn their policing over to the county sheriff. The small departments in the county have shown us that they don’t have the ethics, standards, training, or finances to survive on their own. Turning their duties over to the county will bring about economies of scale, eliminating unnecessary chiefs, streamlining training, fleet management, equipment, and distribution of officers around the county. The other cities would pay the sheriff’s office for service, but would likely pay less than what it would take to get their departments up to snuff.

Here is a paragraph on policing from the Better Together executive summary (page 7) that provides an idea of the costs of duplicative services:

POLICING – Today, there are 55 separate police departments covering St. Louis City and County. $468 million was spent on policing the area in 2015, or $355.20 per capita. Costs in cities such as Indianapolis, IN ($242.02 per capita) and Louisville, KY ($257.06 per capita) depict substantial savings in areas with one unified police department. Beyond the cost is the inconsistent quality of service. 75% of the departments in our region lack accreditation.

-Dissolve Byrnes Mill. This idea needs to happen on its own merits, since the city is a mess with a long line of problems with its police department. It is also questionable whether the city has sufficient revenue to stay solvent now that its ability to fund itself with traffic tickets has been curbed.

-Merge the libraries. In addition to the JeffCo library with its three branches (Arnold, Windsor, Northwest), there are libraries in Festus, DeSoto, Herculaneum, and Crystal City. The Herky library is open for very limited hours. The Festus and CC libraries are only two miles apart. DeSoto is looking to almost double the property tax for its library at the April 2 election. Hillsboro has been

Let’s bring all of these libraries under the county library system. That way they could share books, materials, and resources. We could close the Crystal City or Festus location and make the other ones branch libraries, all open to anyone in the county. Residents of Hillsboro have been trying on-and-off for almost 20 years to get their own branch. With this proposal, they would at least have access to libraries in nearby cities. This proposal would require getting rid of the library taxes in the cities that have them, but then extending the county library property tax to the entire county. A branch would probably be needed somewhere between Hillsboro and Cedar Hill to make it fair to residents in that part of the county.

Let me know what you think of this proposal, or if there are other functions that should be included in the merger.