City Council Meeting 02/26/07

The Overland City Council Meeting scheduled for February 26th, 2007 at the Community Center was unable to take place due to a lack of a quorum. When I told a friend this I was asked "So was it 4 or 3 that didn't show up?". Actually, it was 2, Councilman Corcoran and Councilman O'Connell (i've not heard why). Though the meeting did not take place some interesting things did happen.

The Localite came out earlier that day and many residents in attendance were upset about some of the claims made several of the ads that appeared in it. In his ad (and later the letter he allegedly circulated in Ward 3 (thanks for posting that OVCC)) Councilman Owensby suggests that people who support the Recall are actually a "hate group". After the meeting ended one resident confronted Councilman Owensby on this, asking why he would say she was a member of a hate group. First he told her he did not, but when she pointed to his ad in the Localite and said she supports the recall of Mayor Purzner he said to her "then you are" and suggested she review her bible.

Councilman Owensby should consider following his own advice as there are some good lessons in there. There's the concept that we should treat our neighbors as we would want to be treated, and the idea that he who is without out sin should cast the first stone. There's a lot Councilman Owensby could learn from his bible.

Normally I don't report on incidents such as this. Unnamed sources and the like have never been my style. However, after seeing Councilman Knode's ad in the Localite where he claims his opponent Eedie Cuminale said something to "a resident" (unnamed of course), I assume this sort of thing is OK. After all, who am I to argue with a deacon about what is ethical or moral?

Towards the end of the evening Councilman Sellers announced that the traffic committee would be meeting the following night to discuss red light cameras and their possible use in Overland. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend that meeting so if anyone was there and can tell us more about please feel free let us know in the comments section at the bottom of this article.

I never gave much thought to red light cameras or other types of automated traffic enforcement. After my daughter was born I magically transformed into a seatbelt wearing, speedometer watching, model driver. However, after hearing some concerns from a friend I decided to look into the issue further. Here's what I've come across so far:

• The National Motorist Association has some info here.
• CBS did an interesting piece you can see here.
• They make mistakes, more mistakes and even more mistakes
  
• Studies suggest they increase accident rates.
• They can be abused.
• They are the subject of a numerous lawsuits.
• At least one class action suit succeeded against them.
  
• They are easily defeated.
• They even ticket police officers on emergency calls.
• They may be unconstitutional.
  

A casual search suggests that this would be a bad more by Overland, and would create a host of problems for the Residents and City Hall alike. The City, and the company seeking to bring their service into Overland will need to show how all of these various issues listed above are not a problem before we should seriously consider entering into a contract for this service. I would not like to see Overland stuck with the same legal bills and damage awards that the City of Steubenville, Ohio was hit with.

Budget Committee Meeting

For the first time in five months the Budget Committee, chaired by Councilman Knode, held a meeting to discuss the 8 month overdue 2006/2007 City budget. They met on Thursday, February 22nd at 6:30PM at the Community Center. As you might expect, nothing was accomplished.

The best suggestion made came from Councilman Schneider who asked that they table the trash service issue and put all but $50,000.00 of that line item (to be used to help residents in need) into the City's reserve fund. This would have let the city to move forward on all the issues the Council can agree on, while allowing debate on the trash service issue to continue. The trash service issue is the issue keeping a budget from being passed, yet no compromise can seem to be reached and there was no attempt to even vote on one.

When you hear that various things cannot be done because the City hasn't passed a budget, remember the majority of the budget committee, chaired by Councilman Knode, would not separate the trash issue from the budget so that the city could move forward. Why can't you get your utility tax refund? That would seem to be because Chairman Knode and the majority on the budget committee seem to care more about the trash issue than anything else. They apparently don't see a problem with making you wait for your money.

There are people in Overland that want city paid trash service back and there are people in Overland who would rather have the 2 police officers, 2 public works employees and 1 police dispatcher back. This issue is worthy of research and debate. Yet, Chairman Knode and others will not share any specifics with us. Chairman Knode seems to think we want to know "what color the truck is". I doubt anyone cares (though I truly hope it's not hot pink). What residents want to know is if we will continue to have the unlimited pickup service we have now, how much we will still have to pay for this "City Paid" service and what will the service include.

For most residents, when we refer to the trash service in conversation, we are talking about trash, recycling, yard waste, white goods, etc. When we talk about trash service, we talk about the whole package. So why does the current proposal only address one portion of the entire service?

At this meeting Councilman Owensby stated that the City of St. Ann pays half of what we pay in Overland for trash service:

Once again, we have an issue with an comparing apples to oranges. According to Allied Waste the residents of St. Ann currently play $26.40 a quarter for trash service while the residents of Overland pay $49.14. However, Overland's service includes recycling (which is becoming mandatory in St. Louis County this year I believe). In St. Ann, recycling pickup costs the residents an additional $15.00 a quarter for a total of 41.40. That's a little bit less than a 8 dollar difference. However, the City of St. Ann handles yard waste pickup for the residents through their public works department, while Allied Waste picks ours up once a week. We could get down to St. Ann's rate if the City decided to use Public Works to pick up yard waste but I doubt we could do it weekly without rehiring 2 employees and likely taking on a few more.

If we could get to St. Ann's $41.40 a quarter rate what would that mean for Overland? According to the 2000 census Overland has 7012 households. A little math tells us that it would cost about $1,160,000.00 for trash service like St. Ann's, which does not include the cost of public works employees picking up yard waste. If we were to stick with weekly yard waste pickup by Allied Waste it would cost the City approximately $1,380,000.00 for trash service. The line item in the proposed budget is $616,000.00 (some suggested budget changes increase this by 30,000.00 or so) to pay for trash service even though it's currently costing about 1.3 million dollars.

We cannot get a straight answer to explain this difference. Chairman Knode and the majority of the Committee have yet to give us any specific numbers and they apparently have still not gone out for bid on this service to see what we can expect it to cost the taxpayers. They have yet to even officially explain who will be paying for the recycling and yard waste pickup. They call it "City Paid" trash, but as the Mayor said here this proposal only seems to cover a portion of the service which it seems will leave us still paying the majority of the bill anyway.

Tabling this issue until all the facts can be gathered and the issue can be properly debated seems entirely reasonable. We might have been able to address this had Chairman Knode spent the last 5 months getting bids and researching the costs. Since that apparently has not been done (I assume since nothing has been shared with the residents), the only logical choice is the set the trash issue aside until we have the hard numbers needed to properly and professionally approach the issue.

Since this budget committee meeting has already been the subject of several inaccurate rumors I decided to host it in its entirety. See it for yourself here and draw your own conclusions.

The Budget Committee adjourned after only 25 minutes. 25 minutes is all that was spent on the 8 month late City Budget. In the immortal words of Clara Peller: "Where's the Beef?!?" or in this case: Where's the leadership?

Are you Ready for April 3rd?

There is no such thing as planning too early when it comes to an event as important as an election. It's a shame that Municipal elections typically have a much lower turnout than State or Federal elections (though turnout on April 3rd is expected to be high due to the Mayoral Recall measure). For those who think that Municipal government doesn't mean much compared to other higher levels of government consider this:

How can the Federal government impact your family? They can increase your taxes. What about the State Government? They can hike your taxes too. And the County Government? They can raise your property taxes.

Though all of these problems can have a negative impact on the bottom line of most families, they really don't compare to Municipal government. There are of course a number of other issues that can happen at the above levels of government. However, rarely do they do something with more impact than the above (though the Patriot act, medicare cuts, and MSD shenanigans come to mind).

The City government can decide to allow a new development project requiring the land your home is on. They can condemn your house, rezone your lot so you can't live there anymore and even refuse to give you an occupancy permit, preventing you from living in your legally owned property in the first place. Want to add a roof to your front porch? Want your street repaired? hear a prowler outside? You address all of these concerns and much more through City Hall.

Though many of the items listed as Municipal issues can happen on the other government levels as well, they rarely do. However, the above abuses are regular occurrences in cities throughout the country. Considering the damage Municipal government is capable of, we really need to take it seriously.

The next Municipal election will be on April 3rd, 2007. Polls will be open from 6:00AM to 7:00PM. Though you might not have voted in a long time (if at all) your vote does count. The only way the majority of the city is represented is if the majority gets out and votes. Make the decision to vote on April 3rd today.

There are a host of Internet resources out there for those who have questions about voting or issues they need to address in order to vote. The St. Louis County Election Board is online and has a host of information available to voters.

Are you concerned you will not be in the area on April 3rd? Find out who can vote absentee and if you qualify, get the absentee ballot application and make sure to get it to the Election Board by March 28th, 2007.

Not a Registered voter? Find out who can legally vote, and if you qualify, get the voter registration form and make sure you get that to the Election Board no later than March 7th, 2007.

Not sure where you are supposed to vote? Just visit the Election Board web site and enter your street address to find your polling place.

Of course, being an informed voter is the ideal. To get you started, check out the Election Board's list of 2007 candidates and issues for the April 3rd, 2007 Election (Overland appears on page 10 and Ritenour appears on page 16). Feel free to check out The Overland Examiner's list of 2007 City Council Candidates as well. Also, Ritenour school district has a ton of information available about their upcoming bond issue Proposition R.

I hope to see every single Overland Resident at the polls in April. That would be a line I would be proud to stand in. There are likely to be more information sources and more events associated with the April election. If you know of any PLEASE click the comments link below or if you prefer, email me by clicking here.

Last weeks Poll

Last week's poll ask readers if the Overland Examiner should contact the Mayor to take her up on her offer to link to any Overland specific web site.

As I've said before, I don't think this is a good idea. In my view, the City of Overland's official web site should be focused on promoting Overland. Politics, regardless of how they are handled, simply don't belong there. This includes the link to the Mayor's personal web site in my opinion.

However, being asked to do this repeatedly in email as well as in person lead me to create that poll. In all honestly, if it had gone a different way I probably would have stuck to my guns and not tried to get an Overland Examiner link at the City of Overland home page.

I am happy to announce that our audience get's it! As you can see for the results here the majority of our readers didn't think this is a good idea either.

Now, when someone asks me about trying to call the Mayor on her statement about adding any links to the City homepage I can direct them to the poll results and point out that the readers here would prefer we didn't.

Thanks folks for giving me a bit more ammunition on this one!

Positive Coverage of Overland Online

It has become so rare these days some of us have begun to think it a myth. However, positive coverage of Overland, Missouri still happens. You all probably remember Norm Parish's recent article about Martin Bergin called "I love being a cowboy".

Now we have "Overland, MO Mid-Century Modern", a nice article about the Architecture to be found in our great city.

From the linked article:

"Overland retains so much of its original fabric that it often feels like touring a museum of post-World War 2 Baby Boom suburban expansion. Yet the place is alive, feisty and curious in a low-key manner, which keeps it off the hipsters and aggressive developers radars."

For the most part this article is a look at Overland through the eyes of someone who loves our old town feel and is obviously full of optimism. This is a must read.

What's your favorite part of Overland?

February 12th Overland City Council Meeting

A few issues came up at the Overland City Council Meeting on February 12th, 2007. The most interesting of which was a claim made by Mayor Purzner. The Mayor stated that her "veto" regarding a resolution passed at the January 22nd, 2007 City Council Meeting was meant to be a veto of the Motion to send the Recall to the Election Board that passed at the December 1th, 2006 meeting.

After hearing this I went back through the video of the January 22nd meeting. I'm not sure if what the Mayor said at that time even constitutes a veto based on Missouri Revised Statutes Chapter 77, Section 77.270 which says in part "should he neglect or refuse to sign any ordinance and return the same with his objections, in writing, at the next regular meeting of the council, the same shall become a law without his signature." However, if you assume that it does, there is still no mention of a veto of the December 11th, 2006 vote. I contacted City Hall but they could not locate a veto message from that meeting at this time.

I went through the video of the meeting looking for any reference to a veto by the Mayor. The only reference I could find is the following clips:

In the first clip. Mayor Purzner suggests that the Council did not deal with this issue at the December 11th 2006 meeting. Yet as we clearly pointed out in this article, a vote on a motion to place this measure on the ballot occurred. Also, as we show here, the Judge who ruled against the Mayor on her lawsuit agreed. It appears that somewhere between January 22nd and February 12th the Mayor changed her mind from believing that vote never happened to believing she vetoed it. Perhaps this change occurred somewhere between the morning of February 6th and the evening of February 7th. Here's the clip:

This second clip shows the Mayor discussing vetoing the resolution under consideration at the January 22nd meeting. There is no mention to the December 11th, 2006 vote:

Traditionally a veto message is read during the Mayor's report. However, the Mayor's brief report makes no reference to a veto:

Though I question whether or not the Mayor's actions at the January 22nd, 2007 Council meeting constitute a proper veto, I have to assume that a veto of the Jan 22nd resolution did happen since the Judge hearing the Mayor's failed lawsuit against the St. Louis County Election Board said in his ruling: "Taken as true, the allegation that on January 23rd, 2007, the Mayor vetoed the January 22nd, 2007 Resolution calling for her recall, there is no evidence or allegation that the Mayor vetoed the Motion which passed by 4 to 3 vote of the Overland City Council on December 11th, 2006." As seen here:

click the image to see larger size

According to RSMo. 77.270 The Mayor must present a written veto message to the Council by the next regularly scheduled Council meeting, otherwise the measure will stand as law without signature. In the case of the December 11th, 2006 motion that would have been the January 8th, 2007 meeting that Councilman Knode, Councilman Sellers and Councilman Owensby were all absent from which prevented the meeting from happening due to a lack of a quorum). However, if you let that issue go and look at the January 22nd, 2007 Council meeting, you still find a complete absence of a written veto message referencing the December 11th, 2006 vote. There isn't even a verbal veto referencing that vote.

Finally, if you review the Mayor's Attorney's legal filings from the failed lawsuit against the Election Board you find no mention of the existence of that vote on December 11th, 2006, let alone any reference to an attempt to veto it. I find it curious that this "fact" would be absent from those filings if it had actually occurred.

I would certainly like to see the original written veto from January 23nd, 2007 (as referenced in the lawsuit decision), assuming one exists.

Overland 2007 Candidates

The following is a list of candidates running in the April 2007 municipal election in Overland, Missouri. We attempted to contact every candidate asking for photos and more contact information. We've only heard back from a few at this point. The list that follows is a combination of publicly available and candidate provided information. Where the candidates have chosen to send us more information we've added it. We will be adding information to this list over the next week as we get it.

Ward One

Richard Knode (incumbent)
2216 Huntington
427-2196
(Declined to provide photo or additional information)


Eedie Cuminale
9601 Lackland
429-0815





Ward Two

Tom Sellers (incumbent)
8094 Oneida
426-1055




Mary Beth Conlon
8933 Argyle
428-3777





Ward Three

Michael Oakes
9441 Ridge
426-0108

Click here to email this Candidate



Peggy Keller
9512 Minerva
428-3491
(no photo submitted)



Ward Four

Tim Jones
10000 Thorpe
426-2275

Click here to email this Candidate


Sherry Karr
9928 West Wise
429-6690

Click here to email this Candidate

We would like to thank the candidates who already provided information for this list. If you are a candidate and would like to see a photo or more contact information (like a campaign web site or email address) added, please click here to email me or call me at the phone number I likely left on your answering machine. If you do not have a digital photo, I can scan one for you so it can be included on this list.

Comments are not enabled for this post. However, I plan on putting together a list of questions to send to the candidates with the intent of publishing their answers later. If you have some questions you'd like to see BOTH of the candidates in your ward answer, please Email them to me by clicking here. I may not be able to include every question (looking to limit this to 5-6 of them), but I will send the candidates the best of them and post whatever written responses they choose to return.

Recall Hearing Ruling

I went to the County Court huse today to pick up a copy of Judge Goldman's written decision against Mayor Purzner. I was surprised it was only one page:

click the image to see larger size

In the decision, the Judge accepts as fact that Mayor Purzner vetoed the resolution passed on January 22nd, 2007. However, he ruled that the motion passed on December 11th was sufficient to place the Recall on the April 3rd Ballot.

The Judge considered the other arguments made against the Recall including the suggestion that the wording on the petition was not sufficient, and ruled against these issues as well.

Since the Mayor never presented a veto on that motion to the Council, the issue as to whether or not she could veto something she had personal involvement in was not addressed in this hearing.

I have never seen a legal decision, especially one considering a municipal matter, that was this short. Could the length of a Judge's decision on a case possibly signal the Judges opinion of it's validity?

What do you think?
Click the comments link at the bottom of the post and let us know.

Recall Hearing UPDATE

Short but sweet:

Today Judge Goldman ruled against the Mayor in her attempt to block the Recall from the April 3rd ballot. Norm Parish has the story at the Post-Dispatch here. I hope to get a copy of the Judges written decision in the near future so we can cover the specifics here.

Recall Hearing

At 9am Tuesday morning (02/06/2007) The Honorable Steven H. Goldman, Circuit judge (Division 12) in St. Louis County was scheduled to hear the suit filed by Mayor Ann Purzner to block the Recall from appearing on the April 3rd ballot. The Judge chose to speak to the attorneys from both sides in his chambers. A few hours later it was over and we learned that the Judge was going to review the arguments and issue a ruling by Thursday.

With nothing to watch, reviewing the legal fillings seemed appropriate. The Mayor's case comes down to a few areas, most of which we have covered here before.

First, there's the contention that an ordinance is required by RSMo 77.655 to send the measure to the Election Board. Though the Mayor's legal filings state: "as a matter of law an ordinance is required to place a recall election on the ballot pursuant to section 77.655". There is no reference to "ordinance" in that statute, and the Mayor's council makes no reference to any legal precedent that would establish this to be "a matter of law".

An important point to consider when reading these statutes is that whenever an ordinance is required it is clearly identified as required. For example, in RSMo 77.170 it says in part "in proceeding by ordinance" the city may purchase and condemn lands, and in RSMo 77.490 the city "by ordinance" may regulate rates for telephone service within the City. In RSMo 77.090 which establishes among other things, that Council shall keep a journal (aka minutes) and may "enforce such rules as may be necessary to secure the attendance of its members" there is no reference to the need for an ordinance here, just as there is no reference to the need for an ordinance in RSMo 77.655 when "ordering" that the Recall measure be placed on the ballot. It seems obvious, based on a reading of Chapter 77 (third class cities) as a whole that if an ordinance was required the authors would have specifically used the word "ordinance". If an ordinance is not required then a motion is all that's needed, such as the motion that was passed at the December 12th, 2007 Council meeting to send the Recall measure to the election board (as shown here).

Though the Mayor's filings reference several failed attempts to pass an ordinance to add the Recall measure to the ballot, they make no reference to that motion that successfully passed on December 12th, 2006. As we referenced in this article there was a rumor that the Mayor's legal team was going to argue that the December 12th vote didn't happen. That's why I dislike rumors and why I insist on identifying them as such, they are generally inaccurate. The Mayor's case didn't argue that this vote didn't happen, it merely ignored its existence all together. I assume the Mayor now has a copy of this evidence which might help her "recall" the event.

Another argument made in the Mayor's filings is "...the Recall petition is legally insufficient to meet the standards required in Section 77.650 RSMo." For your review, the acceptable reasons for a Recall according to RSMO 77.650 are "misconduct in office, incompetence or failure to perform duties prescribed by law." The reasons for Recall that appear on the petition (according to the filings) are:

1.Mayor Purzner unlawfully attempted to remove Police Chief James Herron from Office and

2.Mayor Purzner unlawfully violated the Sunshine Law, RSMo 610.020.1 by scheduling meetings in a space of insufficient size to accommodate the anticipated attendance by members of the public.

Not only are these issues violations of both Missouri Statutes and Overland Ordinances, in my opinion they are also examples of "failure to perform duties prescribed by law" as the violated measures tell elected officials how they are to govern. Though failure to follow them may be considered misconduct, incompetence, or both, there would seem to be no question that violating them would be a "failure to perform duties prescribed by law" at the bare minimum.

There are also several references in the filings to the concept: "if the standard of 77.650 RSMo is met merely by a Mayor of a third class city for being involved in two lawsuits then all mayors and officials are subject to recall". The problem here is that this doen't directly address the issue at hand. The Recall is about the unlawful actions the Mayor took that were later confirmed to be unlawful by the St. Louis County Judges who heard those suits. The Recall, like the suits, resulted from the Mayor's actions and if the Mayor (an others) had followed the law to begin with, we wouldn't be dealing with this today.

Ultimately the decision in this case rests with the Judge. However, I, as a layman, still haven't seen anything to suggest that the Mayor could possibly succeed in this case. Between now and Thursday the Judge will issue his ruling and we'll learn if my assessment was correct.

Though everything happened in the Judge's chambers and there was not much to see I did find ways to pass the time. I had an opportunity to discuss the future of newspapers with Norm Parish from the Post-Dispatch and had a bit of fun discussing silly life experiences like misplaced cell phones and the like with Mayor Purzner and others.

It wasn't all fun and games though. Early on, I spoke with Election Board officials about what adding this measure to the ballot might cost the city. It was estimated that the additional cost to the city would be approximately $25.00 (yes, that says twenty five dollars). That's a far cry from the estimates of $30,000.00 or more it could cost the city to hold a special election (as required in RSMo 77.660) should the measure be pulled from the April ballot only to be authorized later if the Mayor fails to permanently block the Recall.

Towards the end, City Attorney Bob Herman pulled me aside. I half expected him to chastise me for my legal interpretations in previous articles. Instead, he was kind enough to show me where the law library in the building was and walked me though the various legal references there. He showed me how to use them, and more importantly, how they worked together. I'm thankful to Mr. Herman for giving me that time. I certainly learned the basics of a skill I'll likely employ in the future. As it turns out Mr. Herman likes to teach, and I had a lot to learn so it worked out perfectly (and who knew people still used these "books" as he called them).

Helping the Mayor "Recall"

Rumor has it that one of the Mayor's legal tactics to block the Recall from the April 3rd Ballot may be to suggest that the vote on this measure never happened at the December 11th, 2006 Council Meeting.

According to the approved minutes of that meeting the vote happened. At one point in the meeting the council voted on an ordinance to add the measure to the ballot. That vote went 4-3 and as this lacked 5 votes the prevailing wisdom is that the ordinance did not pass. However, it's likely that an ordinance is not required (as we reported earlier here).

Later in the meeting, Councilman May made a motion to put the recall of the Mayor on the April ballot. Though the Mayor resisted at first, she polled the vote with the results being 4-3. After the vote the Mayor claimed 5 votes were needed to pass this measure. However, it was not a ordinance, it was a simple vote which only requires a simple majority (4 being the majority of 7) to pass.

You can see this vote for yourself here:

The existence of this vote is further supported by the approved minutes from the December 11th meeting that were approved at the January 22nd, 2007 meeting.

From the approved Minutes of the

December 11th, 2006 Overland City Council Meeting

(click images below to see at full size)

..........

Page 8........................Page 9

The approval of those minutes can be seen here:

(please excuse the jumpy camera work)

It appears that this vote did it fact happen. The Mayor and her legal team can argue about the need for an ordinance if they want to waste the courts time, but they cannot argue that a vote on the measure didn't take place.

For your review, we've recently covered the legalities of the Recall measure both here and here.