By Antonio D. French
Filed Thursday, March 16 at 6:37 AM
Mayor Francis Slay said he believes the St. Louis City Police Board may have violated the state’s Sunshine Law yesterday when they unexpectedly voted to waive the residency requirement for civilian employees.
"Under the Sunshine Law, you have to post an item on the agenda at least 24 hours in advance before you can vote on it. They did not do that," Slay said on his blog.
"As an ex officio member of that Board, I attended the first part of the Police Board meeting, but left in the middle of it to attend another event," said Slay. "Obviously, I would have stayed had this matter been properly posted on the agenda. In fact, it was not."
Slay said he is going to ask the Board to reconsider its decision. "Then, unless Chief Joe Mokwa tells me that the rule change is vital to the operation of his Departent [sic], I am going to ask the Police Board to reverse it," he said.
UPDATE: Slay says the Police Board will meet on Friday to reconsider a decision to end the residency requirement for the Department’s civilian employees.
3 Comments:
So that little weasel is mad about this violation of the Sunshine Law but not any of the countless times the School Board violated it? Could he be any more obvious about his inability to show real leadership?
9:10 AM, March 16, 2006
As a technical matter, I believe all that happened was that someone proposed an on-subject amendment (not an unrelated rider) to an item that was on the agenda. (I'm sure someone will correct me if that is incorrect.)
From a broader view, Slay's duties include attending police board meetings - the entire meetings. The fact that he said he would have stayed if he had known this amendment would have been proposed suggests that whatever he left the meeting to pursue wasn't of overriding importance.
10:05 AM, March 16, 2006
Slay left the police board meeting early to head down to the Old Post Office ribbon-cutting.
Guess a pat on the back by his rich developer friends is more important than the people's business at the police board.
But hey, I didn't vote for the loser.
11:23 AM, March 16, 2006
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