By Pauline Masson –
In a four-three vote, with the mayor breaking a tie, aldermen Andy Nemeth, Jerry Eversmeyer and Rick Presley voted to deny a request from new alderman Scott Lesh for a quarterly report on city revenue and expenditures.
The action took place at the Oct. 4 board of aldermen meeting, with perhaps half a dozen persons in attendance.
Lesh said he needed the information because he feels uninformed when he is asked to approve a large expenditure for the city. He said he would like to know, not only where the money is coming from, but how much of the annual budget has been spent so far and how much is still left. In the motion he asked that the report be sent to all aldermen.
City administrator Steve Roth said he prepares a financial report monthly which would be easier to provide to aldermen than a quarterly report. He said it would be easy to do and he was happy to comply.
City Clerk Kim Barfield said she makes a monthly financial report that shows where the city is at.
“I can do it quarterly or monthly however you want it,” she said.
But Andy Nemeth objected to the city administrator providing the information for the new aldermen. He said he (Nemeth) would never have time to look at a report. He doesn’t believe in having something sent just to have something sent, so he did not think the city administrator should be asked to send any information to any aldermen.
“I am very against just getting something to get it,” Nemeth said.
Jerry Eversmeyer echoed that sentiment saying he never looks at items line by line. He only looks at big expenditures.
‘That’s why we pay the staff,” Eversmeyer said.
Lesh said if other aldermen did not want to look at the report, he would just do it independently. He said he would like to have the information.
When the mayor called for the vote on Lesh’s motion, three new aldermen, Lesh, James Cleeve and Sara Gendron voted in favor of the request for the report. Rick Presley joined Eversmeyer and Nemeth in a no vote, creating a tie, which the Mayor broke, saying, “I feel that staff provides (information) in their report to keep us on track. It is just at the privilege of the aldermen to ask when needed for a financial report.”
I have to tell you, folks . . . this action flies in the face of State public records law.
Any citizen, or non-citizen for that matter, should be able to request and receive this information – not just an alderman who is responsible for the city budget and for city expenditures. But anyone.
State code is clear: Public records, defined in Mo. Rev. Stat. § 610.010.6(6), include any written or electronic report, survey, memorandum or any other document retained by or prepared for a public body.
Missouri has no limitations on who can request records. And an individual requesting information does not have to state a reason for wanting to see the records.
It should be noted that City Attorney Bob Jones sat still and allowed this to happen. Mr. Jones frequently interrupts meetings to tell people what to do or not to do. In this meeting, he, interrupted City Clerk Kim Barfield when she accidentally read the wrong heading for one ordinance and even got up from his chair and walked over to hand her his copy of what she should read. But he said nothing as aldermen discussed and voted to deny a report of a routinely prepared city record to an elected city aldermen.
Only when the mayor asked if she needed a discussion before she voted on the tie, he spoke.
“No,” he said. “You can just vote.”
To witness our government officials ignore state public records law and deny an elected alderman’s request for a commonly created and easily transmitted financial report was mind-boggling.
City Clerk Kim Barfield is required by law to make public records available to anyone who requests them – not just elected aldermen but anyone. She said could do it with ease.
Nothing in state law grants aldermen or the mayor the authority to deny a request from anyone for public records. Nothing authorizes the city administrator to deny an aldermen quarterly copies of a public records. This slap at the new aldermen was beneath the whole lot of them – Mr. Nemeth, Mr. Eversmeyer, Mr. Presley, the city administrator, city attorney and the mayor. They should all know better.
Mr. Lesh was seeking nothing more than information that he is entitled to and that he says he needs for his official decision making process.
He could sue the city for denying him public records if he desired. He would not be the first alderman to do that. And it’s written in the state code, if he can show that a public body violated the law in denying a request for public records, the court is required to give the him damages, up to $5,000, as well as court costs and attorney fees. Proving what happened should not be too difficult in this instance because the state statute is specific and the action took place in a public city government meeting.
I keep saying and I keep hoping that at some point in our city government common sense will prevail. In an ideal world, City Clerk Kim Barfield will ignore this travesty in government and provide the report to Mr. Lesh, as she is required by law to do. In the interest of full disclosure I should report that I emailed her at 8:30 a.m. the morning after the meeting and asked for the most recent report and it came back in minutes.
But the four individuals did vote to deny sending the report to Mr. Lesh and their action is cast in an official recording.
What in the world is going on down there? This is ridiculous.
I think alderman Eversmeyer and alderman Nemeth need to bother to read the reports. If they are just leaving it to “staff” then “staff “ is running the city. Whatever staff wants, they go along with. That has been the problem for awhile now. If things aren’t illegal they are definitely unethical.
Nemeth made a statement in another meeting about when they voted on Discontinuing CIDs or something along those lines, he did it because of being new at being an alderman! Clearly he showing it is because of lack of information on anything he votes because he doesn’t want the information. “Not having time” or we pay someone else to look at it should be an insufficient answer. If you don’t have time to read the very basic report, such as a budget, maybe this is not the hobby for you. Clearly this is just a hobby for Nemeth, because he doesn’t want to put a little work in on it.
But more importantly he doesn’t want anyone to have knowledge. And doesn’t want any himself.
As far as the mayor, she ran on a campaign for transparency. Her definition of transparency must be a lot different than others. The person that would make that report was more than willing to make sure it was sent to them. Because I am told she is very good at her job. But even the transparency of sending the budget to alderman she voted against. Something is going to have to change.
Lazy Aldermen serve no useful purposes. Some people like to be in power only to delegate that power to someone else to make decisions for them. How dumb can dumb be for members of the same City Council to deny another member of the City Council relevant material concerning the finances of the City. Gestapo City Administrator and Co-conspirator City Attorney live for absolute POWER. That is obvious. So everyone wanted a new set of faces to govern the people’s affairs. What a joke. Poor Mayor could care less since she obviously is led by the nose from the Gestapo Administrator. She obviously has no keen intellect to make informed decisions either or she would never allow this type of conduct to happen and then vote in favor of it happening. Have fun City 🤡 Clowns.
FORMER REPORTER FAILS TO GET ALL THE FACTS. 1st, the motion was to include the quarterly finance report in the Alderman pack. The Alderman can request the info to be included in his pack as was discussed before vote, without needing a motion. 2nd, this was not a Sunshine Request. 3rd, Alderman vote on a budget that the departments must follow at the beginning on each fiscal year. City Administrator can approve expenses up to a certain amount, larger purchases must be approved by resolution and voted on by the board. The departments must stay in budget. The city has to get an annual finance audit every year. We are currently getting an audit for the previous year. We always pass the audits. 10+ years ago we were audited by the state auditor per citizens request. Pacific received the highest score ever given by the state auditor. 4th, no information was hidden from the public. Everything was discussed in open meeting. The city staff and department heads work hard on running the city every day. They follow the budgets that have been approved by the board and report anything out of ordinary to the Administrator who informs the Mayor and Alderman.
Jerry, Jerry, Jerry,
Mr. Lesh did not use the word Sunshine, but he should not have to. He clearly made the request for a quarterly report and that falls under the Sunshine Law. He tried to appease you and Andy Nemeth saying if you didn’t want the report, he would do it independently. You and others voted to deny his request. You can’t dress that up with gobbledygook.
And, Jerry.
I’m still a reporter.
Pauline, I love your integrity. We need more of that.
Problem is the BOA members waste so much of each others time by trying to ‘one up” each other that many, many more important ideas are never brought up.
Basic agenda should be made available seven days prior to the ‘first reading’ so the public and Alderman can communicate and be aware of these proposals, and not see them Friday night before a busy family week end. Public needs time to plan meeting attendance be cause , by the time of ‘second reading’ the Board usually ignores any public comments because they have already made their ‘deals’ among them selves, you know “i’ll vote for yours if you vote for mine”.
Seems like many of these proposed resolutions are still coming out of a mysterious back room session.
Seems like a lot of things lately are brought up for votes during ‘reports from officials’ with out ANY prior public notice, looks like they just pulled it out of their ear. Is this a direct attempt to leave the public in the dark and bypass the usual ‘ two readings procedure’?