Aldermen are set to approve the hiring of former mayor Steve Myers as city economic development director at a salary of $70,000 at Tuesday evening’s board meeting.
Pacific City Attorney Bob Jones declined a request to provide a written explanation to this blog of why Myers accepting immediate employment with the city is not in violation of state statute 105.454.
The decline to explain to Pacific citizens came in an Aug. 11, telephone conversation between the attorney and me (Pauline Masson). Jones telephoned me, saying Pacific City Clerk Kim Barfield had asked him to make the call.
He seemed to not know why he was asked to call me. I explained that Acting Mayor Herb Adams had told me in a telephone interview earlier in the day that he (Adams) was convinced by his latest conversation with Jones that employing Myers did not violate 105.454.
When I asked Jones to email me a written explanation of the opinion of why it was legally okay that I would publish in Hometown Matters to inform citizens, the attorney said unequivocally “no”.
“I’m not going to send you an email,” he said.
I have to tell you . . . I did need the explanation in writing, in his words.
Jones said he is not putting anything in writing. Make of that what you will.
As news stories go, this is a tough one. What I see and what readers seem to see is that this does not seem copacetic. Acting Mayor Adams said he thought the city attorney could clear the whole thing up.
I did not want to be a position to interpret an attorney’s opinion offered in a telephone interview. It is clear to me that Pacific area residents want to understand this and it is the attorney who is best positioned to explain it.
In four separate on-line sites – hometownmatters.com; and three Facebook pages: I Heart Pacific; Pacific Community Forum; and Pauline Masson – Pacific citizens have said over and over that they don’t get it. How is this legal?
In Jones defense, he did say that he had given an interview to a reporter with the Missourian newspaper before he called me.
As many readers know, I was the Pacific editor of the Missourian for twenty plus years. And, if I had still been in that position I would have been pressuring Jones for an on record explanation that I could prove he said. But I’m semi-retired and now I spend my free time romancing the Internet with Hometown Matters.
I am fairly new at being a blogger. I honed my tech skill for sixty weeks on a blog named for my old Missourian column, I Have to Tell You. It was just a vanity site where I posted one story and one photo a week. Eventually I decided that I would like a more diversified blog.
My intention was to write about all the things I see and know and like – or don’t like – about the community.
On July 18, I launched hometownmatters.com, a blog that enables me to post multiple stories and pictures, closer to my old newspaper days without the pressure. As a working editor, I wrote an average of 13 to 15 stories a week and had to attend numerous meetings. As a blogger I have much more free time and much more choice about what I write.
Still, community news is my background, so I decided to label my expanded blog community news.
I think it was football great and legendary showboater Joe Nemeth who said, “It ain’t bragging if you can do it.”
We seem to be doing it. As of today, 29 days after my first Community News post, 11,384 readers have clicked into hometownmatters to read one or more stories on their computers or cellphones. Some 39 have posted comments after stories and an untold number has posted comments on the three Facebook pages.
So, maybe Attorney Jones does not see us in playing arena, but I think he is missing a bet by not just telling Pacific people, in his words, what they want to know. And this seemed like a good vehicle to do it.
The intention to approve the measure is included in the posted agenda for tomorrow’s meeting at www.pacificmissouri.com / government / agendas & minutes
The City”s “Clowntorney” won’t give a written legal opinion in his own words, simply because he is in fear of losing his job, if what he rules is different than what he was paid to rule.
The action of this fool is beyond comprehension, attorney or not! This clown serves at the pleasure of the Mayor with the consent of the Board of Aldermen He legally is bound by the canon of ethics to comply with a written legal opinion in writing when his client (City of Pacific) may find itself in violation of law when they are faced with a statute on its face which prohibits them from doing the very act which they now plan to do, The City needs a NEW CITY ATTORNEY and now is the time for the Acting Mayor and Board of Alderman to advise this attorney your failure to provide to the Acting Mayor and Board what has been requested of you is now DEMANDED of you. Failure to comply with this directive will be deemed insubordination AND YOU WILL BE FIRED!!!!!!!