Special Committees With No Opinions

For the second time in five years, there was a specially appointed committee in Town and Country to study fire and EMS service and make a recommendation about how fire and EMS services should be delivered to the citizens. I'm intrigued, however, by the mystery of how this committee doesn't ever seem to recommend anything.

Town and Country does not have its own fire and ambulance service, it contracts out to the . The last five-year contract between Town and Country and the West County EMS and Fire Protection District expired at midnight on New Year’s Eve. There was even a special meeting scheduled on New Year’s Eve because no agreement had been reached between the city the district. Prior to that, there were alderman and fire committee meetings discussing the matter, but they were closed to the public. A new one-year contract agreement was reached on Dec. 30, and the special New Year's Eve meeting was canceled.

What was discussed to reach that contract agreement? What other options were considered?  Who knows because I can't seem to find any record of a meeting.

For the second time, a special fire committee appointed by the mayor wrote no report and made no public recommendation on how the city should contract out its fire services. When trying to find out what was discussed, it appeared as if the city was trying to hide what went on. It would take 29 days to get an answer, which provided no information.  

In early 2010, Mayor Jon Dalton appointed a special fire service committee. It has been impossible for me to figure out exactly what, if anything, this committee did and why it existed. Members held closed meetings and never made a written recommendation to the mayor or board of alderman.

The one citizen member of the committee who had a fire or EMS background was emergency room coordinator, Leonard Winer. He attended the first two meetings and did not attend any more.

Twice meetings were not held when there was a lack of a quorum. The fire committee was then broken down to a fire services subcommittee. It was called the Fire and EMS Contract Negotiations Committee on the city’s website and the Fire subcommittee by the mayor at alderman meetings.

There were no longer meetings of the Fire Service Committee. All the subcommittee meetings were closed to the public, with the city claiming the subcommittee was discussing contract negotiations. The subcommittee had no authority to actually negotiate anything or sign anything. But four meetings were closed from any review by the public.

The Missouri Sunshine, Open Meetings and Open Records laws require that upon a final disposition records, votes and minutes must be open to the public. As far as I could tell, the new contract with the West County EMS and Fire Protection District was a final disposition. On Jan. 2, I sent a sunshine request for any reports, votes, e-mails and minutes from the fire service committee or the fire service subcommittee to Chief and City Aminstrator John Copeland.

On Jan. 21, I got an e-mail from the city clerk telling me a packet containing the records I requested was ready. The packet contained no reports or minutes of closed meetings. I immediately sent an e-mail back to Copeland asking where these documents were.

All I got back was a one sentence reply that the city attorney would address my request. 

On Jan. 31, the city attorney sent me an e-mail that the committee made no reports. He also attached one and two-sentence-long minutes of each closed meeting. Every set of minutes showed no votes were taken by the subcommittee.

I found it a little strange than an advisory committee never wrote a report to provide advice or voted on any proposal to pass along to the mayor or board of aldermen, but I certainly was not surprised. Four and a half years ago, it was a similar story.  

Back in 2006, right after I moved to Town and Country, firefighters were going door to door asking residents to sign a petition so they could be annexed into the fire district. The City of Town and Country was not in the fire district at that time either, and the city was contracting our for fire and ambulance service as it is now.

There is no city property tax on homes. The fire district was paid by the city from general revenue funds collected through fees and sales taxes. The fire district’s property tax at the time was 84 cents per $100 valuation.

The firefighters, sent out by the West County EMS and Fire Protection District two months after they signed a new five-year contract, wanted me to agree raise my taxes by more than $600 a year. People in new big homes would see their taxes go up as much as $2,000 a year.

I started going to meetings and asking questions. Mayor Dalton kept referring to a “blue ribbon” committee he had formed that looked at fire service and recommended the city continue with the fire district.

Later, I learned that Dalton had been a lobbyist for the fire protection district the same year he signed the $17.5 million contract with the district. In 2006, I filed a Sunshine request to see the 2005 fire committee’s report. At first, I was told I could not see it because it pertained to contract negotiations. The answer implied there was a report.

I pointed out that the contract had already been signed, so the report was now open and should be released. However, it took me hiring a lawyer and threatening to sue to get any response. August of 2006 is when I found out the “blue ribbon” committee never wrote a report or took a vote on any recommendation.  

That left me with just a couple questions. Who gave the 2005 fire service committee a blue ribbon, and where is it?  It turns out the blue ribbon was just like any reports or votes by these committees in 2005 or 2010. It doesn’t exist.