Zone Defense
At last week’s abbreviated meeting of the Board of Aldermen, Charley Kutz, a former Parkville mayor, resurfaced as a potential candidate for a position on the Parkville Planning and Zoning Board. This came after a 3-2 vote of the Board (three aldermen were unable to attend with prior notification).
Whether or not Mr. Kutz is the best available candidate for the position I personally cannot say. By all accounts he is a capable man who does good work. I’ve met him on a few occasions and he seems like a nice enough guy. Those who follow Parkville politics are aware that Kutz had personal problems that led to his resignation as mayor in 2003. Based on his history, Parkville residents should not be shocked at the debate surrounding his possible appointment.
So far, however, the burgeoning debate has yielded a few surprises.
In a series of e-mails obtained at the request of The Luminary, Ward 4 Aldermen Dave McCoy and Marc Sportsman championed the idea of Kutz’s appointment, but more importantly they wanted more representation on the board from their ward.
“Currently no one on the Planning Commission lives in either, so we have no representation from Wards 2 or 4,” McCoy wrote.
In his reply, Sportsman agreed, writing, “I agree we need someone from the Ward 2/4 areas on the Commission.”
That’s an unfortunate statement by them both. Nancy Jack serves on the Planning and Zoning Commission for Parkville’s Ward 2 and guess what folks, she’s the only sitting member with a perfect attendance rate. By all accounts, Ms. Jack is well respected in her Ward and throughout the city. She’s also the only member of the Commission that has her own weekly column in the locally published Parkville newspaper. Considering these facts, should she feel aggrieved by this slight? (Nancy took it in good humor. As shown each week in said column, no shrinking violet is she.)
Now, there may be some who feel that Nancy Jack’s service on the Board and subsequent ability to report on the Board’s activities may constitute a conflict of interest. Those people would be right. But the conflict of interest does not come from the city side, it comes from the journalism side.
When Ms. Jack was first appointed (by Mr. Kutz, no less), she did not work as a journalist. Now, If The Luminary were a major metropolitan daily or if we had home offices in St. Joseph, the potential for her to become a part of a story on which she is reporting would make the situation intolerable to her editors and employers. I, as publisher of her work, don’t have a problem with her service on the Board. She has decades of experience writing about Parkville planning matters and I can’t imagine depriving Parkville of her service because of her employment at our little ol’ newspaper. There’s no conflict of interest for any member of the Board to speak to the press in an honest and open matter about proceedings of the public entity. The same goes for anyone who observes the meeting, either as an interested party or a professionally (under)paid reporter.
That brings us to the second unfortunate statement. Sportsman, in his reply, wrote, “…if we are replacing someone on the commission it should be for cause. I have always been left with the impression that Dr. Brown and Mr. Stumbo performed admirably in their posts and would like to continue in their roles. We should discuss why they should be removed at our next Board Meeting, hopefully under executive session since this a personnel issue, in my opinion.”
It’s the last sentence that really gets me. I’ve always admired Alderman Sportsman’s candor on the Board and more often than not, I find myself applauding many of the positions he takes. It should be noted that this Board has been extremely open with The Luminary and the recently passed “blue box” law enabled The Luminary to receive the requested e-mails in a timely fashion without having to make any tiresome formal requests.
But to deprive the public — including Dr. Brown and Mr. Stumbo — of hearing the rationale for removals and appointments is entirely wrong. And it didn’t help that the entire discussion was held at a board meeting advertised simply as a few motions to pay bills down at the train depot. The meeting wasn’t televised, and the usual press corps didn’t even bother to show up (The Luminary, of course, did).
Parkville’s planning commissioners are public servants, who receive no pay from the city. They are appointed by elected leaders and secrecy should not be an option for our elected leaders. Such an action would very likely constitute a violation of the Missouri Sunshine Laws of public information (I feel certain it is, but I am not a judge). This is not a true personnel issue and it should definitely not be held in executive session, a practice the city has done much of recently.
The law permits executive sessions, but they are not required and then only for matters pertaining to hiring, firing, disciplining or promoting employees. The discussion on removal and appointing non-paid representatives of the citizenry needs to be a public matter, not something conducted in the darkness of an executive boardroom.
Should such an unfortunate event occur, the Luminary’s pledge to shed light on governmental proceedings, no matter how or where they occur, will become manifest. The city and her newspaper readers deserve no less.