Politics & Government

Wildwood Ethics: City Council Member Accused Of Violating Open Meeting Laws

Wildwood's city representatives and attorney face decisions about a complex, internal matter.

Where does freedom of speech for city-elected officials end and Sunshine Laws that dictate transparency in government begin?

As reported in Eureka-Wildwood Patch, Wildwood city council members voted at the June 13 meeting to about the actions taken by fellow council member, Holly Parks, during a period of time when to on the council. Parks represents Ward 2.

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Since the June 13 city council meeting, Wildwood resident Bill Kennedy also filed a request to explore whether Parks had violated ethical guidelines as established by the city's charter and Missouri statutes.

Wildwood's board of ethics members, who presumably will handle the request, are city residents: Rob Wilkerson, Lezli Jones and Raymond Manto. Board alternates are Marc Perez and Patricia Boman.

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Wildwood representatives now will grapple with whether this situation meets the city charter's outline of an "election" or a different designation. Some argue that it doesn't qualify as an election because the event that triggered the communication represented a resident who was being appointed by Wildwood Mayor Tim Woerther to fill a vacancy, not being elected by Wildwood residents. A second question is: Did Parks interfere with a "vote?" The third question reflects her alleged use of city official status versus her stance that she was merely stating her own opinion from her own personal home computer.

The heart of the overall legal question for this situation is: What constitutes Wildwood's "majority"? The city charter indicates the municipality should have 16 council members plus a mayor, which makes a majority—or quorum—nine representatives of the 16. Traditionally in Wildwood, a vote to adopt an ordinance or to change regulations has required 'the nine vote.'

However, the discrepancy in the past few weeks results in the question:  What number is the 'majority' when a vacancy, or vacancies, exists at any given time on the council? In other words, does the quorum remain at nine always, or is it meant to drop to eight of 15, for example when there are fewer than 16 seated council members?

Parks maintains that she did not violate Sunshine Laws when she sent an e-mail on May 19 to seven other council members regarding her personal view that Don Kozlowski was not the best representative for Ward 1 and that she hoped they would not reconsider him during a second vote. She stated that counting herself, the communication involved eight council members, not the required nine to reflect Wildwood's magic majority.

As established at the June 13 city council meeting, however, city attorney Rob Golterman had sent an e-mail on May 17 to all city council members and staff, indicating that, in his legal opinion, Kozlowski was not considered a council member, even though he had been sworn in at the May 9 meeting. Golterman said, in retrospect, Kozlowski's vote failed to receive approval from the majority of council members, and therefore his appointment was considered null and void.

At the June 13 meeting, council member Tammy Shea, Ward 3, pointed out that Golterman's e-mail was distributed prior to Parks' e-mail, which Shea contends meant Parks should have known that Kozlowski's supposed spot was not being considered full, making the majority of nine unachievable. At the same meeting, Parks said she did not receive Golterman's e-mail pertaining to Kozlowski.

For an objective assessment of this situation, Patch asked Charles Davis, associate professor, Missouri School of Journalism, Columbia, MO.  Davis routinely deals with the Freedom of Information Act and Missouri Sunshine Law issues. He affirmed that drawing a line of distinction between freedom of speech for elected officials and honoring open communications in all governmental activities is a difficult, controversial issue.

"But I guess it comes down to this: If she (Holly Parks) didn’t trigger the Sunshine Law through her e-mail, and she didn’t if Wildwood's charter actually requires nine of 16 at all times...then how is it anything but her right to speak? What could she have done wrong?" posed Davis.

"Freedom of speech generally is surrendered a bit by public officials, though," he said.

"When they are elected to office, there are limits placed on their speech by the Sunshine Law, if you think about it. In fact, a group of lawmakers in Texas a year or two ago tried to mount a Freedom of Information Act challenge to Texas' open meeting law, essentially arguing that the Act allowed them to talk about whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, in whatever numbers of officials they wanted, in private. The courts shot that down."

Davis suggested that, actually, this particular circumstance more so begged the question of whether proper parliamentary procedure had been followed in handling the appointment of the vacancy at the city council meeting.

Editor's Note: Wildwood city council members took further action about this matter at Monday's meeting. Return to Eureka-Wildwood Patch for more details.


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