This coming Tuesday, a meeting will be held by Missouri State Attorney General Chris Koster at the AG's office in Jefferson City. Several people will try to persuade the the AG to ignore the State Auditor's Office that said the state law was violated when the Mehlville Fire Protection District Board of Directors submitted a tax rate of .593 when they had just proposed a major tax decrease to the voters in April. The .593 is actually a few cents higher than last years tax rate and about four times what is allowed by Missouri statute after passage of April's ballot measure. Should the Attorney General's Office find the district broke the law, our fire district will have a budget shortfall of 12 million dollars next year.
All of this comes because of the politics of the Mehlville Fire Board and Mr. James Stonebraker, a Republican activist from St. Louis County. The board had the authority to lower its own tax rate but instead sought legislative approval and went before the voters. This earned them much praise in conservative circles around the state. All the while, they spent lots of money with their co-conspirator, the Call Newspapers, which not only passed the unnecessary ballot measure but helped bring voters to the polls for their candidate Director Bonnie Stegmann.
Numerous people will be heading to Jeff City Tuesday, among them State Senator Jim Lembke(R), and State Representatives Walt Bivins (R) and Mike Leara(R). Rep. Leara controls the district's employees' pension funds. Rep.Walt Bivins was the author of the bill that allowed the district to put the issue on the ballot. Sen. Jim Lembke pushed hard for its passage after not being for it but then getting pressure from Stonebraker and the Call Newspapers! None of these three are lawyers but they will try to defend Arron Hilmer's irresponsible decision to put a ballot measure before the voters with only the advice of a political activist. They will ask that AG Chris Koster to ignore the law and speculate as to what the voters really wanted. I voted against the measure in April but I think the voters wanted a tax decrease not a tax increase. Get yourself some popcorn. This will be fun to watch.
9 comments:
Will that be considered a meeting if more then one board member attends And I guess if it is all of us can go and attend. As far as being a closed meeting one the Attorney Generals office can dedied that.
If two members did attend, this indeed would be a board meeting. I doubt that will happen.Three legislators can meet with the AG behind closed doors.
What If 4 members meet lets say closed session via conferance call are texting. hmm I wonder if this has ever happend sure would be nice to know. After Mike Anthony's artical about Mr Bivens bill about video and audio taping closed meetings. Do you think Mr Anthony was trying to tell the voters something. After all loyelty in the press only last until a bigger story breaks. Follow the clues voters. Here is were it gets fun.
If a majority meet in any fashion, electronic or otherwise, it's an open meeting subject to posting and watching by the public. Also, if one board member sends a e-mail to a majority of the board, it is a public document and is supposed to be stored at the HQ of the public entity. The editor from Arnold could care less about the Sunshine Law.Has he written about the hundreds of violations by the fire board? Did he ever mention the write up the MO AGs office sent them last year.'
Why No he didnt hmm sounds like conspiracy by the BOD and a very out of topuch vaccume salesmen.
retna2001 you really should keep your mouth shut. First of all you are an idiot and second you have no idea what is going on. My suggestion is keep your dumb mouth shout and stay out of site.
Hey Mike who won?
7:15 HA HA your a joke
6:19 I don't really know!
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