Local News

St. Louis City’s $4,500 Bill for Email Records Draws Sunshine Lawsuit | St. Louis

Published

10 months ago

December 20, 2023

[ad_1]

click to enlarge MONICA OBRADOVIC Signs dot the yards of people living off Kingshighway who are angry about neighboring short-term rentals.

Not for the first time, the City of St. Louis’ handling of public records requests has made it the target of a lawsuit, this time from a resident who wanted to know what city officials were saying about attempts to regulate short-term rentals.

The resident’s lawyer, Dave Roland, says the suit seeks to prove that how the city handles requests for emails is unlawful.

Roland represents local activist Michelle Pona. This summer, she was one of many residents urging the Board of Aldermen to crack down on Airbnbs and other short-term rentals. Those rentals were becoming the sites of raucous and disruptive parties hosted by people who had rented places like downtown apartments or south city houses for one night only.

In October, the Board did pass two bills which, beginning next year, will forbid single-night rentals and require hosts to have an agent available 24/7 for renters and neighbors to contact.

Pona, who lives in Southwest Garden, was of the belief that those regulations didn’t go far enough. She also believed, according to her lawsuit, that Mayor Tishaura Jones’ deputy chief of staff Sara Baker had been “collaborating” on the specifics of the proposed legislation with corporate players in the short-term rental industry and the Realtors Association.

So on October 2, Pona submitted a Sunshine Law request to the city seeking copies of any emails or text messages to and from Baker that “contain[ed] anything about short term rentals, board bill 33, board bill 34, Airbnb, vrbo, realtors association, airbnb lobbyist[.]”

Pona submitted a similar request for Ward 4 Alderman Bret Narayan’s communications, too.

Pona says she received a reply from the city’s sunshine coordinator Joseph Sims.

A decent amount of local ink has been spilled about Sims. In September of last year, Post columnist Tony Messenger wrote that Sims was “becoming infamous among the circles of folks — especially reporters and attorneys — who regularly file requests for open records with the city.”

Sims informed Pona that 755 of Baker’s messages were potentially relevant to the request. Sims said that they needed to be converted from their native email format into PDFs and reviewed for their relevance. That would cost Pona almost $1,600.

Understandably not wanting to shell out that kind of money, Pona subsequently amended her request to ask for all 755 emails in their native format, with the intention that all 755 emails would be inherently responsive and therefore wouldn’t need to be reviewed or converted in any way.

However, Sims replied to that request saying that the records had to be reviewed by the city for their relevance before they could be released.

Pona argued that all 755 emails by definition were responsive to her second request.

That argument fell on deaf ears; Sims reiterated his previous message that the city needed $1,500 to convert and review the files before their release.

Sims and Pona went through an almost identical rigmarole with her request for Narayan’s emails, though the price tag on that request was even higher, at $3,000.

“What possible world would you need to review these emails to find out if they’re responsive if the citizen has said they’re all responsive?” asks Roland, Pona’s attorney and the director of litigation at the Freedom Center of Missouri, a libertarian law firm that frequently handles Sunshine Law cases. “It makes no sense at all, unless someone’s goal is to delay or prevent those emails from getting in the hands of the citizen who asked for them.”

The lawsuit Roland filed on behalf of Pona yesterday closely mirrors another lawsuit filed by Elad Gross, a candidate for Missouri attorney general, in September 2022. That lawsuit, which pertains to access to jail records, is still ongoing.

At an April hearing in that suit, Gross cross-examined Sims on the stand. His testimony revealed that the city’s protocols for handling Sunshine requests are anything but straightforward: each agency has their own custodian of records, but it’s not always clear who that person is; those records custodians communicate with Sims, and Sims communicates with the person making the request — except when Sims doesn’t hear back from the records custodian. Sims acknowledged that responses form the city rely heavily on email templates and that at times he himself arbitrarily assigns dates for when requests can be fulfilled.

Roland says that the suit filed yesterday gets at an issue that is much bigger than short-term rentals in the city. He is hoping to chip away at what he calls the “lengthy and astonishingly expensive review process” city records requests have to go through before they can be released — if they are released at all.

“We have seen over the last several years government entities throwing up unnecessary roadblocks preventing citizens or delaying citizens in getting public records,” Roland says. “And we see this case as an opportunity to clarify that those roadblocks are unlawful.”

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

5 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

5 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

5 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

[ad_2]

Source link