The Jefferson City News-Tribune, June 18
State correct in not paying for Greitens’ legal mess
The state’s Office of Administration made the right call in declining to pay legal bills racked up by former Gov. Eric Greitens. Missouri taxpayers should not be on the hook for the bills.
A pair of lawyers whom Greitens hired to defend him in the legal troubles that led to his resignation have billed the state more than $153,400.
Rep. Jay Barnes, the Jefferson City Republican who chaired a special House committee that investigated Greitens, recommended the state reject the invoices.
“Instead of placing the burden on Missouri taxpayers, those legal fees should be borne exclusively by Eric Greitens himself,” Barnes said in a letter to OA.
We commend Office of Administration Commissioner Sarah Steelman who, late last week, announced OA would not pay the bills.
“It appears that the primary beneficiary of the legal services that your firm rendered was the former governor individually and that the services were not ’necessary for the efficient conduct’ of the Governor’s Office,” she wrote in identical letters to the two attorneys.
Barnes argued the contract with the attorneys was for more than $500, so it should have been bid but wasn’t, and Greitens directly benefited from the lawyers’ work. He also said the contract violates an executive order Greitens himself signed on the day he took office in 2017.
Kansas City lawyer Eddie Greim, who charged $340 an hour for his legal work, said the state has a “clear legal duty to pay” for the services of he and the other lawyer, Ross Garber, who last month told a special House committee he charged the state $320 an hour, “which is half of my normal rate.”
Greim said Greitens hired personal legal counsel to defend him against impeachment, and those attorneys will be paid by Greitens, not taxpayers. But he and Garber were not hired to be his personal or “private” counsel, he said.
Their work, he argues, wasn’t for Greitens personally, but for the office of governor.
“There is no question that in impeachment and other constitutionally significant proceedings, the Office itself has an interest in ensuring that impeachment is confined to the role specified by the Missouri Constitution,” Greim told the News Tribune.
We agree with Steelman that the legal work was mostly to benefit Greitens, not the office of governor. But, regardless of what you believe on that point, the fact that bids were not sought is enough reason to reject payment.
Missouri Auditor Nicole Galloway, a Democrat, said she has concerns about the hiring of the attorneys by the state, and is looking into the matter. State Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican, has agreed with Barnes that Greitens illegally hired the attorneys.
Steelman made the right call on behalf of taxpayers to reject the bills. Legally, it has an out because the state didn’t seek bids for the work. Ethically, it’s right because Greitens’ legal troubles were caused by his own actions.
More of our tax money shouldn’t go toward cleaning up the mess.
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The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 16
NGA-related dumpsite is a big health concern. Who’s protecting residents’ rights?
Long before St. Louis went into hyperdrive in its campaign to keep the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency from leaving town, residents around the NGA’s north side construction site had legitimate complaints about being treated as second-class citizens. The NGA project’s arrival on their doorstep has done nothing to alleviate those concerns.
A serious health issue has developed with NGA site preparation at Jefferson and Cass avenues. During the past school year, children and staffers at nearby Gateway Michael Elementary School began complaining of breathing problems. Thick layers of dust were settling on cars and clothes of staffers at Gateway.
The school’s entrance is barely 150 feet from the former site of the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex - now a dumpsite for concrete and other debris cleared from the NGA’s construction site. St. Louis Public Radio obtained public records and conducted extensive interviews documenting the extent of the dust problem.
The site features multiple mountains of rubble across several acres and towering over the two-story school complex. This eyesore appears to violate multiple local, state and federal laws. If such an impromptu dump was foisted onto a wealthier neighborhood, say St. Louis Hills, its existence would be measured in nanoseconds.
So far, the only evidence of a response from local authorities has been to suspend dumping and install an air-quality monitor at the southwest corner of the site.
KWMU reporter Ryan Delaney reports that dozens of students and staffers suffered breathing problems as the dumping persisted this year. The Gateway school nurse handled 359 complaints from students. Four wound up being hospitalized. At least 14 staff members missed work for an average of two to three days, citing respiratory problems.
Federal and state law requires construction and demolition sites to minimize the spread of dust they generate - something that clearly didn’t occur in this case. No one seems to want to take responsibility.
Otis Williams, executive director of the St. Louis Development Corp., which is overseeing the NGA site-preparation work, dismissed the health problems as “not out of the norm,” Delaney reported.
On projects like this, a formal permitting procedure is required, including public hearings preceding a zoning reclassification. It’s not clear if that was done in this case. No such permit appears on the city’s property registry.
What is clear is that the rights of parents, teachers and children got short shrift in favor of the NGA project. That’s been the case in this area far too often; for decades the city tolerated developer Paul McKee’s willful neglect of his derelict properties. His lofty plans for a neighborhood upgrade made authorities reluctant to crack down on McKee’s blatant and persistent code violations.
We’re all for the dramatic progress that, hopefully, will accompany the NGA project. But that progress must not come at the expense of local residents’ rights.
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The Kansas City Star, June 17
Politicians are blocking constituents on social media. What are they so afraid of?
Emailing elected officials seems almost quaint in the now-now-now world of social media, where we’re used to real-time call and response. In recent weeks, hopeful signs suggest that our representatives are beginning to recognize today’s communication realities - whether they want to or not.
Thin skin is not a valuable trait in a politician, nor is bad behavior in the social networks. Blocking other users shows you’re afraid your ideas can’t stand up to scrutiny - a signature of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens’ embarrassingly short tenure. And those with poor impulse control should keep their thumbs off that Facebook shortcut. Missouri state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal should still resign for her beyond-intemperate 2017 post hoping that President Donald Trump would be assassinated.
That’s why newly-installed Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s pledge to quit banning people in social channels is a laudable move. His policy should become a litmus test for voters.
Law is catching up with technology. Trump’s use of his favorite mode of communication was dealt a serious blow last month when a federal judge ruled that the First Amendment dictates he can no longer block people on Twitter, where he makes “official statements.” (Twitter users can neither directly view nor reply to tweets from accounts that have blocked them.)
Maverick 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was an early adopter of Facebook as a direct connection to sympathetic voters, realizing she could craft her own message there without interpretation from pesky outsiders.
Fair enough. But that approach has a built-in, perhaps fatal limitation: Who besides your already-receptive audience will ever see your posts?
The trolls, that’s who. And those trolls continue to rule the social media roost, especially on Twitter - the complaint box of the internet.
Do officeholders face disparagement and even direct physical threats online? Of course they do, as does every public figure from athlete to actor, high schooler to waiter. But there’s a crucial distinction: Only one of these groups is paid by tax dollars. Legislators have a unique civic obligation. The idea of an elected official cutting off a constituent’s ability to use any public form of communication is absurd on its face.
Abusive behavior violates the social channels’ terms of service, and public servants have the same recourse available to the rest of us (despite how hollow and capricious those safeguards may be). And if a threat is specific and credible, anyone can turn to law enforcement.
Lawmakers, nobody says you have to respond to every drop of bile lobbed your way. And let’s not forget that participating in social media isn’t mandatory in the first place. But if you choose to play the game, don’t prove your fragility by zeroing out the naysayers.
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