Council Swearing-In or American Girl Store Party? Which Is the Bigger Deal?

Chesterfield's City Council had its annual swearing-in ceremony last week, of four incumbents who won their seats back on the April 3 election.

No new faces. Few people come to the regular meetings.

But before the ceremony, there was the usual pre-meeting, meeting—called the Agenda Meeting in Chesterfield—a work session in other towns.

The pre-meeting is open to the public and held in a small, awkward conference room. The table is too big for the room, and chairs face the wrong direction to view Powerpoint screenings.

The pre-meetings are often more interesting than anything you'll see in a regular meeting, since councilpersons kick around topics in a slightly more informal setting.

But the only interesting comment at this pre-meeting Wednesday was hope that the Planning and Public Works Committee meeting the next day would end quickly, so councilmembers could get to the special party at the American Girl store in Chesterfield Mall.

Mayor Bruce Geiger was missing as was Councilman Randy Logan. It was announced the mayor was sick and Logan was out of town.

After 10 minutes of the pre-meeting, council decided they needed a secret pre-meeting, and voted to close it to the public. These closed meetings usually deal with lawsuits or personnel issues, although our Monarch Fire Protection District closed a meeting last year to plan a $26,000 party—and called it a personnel matter.

Chesterfield city council took only ten-minutes to wrap up in private, while Monarch schedules several one- or two-hour closed meetings a month. Quite a difference.

While we public members milled about waiting for the Council swearing-in meeting to start Wednesday, I did get my first laugh of the night.

A large permanent sign on the wall outside council chambers reads, “No Food or Drinks allowed in Council Chambers.”

I walk in the chambers, and to my right were two tables full of food, and to my left were tables with washtubs full of iced bottled water. I took a picture or two, included here.   

Family members of the re-elected councilpersons began arriving, plus a couple surprise guests.

Former Mayor John Nations showed up. Here is a guy who voters entrusted to run the city, but then he left mid-term for the top job with an agency he had just delivered a tax hike for.

His job as CEO with a quasi-government agency, Bi-State Development’s Metro Transit, sticks us, the residents, with a second sales tax for transit. The campaign strategy for the tax failed to mention we already pay an ongoing bus sales tax that dates back to 1973.

Then, when Nations took the job offer, the 25 percent increase he got to a $250,000 salary didn’t bother me. It was the fact that he gets a free membership to Missouri Athletic Club as part of the package that really steams me.

Here's the reason why: Back in the 1970s when I was a police detective earning (after a promotion) a whopping $13,500, I paid my own membership at MAC. I was under age 35 and the son of a member, so I got a discount, but I paid the annual dues and other fees. Now Nations comes along making $250,000 a year, and he has us taxpayers ante up for his membership?

Also at the swearing-in ceremony, I noticed the most dangerous person to the health, safety and welfare of the residents of Chesterfield enter the room. Yes it was Municipal Judge Rick Brunk.

I have written about Judge Brunk on four occasions. The first time was after I spent an evening in his courtroom and watched him call up defendants and lawyers one after another to the front of the dais where they would whisper to each other. No one in the open courtroom could hear what the charges were or were being reduced to or what the sentences were.

to shoplifting and Judge Brunk tried to talk the person out of it.

I got a better understanding of how Brunk works in the two DWI cases involving Cardinal broadcast Dan McLaughlin. In the first case, McLaughin was falling down drunk when stopped by police on I-64. He refused to take a breath test and tried to bribe the arresting officer. The other citations for moving violations were all reduced to a $350 parking ticket, so there were no points against his license.

Less than a year later, he could not dial a phone at the police station and refused to take a breath test. Brunk refused to revoke his first probation and made sure McLaughlin’s license would not be revoked.

I think Brunk may be more dangerous than McLaughlin. He lets drunk drivers like McLaughlin off the hook a couple of times a month.

Judge Brunk looks like an aging hippie in a suit, and robe. In casual conversation he will tell you he is in a rock band made up of judges. Soon, his group will open for Chuck Berry at Blueberry Hill. We can only guess what his position is on loud music citations.  

Brunk was at the council meeting to swear-in the reelected incumbents. This job could have been done by City Clerk Judy Naggiar, but Judge Brunk got the call.

It was a love fest as Brunk worked the room full of councilpersons.

You could see Brunk’s rock n’ roll background, as a showman. Instead of swearing-in all the councilpersons at once, we watched the event repeated four times, each member individually.

GOOD SPORT: Tania Pappas gets the good sport award. She lost handily in the April election, but was at City Hall to watch her opponent, Elliott Grissom take the oath of office.  

NEXT: Observations from the Planning and Public Works Meeting Thursday.