During a sometimes-emotional special meeting of the Parkville Board of Aldermen, the board accepted the recommendation of the city’s ethics commission to reprimand outgoing mayor Nan Johnston for eight violations of the city’s ethics code.
The meeting was held in city hall and via Zoom on Monday, March 21 and featured public comment and candid statements from members of the board with board president Marc Sportsman presiding.
“I have less than two weeks in office and this is like a kick in the teeth,” Johnston said prior to the split vote, with alderman Bob Lock voting not to accept the ethics commission report and recommendation.
The situation arose after years of contentious interactions between city government and members of the Citizens for a Better Parkville group, which formed to protest the Creekside development at the intersection of Interstate 435 and Highway 45. Resident Elaine Kellerman filed a complaint with the city’s ethics commission last fall, and earlier this month that commission found Johnston in violation of the city’s ethics code in eight instances over the past several years.
Monday, Johnston said she believed the city’s ethics commission made the best decisions they could with the information provided to them, but they were not privy to all available information.
She said Kellerman and Jason Maki, an outspoken critic of the city and founder of Citizens for a Better Parkville, contacted ethics commissioners individually. She said while she attempted to follow proper procedure they - and possibly others - may have disseminated misleading information to members of the commission.
She accused Kellerman and her associates of communicating via an app that erases messages, and that they used the app to contact the editor of a Platte City based newspaper. The Landmark was named in three of the ethics violations found by the commission and Johnston has said the publication has targeted her personally on more than one occasion.
“For three and a half years the city’s agenda has been run by a special interest group,” Johnston said, referring to Citizens for a Better Parkville and the city’s settlement of a lawsuit brought by Maki alleging violations of Missouri open records laws.
As an alternative to the written reprimand suggested by the ethics commission, several members of the audience at the Monday meeting suggested the board take no action on the recommendation.
Dr. Don Breckon, retired president of Park University, called for the topic to be tabled indefinitely, as Johnston would be out of office within a few weeks. His comments were met with applause from the audience.
Breckon, who himself has served on city commissions over the years and as an elected official prior to coming to Parkville, was the first of several who spoke in support of Johnston.
“It seems to me the city is under siege by a small but vocal minority and it’s sad when that happens,” Breckon said. “This vocal minority has caused a city administrator to retire, it’s caused two (aldermen) to not run again, it’s caused the mayor to not run again and it’s caused a good (alderman) not to run for mayor. This vocal minority has cost the city many thousands of dollars and now they’re trying to censure the mayor. I would suggest they have been aided and abetted by the editor of an area newspaper and all of this troubles me very, very much.”
Community member and retired marketing manager Sher Wilde also spoke in support of Johnston as did Corky McCaffrey of Synergy Services, Pleasant Valley mayor David Slater and several others.
“I have known Nan for about 35 years while selling advertising,” Wilde said, noting she and a group of workers from the advertising job where they’d met formed lifelong friendships and many of them were present Monday. Johnston was always Parkville’s biggest cheerleader at those gatherings, she said.
“Like all of us, she is not a perfect human, but no one should question her dedication to Parkville,” Wilde said.
Slater is past president of Missouri Mayors United and said while she was not a perfect person, she’d been a “damn good” mayor.
Most speakers echoed Breckon’s suggestion that the matter should be indefinitely tabled. Others voiced concerns of who was next on the group’s agenda and that the targeting of a female mayor raised red flags on sexism in the community.
One woman who spoke in support of Johnston said she was afraid to give her home address at the meeting because of the current atmosphere in the community. Over the past decade, she has refused several calls to serve on public boards due to ongoing tensions - including squabbles predating the Creekwood development.
“Parkville is a wonderful place and this is ruining it for so many people,” said Tricia Szasz of the Parkville Art Studio. “It could be a much better place if the people who love this town could actually step up and do something to make it better, but we can’t.”
Sportsman and Lock also spoke out on the subject as a whole, not only addressing the ethics complaint but also the actions that led up to it.
Lock thanked the ethics commission for the work they did on such a difficult matter, although he called the process “flawed.”
“This is driven by people working on an anti-Parkville narrative and to me this is character assassination,” Lock said. “The current term they use for this in schools is bullying, and I appreciate that finally we have a group standing up and saying ‘no more bullying.’”
Lock said he is among those not seeking re-election, specifically because he does not want to be targeted by the same character assassination and to have it impact his business and personal life.
Sportsman will also end his long tenure on the board in April.
“All of us since the latter part of 2018 were constantly bombarded by certain individuals and it made the enjoyment of being an elected official a lot less than it previously was,” Sportsman said. “We are steadfast that the Creekside development was exactly the right thing to do at the time for the city and we took arrows for it.”
He said board members had even received anonymous emails via a system based in Switzerland containing vulgar messages about decisions made by the board.
The ethics commission’s report was based upon what the commissioners believed was the truth, he said, and he did not wish to discount their work.
“In my mind this is not about whether Nan is a good person, a hard worker, a wonderful mayor, a great representative for our city,” he said. “It is addressing what the ethics commission feels are human frailties that could have been avoided, and that’s what’s giving me angst.”
Sportsman cited the commissioners’ report, which stated many of the violations came from mistakes made by Johnston while under pressure, and that most could have been avoided.
He pointed to his long relationship with Johnston as a fellow elected official and neighbor.
“I struggle with the ethics commission’s findings in knowing that she is human, we are human, we make mistakes and we could have done things differently, and better,” Sportsman said.
He entertained the suggestion to not take action on the commission’s recommendation, but said he wasn’t sure that was the correct course of action either.
Alderman Greg Plumb addressed complaints by Citizens for a Better Parkville that the city often conducts business behind closed doors.
“No we don’t,” he said.
Discussions about hiring a new city administrator, development plans and other confidential matters are discussed in closed session as permitted by law, with public votes taken when appropriate.
“I don’t see how we can be any more open,” he said.
Alderman Bob Rittman said the city’s ethics code was written 20 years ago and targeted to a particular situation at that time. He suggested new city administrator Alexa Barton and the city attorney review the code and modernize it if necessary.
He was concerned by allegations that ethics commissioners were fed unsubstantiated information by complainants. He was personally involved in a few of the situations that led to complaints and said they were misrepresented to the ethics commission because supporting evidence was omitted from their consideration.
After one speaker said Johnston was found ‘guilty,’ by the ethics commission, alderman Brian Whitley said “I cringe a bit when people use the term ‘guilty,’ because this is not a court, the ethics commission is not a court.” However, because violations were found he believed the city needed to follow through with the process.
City clerk Melissa McChesney read the letter of reprimand recommended by the ethics commission aloud prior to the vote.