Parkville officials opted not to destroy some older city records due to complaints from a political action committee (PAC) critical of the city and the PAC’s ongoing complaint to the Missouri Attorney General.
At the Tuesday, Sept. 17 meeting of the board of aldermen, a routine item pertaining to the destruction of records past their legal retention date was pulled from the consent agenda for further discussion.
City clerk Melissa McChesney told aldermen that the retention of records was governed by state statute and the guidelines of the Missouri Local Records Board, which operates under the Missouri Secretary of State. She said the city adopted a policy on retention in 2016 and annually reviews records to determine which meet the state criteria for disposal. The process has been completed several times while McChesney has worked for the city, she said.
The record purge only pertains to paper records, not electronic records.
“Records pertaining to the Sunshine Law complaint were not included in these documents and the city will continue to preserve records related to the complaint,” she said.
Alderman Brian Whitley said while he hopes the AG complaints are resolved shortly, he recommended the board postpone any document destruction, due to the “optics” of the situation.
“I think that helps to de-escalate whatever discourse might be going on,” Whitley said.
The discourse to which he refers is from the PAC Citizens for a Better Parkville, which launched a social media campaign to halt the record destruction. Jason Maki of Citizens for a Better Parkville sent the city a letter Sept. 17 via his attorney at Graves Garrett, asking the city to preserve records related to the more than a dozen Sunshine requests filed with the city over the last year.
Also that day, the city received a letter from the Missouri Attorney General’s office — which was notified of the agenda item by Citizens for a Better Parkville. In it, the state asked the city to confirm it would not destroy any records pertaining to the Sunshine requests. The city responded, confirming those records were not targeted.
“We know that we are destroying things that are entirely appropriate, but for a person that’s not in the know in the city, they could potentially come to other conclusions,” Whitley said.
Alderman Dave Rittman agreed that while old records are routinely disposed of by most businesses and municipalities, it wouldn’t hurt anything to postpone the record destruction for a couple of months until complaints are resolved.
Marc Sportsman served as mayor pro tem at the meeting in the absence of mayor Nan Johnston. He said city staff has been instructed to go about business as usual, despite the numerous Sunshine requests and complaints about transparency in city government, which arose about a year ago.
Citizens for a Better Parkville was formed to combat the Creekside development plan at Interstate 435 and Highway 45 and has since ventured into local politics by supporting candidates in an unsuccessful attempt to oust Johnston and other sitting aldermen.
Sportsman said business as usual included the routine destruction of old records, but due to “harassment” by the PAC, a routine activity could be spun into something more sinister.
“Even though we are asking you to do your job — keep doing your job as you have for many years — in this particular case I think it would be in everybody’s best interests not to do anything relative to the ongoing record keeping modification until the AG has come in and done their thing and we’ll move forward from there,” Sportsman said.
Sportsman said the city should wait, even if it meant renting additional space to store surplus records. The board voted unanimously to do so.
After the meeting, Citizens for a Better Parkville stated via social media that it encouraged the city to explore ways to digitize all city records for permanent retention.
The Missouri Attorney General’s office does not comment on complaints or the status of ongoing investigations. According to the attorney general’s office, only a court can impose penalties if it finds that the Sunshine Law has been violated, and penalties are assessed only if the violation is found to be purposeful.