JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley described the lawsuits his office initiated last month, including one that accused Jefferson County Councilwoman Renee Reuter of improperly ordering the destruction of records in violation of the state’s “Sunshine Law,” an upholding of the public’s right to information.
“Governmental transparency is a key tenet of democracy,” Hawley told the St. Louis Record in a statement.
The Sunshine Law was added to Missouri’s Constitution in 1973 after the passage of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act in 1966. The Missouri law mandates that meetings, records, votes, actions and deliberations by government entities be open to the public for access unless otherwise prohibited by law.
Filed on Jan. 17 in the Jefferson County Circuit Court, the suit alleges that Reuter, who was chair of the council in 2017, directed an administrative assistant to delete email messages pertaining to outside legal services provided to the council. A second suit alleges that the St. Louis County Executive Office in a number of instances failed to respond to requests for information from the public and failed to provide requested documents to journalists.
Violations of the Sunshine Law can result in fines of up to $5,000 for each deliberate violation.
According to a Jan. 27 report in Leader Publications, the email messages contained invoices for legal services from the law firm Cunningham, Vogel and Rost for defending the county in two lawsuits. One was brought in 2015 by former and current county officials who claimed that they had been underpaid since 2010 when the county.
The second suit was brought by County Executive Ken Waller in March 2017 in which Waller asked the court to overturn a council-approved ordinance giving the council, instead of him, authority to replace members of two agencies, the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Board of Adjustment.
The second case has been dismissed.
The report said the county has been billed by the outside law firms more than $150,000 in attorney fees related to the suits, including a $6,000 fee from Daniel Emerson of St. Louis to represent Waller in his suit against the council.
Requests for comment from Waller went unreturned.
Hawley indicated the Sunshine Law was designed to provide the public accountability.
“The Missouri Sunshine Law exists so that Missourians can know that their government is working for them,” he said.
He pledged to crack down on violators.
“Those who violate our State Open Records Law should recognize that on my watch, they will be prosecuted for violating this trust.”