Jefferson City Council's yard waste site decision questioned for transparency - krcgtv.com

Jefferson City Council's yard waste site decision questioned for transparency

JEFFERSON CITY - After Jefferson City Council backtracked plans to reopen the city-owned yard waste site at Monday night’s meeting, not all residents are happy with how the council originally handled the issue by moving to closed session to reject two bids for the service and not allowing for any public input.

Stephen Sokoloff, President of the Capital City Political Action Committee (PAC), says the issue is two-fold, he says it demonstrates a lack of transparency between the council and residents and also violated the Missouri Sunshine law under section 610.021 that permits the council to go to closed session when discussing bids but does not allow them to go to closed session to make policy decisions which in this instance Sokoloff says is a policy issue.

“They are not though permitted under that section to go into closed session to discuss policy, make policy decisions. Which the termination that they were no longer going to be offering the yard waste service, I believe was a policy decision. And even though it may have related to the same subject about the bids, it was not about the bids.”

Sokoloff adds, “I do firmly believe that this is not something that is covered by the close meeting exceptions to the statute.”

Despite this, Sokoloff is thankful the council reversed track on Monday and decided to keep the service.

“Yea, I would applaud the city council acknowledging that there’s considerable public sentiment in favor of maintaining the yard waste site. And also, you know recognizing that they have some obligation to address that need.”

KRCG reached out to Jefferson City’s City Attorney, Ryan Moehlman, for comment on the decision to move to closed session to reject the bids for yard waste in their February 20th meeting, but under attorney client rules is not allowed to speak on the matter.