JEFFERSON CITY — Supporters of a plan to return control of the St. Louis police department to a state-appointed board say the switch could remove some of the politics they believe have gotten in the way of good policing.
But, whether they support the plan or not, former local officials who dealt with the old governor-appointed commission say politics were a significant feature under that system too.
Under proposals advancing in the Republican-controlled House and Senate, a Board of Police Commissioners with four members appointed by the governor would serve with the mayor or the president of the Board of Aldermen beginning in August 2023.
The state board, which is being pushed as a way to stem high crime numbers in the city, would be required to keep a police force of not less than 1,142 members at a time when the current roster is hovering around 1,000.
In announcing the plan in January, Sen. Nick Schroer, a St. Charles County Republican, said a return to state control after a decade of local oversight could remove some of the politics that he believes have led to chronic criminal behavior and warnings from businesses that they are pondering leaving the city.
“It’s taking the political dynamic and the distrust for who’s managing the department out of it and puts it back in the control of a group of individuals who will decide what’s best for the city,” Schroer told reporters at a press conference in the Capitol.
St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, who opposes the takeover, says that won’t be the case. In an interview this week with WBUR’s “On Point,” the mayor outlined her concerns.
“Under the previous state control board, politics was in every decision regarding our police department,” Jones told the Boston public radio station.
Her predecessors and other local officials also told the Post-Dispatch that politics were a feature under the old system.
The state-controlled board, which was dumped by Missouri voters in a 2012 referendum, was sometimes highly political, with demands placed on members by other elected officials to promote certain police officers over others.
In some cases, state senators, who were charged with confirming a governor’s appointment, would threaten to withhold support for city initiatives if members didn’t support the promotions of certain officers.
Former Mayor Vincent Schoemehl, who served three terms from 1981 to 1993, recalled the scramble to adjust to a new slate of members following the election of a new governor as a detriment to the operation of the department.
Later, the members were appointed to staggered terms under the tenure of the late St. Louis businessman Robert Baer, meaning there was not as much overall turnover.
Baer, who was chairman of the board from 1985 to 1989, vowed to run the police department like a business. Among other changes, he converted the promotion process to a merit-based system.
“After the changes initiated by Bob Baer, it became less political,” Schoemehl said.
Steve Conway has watched the process for decades. He served as an aldermen for 27 years and then was chief of staff to former Mayor Lyda Krewson. His father, Jim, was mayor and served on the state-appointed police board.
He said some changes have tamped down on the gamesmanship that was played when it came to questions of promotions in the department.
But, he said a new board may be a lot like the current board.
“There will always be politics in all jobs. Everybody is striving to get a promotion,” Conway said.
Former St. Louis Mayor Clarence Harmon, who also served as police chief, told the Post-Dispatch in 2010 that politics played a big role in who served on the board.
“People don’t want to get on the board because it’s an opportunity for idle chit-chat,” he said. “They want to get on because they have influence.”
The debate over the future of police oversight comes 10 years after the 152-year reign of state control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department ended.
The state-controlled board was a relic of the Civil War, as pro-South politicians in Jefferson City devised the system to thwart Union sympathizers in St. Louis.
Then-Gov. Claiborne Jackson and pro-Southern members of the state Legislature wanted to contain the Union-leaning city police department, and seized upon a reform measure other U.S. cities had adopted to combat political scandals. Jackson signed the bill creating the new board in 1861, and then quickly appointed four like-minded commissioners.
The 2013 switch from control under a state-appointed commission to local control came after years of work by then-St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and other city politicians.
They argued that neither the mayor nor the city’s legislative body, the Board of Aldermen, had any direct control over policing. The mayor held a seat on the five-member commission that runs the department, but Slay argued that he could not quickly order a change in tactics to respond to crime trends, hold the chief accountable for lax policing or tell the department how to spend city money.
Financier and philanthropist Rex Sinquefield bankrolled a $2 million statewide campaign in support. And more than 400 elected officials across Missouri signed on to convince voters in the November 2012 election to vote “yes.”
But attitudes about oversight have changed in recent years as city leaders have grappled with crime. Republicans, who control all levers of state government, have made crime a major topic on their agenda heading toward the 2024 election.
Kansas City, which does not control its police force, is weathering some of the same issues of politics that Republicans say will be fixed if St. Louis is placed under the governor-appointed board.
There, Mayor Quinton Lucas, who sits on the five-member board, has frequently challenged legal decisions by the commission and voted against the creation of a special committee that he now says is illegally meeting in secret.
But Conway, the former alderman, downplayed the idea that a new board overseeing St. Louis is going to make decisions that will be detrimental to city residents.
“It’s not necessarily state control. All five appointed members will live in the city,” Conway said.
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