June 21, 2008 07:22 pm
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By Debby Woodin
dwoodin@joplinglobe.com
City Councilman Jon Tupper will face allegations of six specific instances of unethical conduct in office when the only known disciplinary case of its kind in recent memory is held Monday by the Joplin City Council.
While some council members in the past were subjects of disciplinary action, including Tupper, none required an evidentiary hearing.
“I don’t ever remember any type of situation like what’s coming up,” said former mayor Don Goetz. “We had the one little problem in 1985, I believe, where we had five councilmen on a recall, but that was a whole different situation.”
City Manager Mark Rohr alleges Tupper said he intended to fire Rohr if Rohr did not fire parks director Jerry Calvin and two other employees, and that Tupper gave instructions or criticized other city employees in violation of the City Home Rule Charter and council code of ethics.
Goetz said he knows there have been instances with past councils in which a member said something he shouldn’t have said to a city employee.
“Normally, through the years, since they’re not professional politicians, council members may have talked to city employees and said something when they didn’t mean to give them instructions. After we talked to them, they realize they’ve gone astray and they ceased and apologized for any action that could have been construed as giving orders to a city employee.”
Past trouble
There have been past investigations, disciplinary actions and recall efforts involving council members.
In the 1985 case cited by Goetz, five council members resigned after residents gathered enough signatures to force a recall election.
The recall was sought by a group led by Jack Stults after the council forced the resignation of then-City Manager Strib Boynton. Council members alleged that Boynton gave out information about city issues to reporters before giving it to council members and failed to comply with council decisions on raises for certain employees and how they were to be recorded in the budget.
Bill Scearce, a current council member, was serving on the council then and was mayor pro tem. He was not a target of that recall.
There also was a recall effort in 1971 by residents of an organization called the Good Government League that accused some council members of wasteful spending.
Two of the council’s current nine members — Tupper and Jim West — have been subjects of disciplinary action or investigations in the past.
Tupper was reprimanded by the council in 2006 for two ethics violations related to voting on city property acquisitions in a block where he advised his son to buy property. Tupper was serving as mayor and the council followed the vote to censure him with a vote of confidence.
West was censured in 1995 for trying to move a friend up on the wait list for public housing assistance.
And in 2000, after reporting on election day that campaign signs bearing ethnic slurs were put in his yard, there was a three-month investigation into whether West participated in the incident as a way to win election-day publicity. A friend of West’s admitted to planting the signs but said it was a prank. The council probe, which cost $10,000, produced little evidence about whether West knew of the prank.
At the time, current council member Phil Stinnett asked the council to hold a hearing before abandoning the case, but his effort was defeated.
Current hearing
Because it is so unusual for this type of hearing to be held, City Attorney Brian Head gave the City Council written guidelines on the procedure.
Head said Mayor Gary Shaw will conduct the proceeding and will be able to confer with the city’s municipal judge, Alex Curchin. Curchin will sit with Shaw to assist the mayor with rulings regarding evidence and procedure.
The city attorney will call witnesses. Head said the city charter does not make provisions for the city to pay for legal representation at the hearing for the witnesses or Tupper. However the city did make arrangements for city employees to confer with an attorney if they wanted to do so before the hearing.
The witnesses will give their testimony under oath, which will be administered by City Clerk Barbara Hogelin.
The city attorney will guide the witnesses in giving direct testimony to establish the record the witnesses are to give. Then, council members will be allowed to ask questions of the witnesses. Tupper also will be allowed to ask questions.
When all sides agree that they are done with a witness, that witness will be excused.
After the city has presented all its witnesses, Tupper will have the right to testify under oath, call his own witnesses and offer any supporting documentary evidence.
The city attorney and the council may question any witnesses Tupper calls.
After all the evidence of both sides has been presented, the city attorney will advise the council on the standard of proof. The council then may take a vote on whether it finds violations exist.
After the hearing
A special, closed meeting also has been scheduled for the council after Tupper’s hearing. It was set at the request of Tupper and council members Stinnett and Morris Glaze.
Head said the city charter allows a meeting to be called at the request of three or more council members. The written request calls for the meeting “for the purpose of evaluating the performance of a council employee or employees.”
City Manager Mark Rohr said he believes the meeting is a threat to his job because he filed a written statement as part of the investigation into Tupper’s alleged actions that backs up statements by other city employees that Tupper wanted parks director Jerry Calvin and others fired.
“This is a thinly veiled attempt to punish me for my statement, and the information I provided against Mr. Tupper in the recent investigation, and to keep me quiet, and it isn’t going to work,” Rohr said last week.
Tupper, asked about the purpose of the closed meeting, would not be specific.
“I believe it is exactly what it says.”
To watch
Jon Tupper’s hearing is set for 6 p.m. Monday in the council chambers at City Hall, 602 Main St. It is open to the public.
MSSU’s television station, KGCS-TV, plans to air the hearing. It is broadcast on channel 57 or on channel 7 of CableOne. There also will be updates during the hearing on the Globe’s Web site at www.joplinglobe.com.
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