Ballot language for Clay County constitution leaves off key features of new government
When Clay County voters go to the polls on Nov. 3, they have the choice to vote for a new form of county government that would more than double the size of the elected commission.
By voting for a new county constitution, the voters also would approve of changing how five county positions, now elected every four years, are filled. Those positions instead would be appointed by a county administrator under the new government.
But voters won’t know they are voting on those changes just by reading their ballot. That’s because the ballot language mentions none of that.
“I find it inadequate,” said Clay County Sheriff Paul Vescovo, who is not seeking another term in this year’s election. “It does not tell you about important things that are in this constitution.”
The proposed Clay County constitution is 15 pages long, single-spaced, making it difficult to condense and impossible to include everything it does on a ballot.
What the ballot language does say is that the new constitution would:
▪ Prohibit elected officeholders from voting on their own pay increases,
▪ Make elections nonpartisan,
▪ Require term limits,
▪ Allow for the recall of elected officials and for citizen petitions,
▪ Establish campaign contribution limits,
▪ Prohibit officeholders from hiring family members,
▪ Ban commissioners from getting county jobs within two years of leaving office,
▪ Restrict the issuance of public debt,
▪ Form a review commission for future amendments to the constitution for voter approval.
“It’s very abbreviated,” said Megan Thompson, the current county clerk who is running for a seat on the three-member county commission.
If the constitution passes, that three-member commission would become a seven-member commission in 2022. And Thompson’s clerk’s office, as well as four other positions that voters currently elect — the collector, recorder of deeds, public administrator and treasurer — would be hired by a county administrator.
Greg Canuteson, a former Liberty mayor who was on the constitution committee, said the criticisms of ballot language came from people who don’t want county government reformed.
“I am sorry we didn’t write it the way they want to write it,” Canuteson said. “We didn’t write it in a way that caters to their selfish interests. I’m sorry.”
Who is the “they” Canuteson refers to?
“The courthouse crowd and their friends, their family and friends, that is who it is, basically,” Canuteson said. “And Jason Withington.”
Withington is an activist in Clay County who helped lead an effort to gather signatures to invite the Missouri auditor to examine county government. Clay County has been a magnet for controversy the last four years — from political in-fighting to allegations of corruption, all leading to soaring legal bills to outside law firms to sort it all out.
Those controversies helped prompt the move for a new Clay County government, one that would fundamentally overhaul what reform-minded proponents say is an archaic form of government that is more in keeping with the rural county that Clay County once was and not suited for the county it is today.
Clay County voters have been asked three previous times since 2000 to move to a charter form of government. Each time the voters said no. Proponents of changing county government hope that by putting the measure on a general election ballot that also includes a presidential contest will give it a better chance of passing.
Craig Porter, a Clay County commissioner from 2001 to 2008, said he learned quickly that all he needed to get anything done as a commissioner was to get at least one fellow commissioner to agree. Porter said that worked when the commission pursued good ideas.
But how does it work under the current commission, where Luann Ridgeway and Gene Owen control the votes during a time when high-profile controversies take place?
“Not so good,” Porter said.
Porter, who is on the constitution committee, said it’s for that reason that expanding the county commission to seven members was important to him.
“My first priority was to get at least seven members on the commission so we wouldn’t have another eight years of six-figure bills from Jeff City law firms and putting the county, what, $50 million in debt or whatever they did,” Porter said.
Then why not add the commission expansion to the ballot language?
“I guess I just thought if they were really interested, they would look at the document itself,” Porter said.
Copies of the proposed Clay County constitution are not readily available online. The county website doesn’t have it, nor does the website for the 7th Judicial Circuit, which covers Clay County and whose judges appointed the constitution committee. The Clay County Election Board has the ballot language, but not the full constitution.
“I couldn’t find it anywhere,” Thompson said. “I reached out to Kevin Graham personally and asked to have a copy of it.”
Graham, a Liberty city councilman and member of the constitution committee, said an electronic copy was available at the Facebook page for Fix Clay County Government, which has 140 followers. Copies of the constitution have also been circulated in newspaper legal notices, including one from a Sept. 30 edition of The Star.
Canuteson said the constitution committee wrote the ballot language to include “things that are transformational for county government.”
The expansion of the commission was not one of those things.
“Because if we put that in the ballot language, they would have screamed and yelled and told everybody we were increasing the cost of government,” Canuteson said, adding that the constitution cuts compensation to commissioners.
Changing the elected officials over five county departments into hired positions also didn’t make the ballot language. Canuteson said that change doesn’t affect the lives of the average voter.
“I would tell you term limits is an important part of the document — more important part of the document,” he said. “I would tell you making it nonpartisan is a more important part of the document. I would tell you recall is more important.”
But to skeptics of the push for the proposed constitution, the omissions raise concerns.
“They were pretty slick about it,” Vescovo, the sheriff, said. “There isn’t much time to react.”
