‘Absurd.’ Independence asked to give away power plant in exchange for dropping lawsuit
Independence city leaders this week balked at a request to turn over a defunct power plant to a private company in exchange for an end to pending litigation against the city.
Members of the city council unanimously rejected the unusual request, deciding instead to continue to defend claims made in the lawsuit in Jackson County Circuit Court. The suit stems from comments that two council members made in a Star story in March 2020.
At that time, the city had received a proposal from a collection of businesses led by Titan Fish Partners LLC to repurpose its Blue Valley Municipal Power Generating Plant into a biofuels production facility.
Councilwoman Karen DeLuccie and then-Councilman Scott Roberson told The Star they had no interest in doing business with Titan Fish, which is led by Kansas investor Joe Campbell. Also included in the proposal was Steve Tilley, a statehouse lobbyist and former Missouri House speaker who is a longtime friend and adviser to Gov. Mike Parson.
Both have histories of controversy in Independence.
Last year, The Star reported that Tilley was a focus of questions from federal investigators looking into a pair of questionable utility contracts in Independence. The feds were also examining the rollout of Missouri’s inaugural medical marijuana program, which Tilley is also involved in.
By the spring of 2020, FBI agents had questioned three Independence council members and a handful of lawmakers, lobbyists and statehouse staff in Jefferson City.
“I would not even consider a bid from them,” Roberson said at the time. “Not even consider it.”
“Are you kidding me?” DeLuccie said when informed by a reporter that Tilley and Campbell had bid on the project. “I’m very tired. I’m tired of hearing their names.”
In June 2020, Joe Campbell and Titan Fish sued the city, DeLuccie and Roberson for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and claims that the public comments damaged the company’s prospects for a financially beneficial deal with the city.
The city has sought a summary judgment, in which a judge enters a finding without a full trial.
On Monday, the council was set to discuss the case in a closed session but all members agreed to hear the update in public.
Steven Coronado, the lawyer representing the city, said he had received a settlement proposal from Titan Fish. The company asked the city to hand over the Blue Valley plant and all its contents and provide a 10-year tax abatement on the property.
“I have an ethical obligation to provide you with any settlement offer I receive regardless of how ridiculous it may seem,” Coronado told the council.
Coronado said the company indicated it planned to file additional claims against the city, other council members, the mayor and the city manager.
The settlement proposal included three press releases from the California company Aemetis, but it was not clear how that related to the dispute in Independence.
Aemetis creates biogas, ethanol and sustainable aviation fuel. The attached news releases documented the company’s work of providing renewable biofuels for major American airlines. Campbell included a memo outlining how that company had recently secured a lease on a former Army base in California, but it’s unclear how that relates to the Independence power plant.
Officials with Aemetis said they had no contractual agreement with Titan Fish, but they have discussed the potential of converting the Blue Valley facility into a renewable fuel plant.
“Titan Fish sees there’s an opportunity and has discussed it with us,” Aemetis CEO Eric McAfee told The Star.
Councilman Dan Hobart, who is a lawyer, said he was mystified by the inclusion of the materials from the California company.
“I have no clue what that is. No idea,” he said in an interview. “To me, it was completely bizarre to attach PR or marketing materials to a proposed settlement. From a lawyer’s perspective, all of it is bizarre.”
Aside from the people involved, council members in early 2020 said they were confused by the 141-page document Titan Fish originally submitted when the city was looking for ideas to repurpose its coal power plant.
Titan Fish’s proposal did outline plans for a new clean energy plant, but it mostly included resumes, various company logos, biographies and news articles about energy production. The leader of one of the firms listed on the proposal told The Star he knew “little to nothing” about the project.
Campbell told The Star this week that the plan to repurpose the power plant was in the works well before he submitted a proposal. He provided documentation of several meetings with the mayor and the city manager about his plan.
Emails show he was discussing the project with top city leaders as far back as May 2019, more than a year before he submitted a formal proposal.
And he said comments from DeLuccie misrepresented his plans for the Blue Valley site, which would repurpose the plant at no cost to the city.
On Monday, council members uniformly rejected the proposed settlement agreement.
“Absurd is the word that comes to mind for me,” Hobart said. “I can’t imagine in a million years we’d just give away a power plant.”
Several questioned whether the council even had the authority to turn over the closed power plant, which is part of the municipal utility, without voters having a say.
“I’m not sure we could even give away an asset that belongs to the residents of this city,” said council member Mike Steinmeyer. “It’s an asset that belongs to everybody in this room and everyone in this city.”
Steinmeyer thought the settlement request wasn’t credible and questioned whether Titan Fish had other aims.
“I don’t know where they’re going with this,” he said. ”I’d just as soon go to court and let’s fight it out.”
The city’s attorney said the company’s motivation seemed fairly straightforward: “I think their end game is to try to pressure the city into turning over that property to them,” Coronado said.
DeLuccie said the company was simply trying to get something for nothing.
“There’s no money involved. Everybody wake up,” she said. “They want it for free. That is unbelievable, but here it is.”
In an interview at his lawyer’s office, Campbell said he was disappointed by the comments made Monday, particularly since the city’s attorney had actually requested that he float a settlement proposal. Campbell said the city specifically suggested a non-cash settlement like he put forth.
Campbell said he started hearing early on that certain council members were not interested in doing business with him. But he said he had no personal history with either council member who made comments about him.
“I’ve only met Karen DeLuccie one time. And it was only at a restaurant where I was just introduced to her,” he said. “Mr. Roberson, I wouldn’t know if he walked in the door right now.”
But the city does have history with both Tilley and Campbell.
The council voted to purchase the former Rockwood Golf Club for nearly $1 million in October 2017 from Titan Fish, just months after it had purchased the property for $550,000 from a company that had owned the closed golf course for several years. It has since developed a solar farm on the site.
The money used to purchase the golf club came from another Tilley lobbying client, the city’s utility, Independence Power & Light.
Aside from the solar farm transaction, Independence council members previously said FBI agents had asked questions about a nearly $10 million contract awarded to a St. Louis company to decommission an electric power plant in Missouri City owned by Independence Power & Light.
The $10 million price tag was twice the amount bid by another company for the project. The company that won the contract, Environmental Operations, is owned by Stacy Hastie, a regular donor to Tilley in the General Assembly who lent him a private plane to attend campaign events.
The company was created in May 2019 by John Diehl, another former House speaker and longtime friend of Tilley who worked for Environmental Operations as its general counsel when it received the Missouri City contract in 2017. Diehl resigned in 2015 from the House after it was revealed that he had sent sexually charged text messages to an intern.
Campbell said he’s tried to stay out of the news media throughout those controversies, but was driven to speak after watching the council meeting on Monday.
“We’ve been asked for three years to give interviews on all of this stuff. OK. I’ve never given an interview on any of this stuff,” he said. “Finally something breaks your back when something like this happens. The truth will get out there in the end. And this is the beginning of letting everybody know exactly what happened.”
Campbell did not discuss the Rockwood or Missouri City projects in detail this week, but said there was more to those transactions than had been previously reported.
While the Titan Fish lawsuit centered on comments made by DeLuccie and Roberson — who did not run for reelection last year — Titan Fish attorneys only sought to depose Independence Mayor Eileen Weir and City Manager Zach Walker.
Weir, who is running for reelection, gave a deposition in December but Walker has not yet. The mayor’s attorney requested the deposition be sealed, which a judge agreed to on Wednesday.
In Monday’s city council meeting, the mayor said she was contacted through a third party asking to meet with Campbell about the lawsuit, but declined. She said she would not violate her attorney-client privilege, but said she would not approve giving away the power plant.
“I’m absolutely not going to agree with this,” Weir said. “It’s highly inappropriate.”
