On December 7, a committee met to consider two bills proposed by members of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. The bills both drew considerable debate from the board, with one ending in a personal argument between two aldermen.
The first of the two controversial bills was introduced by Alderwoman Carol Howard and would repeal St. Louis’ residency requirements for city employees. Howard said St. Louis is one of only a few cities with that requirement, and changing the requirement could increase recruitment.
St. Louis has apparently begun to move in the opposite direction; newer public safety employees are now required to live in the city for their whole careers, whereas they were previously allowed to move outside St. Louis after seven years on the job. But Howard said the change might not actually make a big difference.
“At this time, we have no one enforcing that residency requirement,” she said.
Howard said she doesn’t think the change she’s proposing would encourage city employees to move away. However, she does think it could increase the number of applicants for jobs in the city that are currently understaffed, like foresters.
Howard pointed out that many entry-level government jobs expect prospective employees to relocate for a position that pays only about $30,000 a year. This can be unrealistic, she said, especially for applicants with children.
“Properties that house families are getting very, very expensive,” Howard said.
Other aldermen expressed concerns that the idea would have a negative impact, especially for police officers. Alderwoman Heather Navarro said St. Louis’ city government has been trying to increase its emphasis on community policing. Repealing the residency requirement, she said, could send the opposite message.
Howard said repealing it could have the opposite effect, by increasing the pool of applicants.
“Is [the residency requirement] a deterrent to recruiting qualified police officers?” she asked. “I don’t know.”
Since repealing the residency requirement would require a change to the City Charter, the Board of Aldermen could not make the decision themselves; it will have to go up for a public vote. Howard said she is aiming for it to make it onto the August ballot, rather than holding a special election, to increase turnout.
Alderman Scott Ogilvie urged caution as the bill moves forward. He suggested pursuing more data, including studying which departments of the city government have recruitment problems and surveying employees and applicants.
“I would kind of want to look before we leap here,” Ogilvie said. “If it’s bad, we’re stuck with it.”
The second bill was more contentious: Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green’s proposal to decriminalize the personal possession of marijuana. Green said the bill could both decrease opioid and heroin deaths and allow police officers to focus on more serious crimes.
According to the ACLU report studying marijuana arrests in Missouri from 2001-2010, black Missourians are 2.8 times more likely to be arrested on marijuana changes than whites, even though both groups were found to use it at equal rates. St. Louis had the largest disparity of any city in the state.
“If the law cannot be applied justly, what we need to do is change those laws,” Green said.
The bill would allow for the personal possession of two ounces or 10 plants of marijuana for personal use by those 21 years of age or older. It would not legalize drug sales or distribution and would not be allowed in schools, on government property or other properties where the owner has forbidden it.
While police officers could still search someone they suspected of having more than two ounces on them, Green said the change could decrease racial profiling and wasteful spending on minor drug offenses. Missouri spent $49,119,612 enforcing marijuana possession laws in 2010.
A more unusual provision would disallow employers from firing employees only for marijuana use in their personal time unless they have a provision in their employees handbooks forbidding drug use, but it is unclear whether this will make the final version.
Green also pointed to the positive impacts on those who use marijuana for medicinal reasons. She said this demographic could provide an economic boon to St. Louis, especially if the city makes the move before Missouri as a whole or Illinois. It could also reduce the use of addictive painkillers, she said.
“We bear the burden of a disproportionate number of heroin deaths and opioid deaths for the entire state,” Green said.
However, concerns were raised that St. Louis might not have the legal authority to change its law on marijuana without the state’s cooperation and that the bill might draw retaliation from Missouri Governor Eric Greitens and Jefferson City legislators.
“The city is well within its authority to prioritize our resources,” Green said.
It’s not clear, though, whether the state government would agree with that interpretation. Even if St. Louis’ law were changed, marijuana users could still be arrested and prosecuted by state and federal agencies.
Ogilvie expressed skepticism about the idea that the state government would allow the bill to stand if it were passed. Even if the response was not direct, he said, the city could face reprisals.
“Nothing is more en vogue at the state level right now than enacting policies that hurt St. Louis,” he said.
A higher level of conflict, though, was between Green and Aldermanic President Lewis Reed. Reed has drafted his own marijuana bill, which would reduce fines rather than decriminalizing it, but pulled that bill from consideration at the January 1 meeting.
Reed criticized several provisions of Green’s bill, saying changing the city’s marijuana laws while state laws remain the same could be “setting people up for failure,” leading to confusion about where it is and is not legal to use.
He also said the bill was unlikely to eliminate any degree of bias in policing or unnecessary searches, since the language still allows officers to search someone if they have “reasonable suspicion” they possess more than the amount allowed for personal use.
“If you’re African American and you’re wearing a hoodie and baggy pants, the police officers can say, ‘I had reasonable suspicion,’” Reed said.
Reed then questioned Green’s assertion that former Missouri Supreme Court Justice Michael Wolff had helped her write the bill.
“You’re calling me a liar again,” Green said. “Because I’m a woman, right?”
“Stop that,” Reed retorted. “Because I’m an African-American man, right? Is that what this is all about?”
Before proposing his own alternative bill, Reed commissioned a policy analysis of Green’s bill, which contained numerous inaccuracies, such as claiming the bill would allow public employees to use marijuana at work.
“I just think this bill has numerous problems all the way through it,” Reed concluded.
Kennard Williams, a community organizer who attended the meeting, had numerous problems, too. He objected to the Board of Alderman prohibiting public comment at the hearing, although committee chairman Alderman Joe Vaccaro said the public will be allowed to comment on both bills at a later date.
“You’re basically bypassing the process if you’re not getting public input and moving it forward,” Williams said.
Williams said public comment should be heard as much as possible on both of the bills. He was especially concerned about the possibility of St. Louis repealing its residency requirement, saying it was tone-deaf at a time when many people are concerned that police officers do not have the best interests of the community at heart.
“I’m against it, and I think proposing something like that is dangerous,” Williams said.
Jessica Karins is an editorial intern for the St. Louis American from Webster University.
