The five-month standoff among Dellwood aldermen came to an end on Thursday when two newly elected aldermen voted in favor of dissolving the city’s police department.
The resolution to contract police services with St. Louis County Police passed 5-3 at the April 12 Dellwood Board of Aldermen meeting – the first meeting that all eight aldermen have attended since December.
For the past five months, four Dellwood aldermen – James Lovings, Karen Bober, Donald Haynes and Richard Culberson – refused to come to board meetings as a way of boycotting a decision to replace the city’s problem-ridden police department with St. Louis County’s services.
The April 3 election ended the boycott as new aldermen replaced opposing incumbents Haynes and Culberson.
During the boycott, the board has not been able to approve the city budget and major city projects. The city risked losing $200,000 of grant money earmarked to repair city roads and thousands more dollars set aside to improve the community recreation center.
However, the city’s biggest casulty in the police issue was felt among the residents, said Mayor Loretta Johnson, the first African-American female mayor of Dellwood.
In the past three years, the Dellwood Police Department failed to forward 120 felony warrant applications to the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney, according to an internal audit prepared by the St. Louis County Police Department. These warrants included serious crimes, such as assault, rape, and robbery. In many of these cases, the statue of limitations has expired, and the victims will never see their cases heard in court.
“I was appalled when I heard the opposing aldermen who took their seats – Ellis Fitzgerald Jr., James Lovings and Karen Bober,” Johnson said. “Not one of them made any mention of all of the neglected convictions. They were so concerned about the 14 officers, and not one time did they mention the victims of those 120 criminal cases.”
Out of the 14 Dellwood officers that the aldermen were originally fighting for to keep their jobs, only four remained at the department, Johnson said. Many were hired on by St. Louis County’s department.
Aldermen Richard Williams, Michael Heil, Linda Cunningham, Dawn Tanksley and Reggie Jones voted in favor of dissolving the department. Lovings, Fitzgerald and Bober voted against it.
In the April 3 election, Haynes lost the Ward 4 seat to Michael Heil, who received 74 percent of the votes. Culberson did not file for re-election, and Reggie Jones won the Ward 3 position against Alta Porter. Jones, who previously served as the city’s revenue collector, said he decided to run for the position after watching the boycott halt major city improvements.
“It was troubling to watch the city not be able to operate,” said Jones, who also works with the Herbert Hoover Boys & Girls Club. “I thought I could be part of the process and work on healing the city.”
Incumbent Lovings held onto his position in Ward 2, and Kimberly Kemp lost her seat to Fitzgerald for Ward 1.
During the past months of in-fighting, Johnson faced immense pressure to take the resolution off the board’s agenda.
“I was personally threatened, my employment threatened, and my home,” Johnson said. “And I refused to waver and to cut any deals. I stood strong on the principle of working for the people. Those victims did not deserve to be victimized twice.”