Richard AuBuchon, chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, said this morning he will attend a public forum on local control of the City Police “providing Lt. Governor Kinder’s position in support of local control.”
Aubuchon delivered Kinder’s de facto endorsement of local control in an email to state Rep. Jamilah Nasheed.
Nasheed is organizing the public forum (6-8 p.m. Thursday, March 18 at City Hall) and had asked panelists to state whether or not they support local control in an effort to balance opposition with support.
Aubuchon said Kinder, who is a Republican, “has been following the issue closely over the course of years, really, and this seems to be the year the City will be able take over.”
Local control bills have been filed in the Legislature, and there is a ballot petition initiative being circulated. Nasheed said the House bill she filed will be heard Monday in Rules Committee.
The St. Louis City Charter has provisions for local control should the State relinquish oversight through the current form of a board of gubernatorial appointees that also includes the mayor.
Under the City Charter, there would be one police commissioner who reports to the director of Public Safety. This official could be removed from office “with or without cause” by the director or, oddly, by the governor, according to the City Charter.
Also oddly, a distant cousin of Aubuchon’s took the fateful call from then-Police Commissioner Vincent J. Bommarito, asking for help with a Bommarito nephew taken in for drunk driving. Bommarito subsequently resigned, and the incident has been used by supporters of local control to decry the gubernatorial-appointee police board system.
Aubuchon has family here because his father Alan grew up in south St. Louis. Aubuchon said he considers the city “a second home for us.” It is widely known in St. Louis that Kinder has a similar but stronger attachment to the city, where he grew up and his father was a well known physician.
The local control forum will be held 6-8 p.m. Thursday, March 18 in City Hall rotunda. Free parking during the event. Joining Aubuchon will be preeminent scholar of St. Louis police history and former City cop Allen E. Wagner and Redditt Hudson of the ACLU.
The St. Louis Police Officers Association and the state police organization were invited to send representatives in opposition to local control, but declined. The POA says local control will result in more local interference, not less, and that the City eventually will take over the police pension fund, which they oppose.