Pasadena Hills is a gated neighborhood, off Interstate-70 and Lucas and Hunt Road, with its own city government and police department. The historic, regal homes and lush, green lawns create a maze that most people get lost in, said Joseph Thomas, who moved to the neighborhood 11 years ago.
Right now, the neighborhood is decorated with white, blue and yellow signs for the State Representative District 71 primary race. The candidates are union machinist Clem Smith, attorney and Alderman Kris Boevingloh and Henry Iwenofu, the owner of a restaurant in University City.
Early in the race, Thomas had Boevingloh’s sign in his lawn, he said.
“I’m not into politics,” Thomas said, mainly because he works nights as an aircraft journeyman at Boeing. “I don’t go to [city government] meetings, but I want to. I just try to keep up my property.”
Thomas did not know that Boevingloh is an alderman for Pasadena Hills. Boevingloh seemed nice enough when he visited, Thomas said. But then he found out that Clem Smith, also a Boeing journeyman, was running for office. So, he took out Boevingloh’s sign and replaced it with Smith’s.
Later, on July 18, Boevingloh made a return visit to Thomas’ home.
“He asked me what happened to the sign,” Thomas said. “I told him that I have the right to change my mind. He just gave me a strange look, and then he left my door.”
In an email, Boevingloh said that he has gone door-to-door in Pasadena Hills twice, once in April and a second time in late June or early July.
“If I spoke with Mr. Thomas again, it is because I was going back through the neighborhood a second time,” he wrote. “I do not remember a specific conversation.”
The next day, on July 19, Thomas found a citation taped to the front door of his two-story, red-brick home. It stated:
“Satellite dish on the front of home. Needs to be placed on the back of home. Needs to have a permit also. No permit on file for satellite dish. Seven days to move the dish and obtain a permit or a ticket will be issued.”
It was signed by Ken Kelly, the city’s building code enforcement officer.
Immediately, Thomas called the satellite company to move the device. As he waited for the satellite company on the front porch, he asked his neighbors whether they had a permit for their satellites.
“They said they didn’t know anything about having a permit,” he said.
At that point, Thomas began to wonder why he was singled out and remembered his conversation with Boevingloh – and that he is an alderman.
“I feel after we had the talk about the sign, though I can’t prove it, I was being retaliated upon,” Thomas said.
“The next day, I get a citation, and I’ve been here all this time? If I want to change candidates, it shouldn’t be an issue. It’s my choice.”
‘A sore thumb’
Mike Harris, building commissioner, spoke on behalf of Kelly.
“He said he was driving around and it jumped out like a sore thumb,” Harris said of Kelly. “No one had complained to him about it.”
Kelly then went back to City Hall to issue him a warning and then found out that Thomas didn’t have a permit for the satellite dish either, Harris said.
Harris said, “We are not picking on Mr. Thomas. We are just asking him to do what the ordinance says and maintain his property.”
Harris said that satellite dishes could not sit on house extensions or be visible from the street. When The St. Louis American asked for a copy of the city’s satellite ordinance, Kathy Runge, city administrator, said a Sunshine law request must be submitted and The American would be a charged for her time and print copies. It would take at least three days to complete, she said.
Based on a quick drive down Thomas’ street, at least two other homes violate the ordinance requirements that Harris described.
Four doors down, a neighbor’s satellite dish sits on the extension of the home, just like Thomas’ did, and is visible from the street. One other home on his street had a visible satellite on the house extension as well.
“I have had no conversations with Mr. Kelly or anyone else about code enforcement for specific houses since the campaign started,” Boevingloh wrote in an email.
‘Motion of contempt’
Possibly it was a mere coincidence. Possibly the neighborhood’s politics are just as pleasant as its vibrant hydrangeas.
However, down the street at the Northeast Ambulance and Fire Protection District, Missouri’s first female African-American fire chief Angelia Elgin has another story about Boevingloh and intimidation.
In February, Elgin was delivered a “motion of contempt” at her office. It showed state Rep. Don Calloway, presently serving District 71, and Boevingloh as legal counsels in a case to sue Elgin for $25,000, plus back pay, for accepting an increase in pay in violation of the restraining order on the district’s spending.
However, the motion for contempt was a draft that was never filed with the Court.
“That was delivered to my office by Kris Boevingloh,” Elgin said. “Although never filed, he did deliver this to my office. This was to intimidate me.”
A number of community residents who would like to see Elgin ousted are friends and supporters of Boevingloh. Elgin said the motion of contempt was just one in a series of political attacks against her this year.
“I did not send it to her, nor did I direct it to be delivered to her,” Boevingloh wrote in an email. “This was a draft of an internal document which was never filed.”
Reading the signs
This is not the first campaign sign issue Boevingloh has had in this election season. During municipal elections this April, Boevingloh began putting up six-foot by four-foot signs in the City Hall lawns of various municipalities. One of them was Cool Valley.
“Our City Hall sits on top of a hill,” said Cool Valley Mayor Viola Murphy. “Someone called and told me that there was a huge sign on city property. If you are going to put up a sign, especially a huge sign, you need to be responsible enough to check with the city clerk.”
Deborah Jones, the city clerk, said that the administration called the St. Louis County Board of Commissioners to find out the rules regarding campaign sign material. Most municipalities allow candidates to put up signs 30 days prior to the election, Jones said.
“We asked his campaign manager to remove the sign because we wanted to focus on the election at hand and not confuse people,” Jones said of Boevingloh.
The maintenance personnel ended up taking down the sign and leaving it on the lawn. The sign was picked up, but the administration never heard from Boevingloh about putting up his signs again, Jones said.
Boevingloh said his campaign team placed signs at polling places on April 6 for the municipal elections.
“I was never informed that the signs needed to be taken down,” Boevingloh said. “All signs were removed as planned by the campaign after the polls closed.”
In researching campaign policy, Jones said, she called other cities to ask about their laws and found out that Boevingloh’s huge signs had gone up in other municipalities without authorization as well, including Normandy and Pine Lawn.
On July 21, two days after Joseph Thomas received the warning for his satellite dish, he went to Pasadena Hills City Hall to obtain a permit. The sign said “Closed until July 26.” When he called, no one answered. July 26 was his deadline for getting a permit.
“The more I think about politics, it should not be something that we are retaliated for,” Thomas said. “It’s really childish.”
