A new African-American majority on the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners had led to a new board leadership.
Yesterday, after Richard H. Gray was sworn onto the board (and after this newspaper’s print deadline), a new board president was elected: Bettye Battle-Turner.
Battle-Turner, an attorney, was elected by a vote of 3-2 over Todd Epsten, CEO of Major Brands Inc., who had been board president.
Epsten, who was backed only by Mayor Francis G. Slay, resigned after losing the board presidency.
Battle-Turner was voted president by the new African-American board majority that also includes Gray and Dr. Michael Gerdine, a chiropractor.
Battle-Turner, Gray and Gerdine are all appointees of Gov. Jay Nixon. Their appointment and confirmation by the Missouri Senate constitutes the first time there has been an African-American majority of gubernatorial appointees to the board.
On Wednesday Slay took to his campaign website to complain, again, about the form of governance of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department provided by Missouri law. The system of a board of four gubernatorial appointees joined by the mayor dates back to the Civil War.
Gateway Classic and police board
Before the election of Battle-Turner to the board presidency, followed by Epsten’s resignation, the police board news for the day was the swearing in of Gray.
His acceptance of the nomination was news, because he recently had shouldered the burden of a major community institution – the St. Louis Gateway Classic Sports Foundation – taking over leadership from the founder who has been synonymous with the organization, Earl Wilson Jr.
And now, the role of citizen colonel on the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners? Why take on so much so fast?
“Based on my background I thought I might be able to help, and that is what I want to do,” Gray told The American.
It sounds like an easy platitude, but Gray really does have a background well suited for a board that mixes operation and oversight responsibilities for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
Gray knows the job from the inside, having served as a police officer for the City of Berkeley for a few years. His fondest memory is of community policing – something the current St. Louis Police Chief Daniel Isom has called for more of (with less than total support from the ranks).
“The kids in the neighborhood would ask my wife if I could come play football,” said Gray, who now lives in Downtown.
Suburban police work, even in a tough town like metropolitan St. Louis, must have been light duty for Gray. He was by then a U.S. Navy veteran with years of experience on both the Presidential Honor Guard and as leader of the Presidential Drill Team.
“I was taught discipline and the importance of attention to detail,” Gray said of those experiences.
To host an interview in his office at the Gateway Classic, Gray had to shift a large pile of police board documents. He had been attending to detail in preparation for his first public board meeting and executive board meetings on Wednesday, when he was sworn in.
Gray had been giving thought to the police department budget.
The department’s budget is set at $152 million for the next fiscal year. Chief Isom recently reported to the Board of Aldermen’s Ways & Means Committee that the department had made a $3.6 million reduction in personnel costs, including overtime, to offset a $3.6 million increase in pension costs.
Gray will be hearing a lot about pensions as a police board member – pensions and health care.
When questioned by the Ways & Means Committee, Isom defended the current department policy of paying full health benefits for retired cops. He said after losing a lawsuit, the department had started following State law requiring that health care plans be free to retirees and equal to active officers’ plans.
After 21 years, an officer can retire and get free health care. Many aldermen think this is excessive.
Gray’s background also prepares him to address the details of large budgets and complex operations. “I am retired from corporate America,” Gray said, in reference to his years (1992 to 2007) with the Keefe Group, a leading supplier of products for correctional commissaries.
That experience made him shrug at the prospect of leading the Gateway Classic to a renewed level of prominence and impact while serving as Gov. Jay Nixon’s new appointment on the governing body of a police department that has been slammed with scandal in recent years.
“I was part of a $700 million operation, with quite a few employees within the state and without the state. Juggling is something you learn to do in that environment,” Gray said.
“This here is nothing more than juggling. And it’s juggling things I am passionate about and I love. I love how plugged into the community I am at the Gateway Classic, and that is never going to change. It’s not much different with the police board. This is community service, and that is something I am passionately committed to.”
– Additional reporting by Rebecca S. Rivas
