St. Louis officials allegedly violated the law when they closed public records and public meetings regarding the airport privatization deal, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday, December 6 by transparency advocates.
“Whether you favor, oppose or are uncertain about the propriety of St. Louis Lambert International Airport privatization, that doesn’t matter,” stated attorney Mark Pedroli, founder of the Sunshine and Government Accountability Project.
“Democrats, Republicans, Independents, people of all political persuasions, and nearly everyone in the St. Louis region agrees on one thing: The Lambert Airport Privatization process should be transparent and should conform with the state’s Sunshine, Open Records and Transparency Laws.”
The advocates are asking the court to order that all actions taken by the Airport Working Group during improperly closed meetings or in violation of the Sunshine Act be null and void. It asks for the court to “permanently restrain” the Working Group from illegally closing Working Group meetings, and to release the minutes and all transcripts of all meetings that were improperly closed.
“We cannot make critical determinations about our future without all the information,” Pedroli said in a press release. “And we certainly cannot make these critical determinations while people or governments hide that information.”
In a statement from the mayor’s spokesman Jacob Long, he said the state legislature allows governments to keep documents and discussions related to negotiating contracts confidential.
Since July 2018, the Airport Working Group has held about 47 meetings to evaluate the possibility of privatizing St. Louis Lambert International Airport, according to the suit. During these meetings, the Working Group members have allegedly closed meetings to discuss information that should have been open to the public, it states.
At the November 21 meeting, LaTaunia Kenner, who is Comptroller Darlene Green’s representative for the group, objected on the record to the wrongful closing of their meetings and records, the lawsuit states. Green said she hasn’t read the lawsuit yet, but she “believes that any matters inappropriately discussed in closed session should be a concern.”
The Working Group’s voting members are Budget Director Paul Payne and representatives for Mayor Lyda Krewson, President of the Board of Aldermen Lewis Reed and Green. All are named in the lawsuit.
Also named is Deputy City Counselor Michael Garvin, who “has purported to act as counsel for the Working Group,” and Deirdre Weaver, the city’s custodian of records.
The Working Group recently received 18 responses to its Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for companies interested in privatizing the airport. The lawsuit alleges that the group has wrongfully withheld information about this process.
The group also withheld information about conflicts of interest, it states.
At a recent town hall meeting, community members expressed their concern about the potential conflicts of interest involved in the privatization process. The team that is acting as the city’s consultant is led by Grow Missouri, Inc., an organization funded by retired conservative financier Rex Sinquefield. Grow Missouri paid for the application into the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Privatization Program. If the city privatizes airport operations, then the consultants will be paid “success fees.”
“Any fruit that could come from the process being used would be fruit from a poisoned tree,” said Ray Mundy, former director of the University of Missouri-St. Louis’ Center for Transportation Studies.
“The process has been very well poisoned. I’ve never seen a process where we signed a blank check for the people to do the work and say, ‘We’ll do accounting after it’s all done and you’re successful.’”
The consulting team, including Grow Missouri Moelis & Company, LLC, and McKenna & Associates, LLC, are also named in the lawsuit.
Suit seeks to nullify airport decisions made in closed meetings