FORMER COUNCILMAN PURSUES WARD ELECTION PROTEST

The former Cape Girardeau City Councilman who last month filed a formal complaint against proponents ward-style city elections issue said Monday he believes voters were deceived into supporting the measure Nov. 3.

Curt Smith, who served on the council from 1982-87, filed the complaint with the Campaign Reporting Division of the Missouri secretary of state's office.

Smith said the state's yet to rule on the complaint, which asks that the election results be nullified and, if necessary, that legal action be taken against the committee if its members don't comply with election laws.

In the complaint, he cited 11 separate violations of campaign disclosure laws by a committee formed to promote the ballot issue.

Smith said Monday he believes the election results would have been different if voters would have known ahead of time who was supporting the measure and why.

"Personally, I think the voters were deceived through all this," he said. "A few people were trying to push some things through to get their own council members in there and were using innocent people as their front people.

"My feeling is that if you're going to do something, let's do it on the up and up and make sure everybody's informed from the start."

Smith charged that some members of the "Elect a Neighbor Committee" have campaigned for public office in the past and were aware of the violations before his complaint was filed Oct. 29.

"A lot of the people involved in that know the law about campaign disclosure, and yet they were willing to circumvent that," he said.

Tom M. Meyer, a former candidate for state representative, was one of the proponents of the ward-election issue.

He said Monday that once the committee was aware of disclosure law violations, its members complied with the law. Meyer also said election laws have changed since he last ran for office.

"I don't know what Curt Smith is after," he said. "I don't know who he's implying has experience in campaigns, but disclosure laws change every year."

Meyer said proponents of the measure were largely a "grass roots committee that felt very strongly about" the issue and didn't think they would reach the fund-raising threshold that requires disclosure.

"I'm disappointed to see that Curt Smith, who has been a councilman in the past, has taken it upon himself to be a lone challenger in this," Meyer said. "He should have voiced something at an earlier stage."

The complaint was prompted by yard signs and advertisements in newspapers and on radio that didn't include required disclaimers stating who paid for the ads.

Also, proponents of the measure failed to officially form a committee and report contributions and expenditures associated with the campaign.

In the complaint Smith said, "Failure of proper disclosure of this committee will effectively deny the right of the people in my community to make a fully informed decision on the charter ballot issue.

"The public is being denied the right to know who is financially supporting this issue and why.

"I do think the results would have been different if voters had been fully informed," he said.

Smith said he's also prepared to challenge the measure on legal grounds. City officials have said the zone boundaries approved by voters likely violate the U.S. Supreme Court's "one-man, one-vote" ruling to ensures equal representation.

"I think if it's not me, it's going to be somebody else other people are as concerned about it as I am," Smith said. "They tried to ram all this stuff through, and they continue to try to ram it though.

"I'd be more than willing to have that put back in front of the voters, and I think we should do that. But we need to put it back written legally, and at the same time there needs to be more of an effort to inform the voters so they know the ramifications if it does pass."

Smith said the zone election measure is just the latest in a long history of attempts by "certain factions who have tried unsuccessfully for years to stack the council."

He said zone representation will allow city detractors to "divide and conquer" to win seats on the council they've previously been unable to win in at-large elections.

Smith said Mayor Gene Rhodes, who has been an outspoken proponent of zone representation and has pushed to have the new elections held as soon as possible, supports the concept because he's been frustrated in attempts to wield more power than the charter allows.

Smith said former Mayor Howard Tooke appeared to be a powerful mayor, but his power was earned.

"He studied the issues and did a lot of hard work to know what was going on," he said. "The new mayor (Rhodes) came in and thought he was automatically going to get this power.

"Instead, he found out he was just one of a seven-member team. It baffled him and his supporters that they couldn't get what they wanted through there."

But Meyer said he believes ward representation is a "fairer way" to assure residents' interests are represented on the city council.

"We're not trying to wrest power away from the status quo," he said. "I think the role of mayor is important, but I don't believe this is going to give any more power than what there is presently. We're still working within the parameters of the charter."

Meyer said he hopes the transition from at-large to zone elections can be accomplished smoothly and as quickly as possible.

"The majority of the council seemingly would like to proceed in a cooperative fashion," he said. "I guess I don't see the legal and technical concerns as obstacles. They're temporary situations that will be addressed and satisfied.

"The concept was accepted, and we're just ironing out some of the questions to it," Meyer added.