Impeachment vote in Chaffee may have violated state law

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- The Chaffee City Council voted unsuccessfully to impeach Mayor Loretta Mohorc at Wednesday's closed meeting.

City attorney David Summers said he was not at the meeting and that he didn't know whether council members broke a law by taking the vote.

A lawyer for the Missouri Press Association said Friday that they did.

"This should not have been done in closed session," said Jean Maneke of the Kansas City, Mo.-based Maneke Law Group and lawyer for the Missouri Press Association. She specializes in issues related to Missouri's Open Meetings and Records Act, known as the Sunshine Law.

The Missouri attorney general's Web site dedicated to the Sunshine law lists the limited topics that can be discussed in closed sessions, which include certain legal actions; real estate transactions; employee actions, such as hiring or firing; some welfare issues; computer codes; and specific records on personnel, security or those protected by other laws.

Maneke said the law allows for closed meetings but does not require them.

"There is nothing in the law that requires a meeting to be closed," she said. "It's a privilege but not a requirement."

None of the exceptions cover voting to impeach an elected official. Most of Chaffee's elected officials refused to talk about the vote, saying Summers told them it was illegal to discuss what happens in closed meetings.

"People who sit on a city council are not lawyers, for the most part, and it's a major concern about do the members understand the level at which a piece of information can be distributed or should not be distributed," said Summers, of the Cape Girardeau-based firm Rice, Spaeth, Summers & Heisserer. As a general rule, he tells municipal clients not to talk about any closed sessions.

"It's the safe approach," he said.

But Maneke said there is no penalty for discussing what happened at Wednesday's meeting.

"Something said within the meeting and repeated outside the meeting that was false -- certainly you can defame someone, but that's not the Sunshine issue. That's ordinarily lies," Maneke said.

Maneke said there is no automatic enforcement for the Sunshine Law.

"The only way this is enforced is that someone takes it to court," she said.

Mike Jobe, a former Chaffee councilman who is again running for a council seat, said there were too many closed meetings, in his experience, "for a lot of things that they shouldn't have. The lawyer is always telling people 'don't talk,'" he said.

Though some Chaffee residents are unhappy with the negative news about the police department and impeachment vote, Jobe would rather see it all out in the open.

"If it was up to me, there'd be a camera in every council meeting nationwide," he said, because busy lifestyles prevent many voters from attending meetings. "You need to get the message out to people, one way or another."

Chaffee City Council meetings are at city hall on the first and third Mondays of the month. The next one is scheduled for 7 p.m. Feb. 18.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

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