Perryville voters reject idea of appointing chief

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure asking them to change the way Perryville selects its police chief.

Only 117 of the 1,330 people who voted on the measure -- 8.8 percent -- supported it, with 1,213, or 91.2 percent, voting against it, according to unofficial results from the Perry County clerk's office.

Because it is organized as a fourth-class city, Perryville must elect a city marshal to serve as chief. The city can convert that office to an appointed position, but only if voters approve the change.

This summer, 12 of 13 members of an advisory committee recommended the board of aldermen ask voters to make that change, as about 560 of Missouri's approximately 600 fourth-class cities have done.

The ballot question asked: "Shall the City of Perryville Board of Aldermen provide by ordinance for the appointment of a chief of police (city marshal) in accordance with the Statutes of the State of Missouri with the aid and input of a citizens committee comprised of no less than five city residents appointed by the Board of Aldermen?"

David Morris' answer: an emphatic no.

"It's not a democracy if we don't get to vote," he said.

Kathy Landholt also opposed the measure.

Landholt said she initially leaned toward letting city officials appoint the chief, but after reading newspaper coverage of the issue and receiving a letter from a group of residents opposing the change, she shifted her

position.

"Before that, I would have said the opposite, thinking a very intelligent group of people could make a better decision than I could," she said. " ... Those five people can get in cahoots better than the whole community. I think we're smart enough to be responsible citizens."

Newman Fair and his mother-in-law, Shirley Duncan, voted yes.

"The qualified people are already part of the sheriff's department or the city police," Fair said. "That's going to cause problems if they turn around and try to run against their boss."

Duncan said qualifications should be the city's top priority in choosing a police chief.

"It's not a popularity contest. You just want to get somebody who's qualified, and the board of aldermen should have our best interests at heart," she said.

If the aldermen make a poor choice, they will have to answer to voters, Fair noted.

"I understand that most towns Perryville's size have gone to hiring, and it makes a lot of sense to me. We do have political oversight through the board of aldermen," he said.

City leaders had cited low voter turnout as one of several reasons for switching from an elected to an appointed chief, but turnout for the single-issue election reached 27.52 percent, far surpassing Perry County Clerk Randy Taylor's expectations.

Based on turnout for previous local elections, Taylor said last week he didn't expect more than 15 percent to 20 percent of Perryville's registered voters to come to the polls.

Voters already had surpassed that by 5:40 p.m. With nearly an hour and a half left before the polls closed, more 1,125 people -- or 23 percent -- of the city's 4,837 registered voters had cast their ballots.

One election official, who asked not to be identified, said the consensus Tuesday morning was the city's second precinct might see 250 voters.

Residents of the precinct blew that estimate out of the water. By 5 p.m., at least 385 people had voted, and by the end of the night, 448 had made their positions known.

The city's other precincts saw similarly high turnout, with 443 voters showing up in the first precinct and 378 in the third. Sixty-one people voted absentee.

In a statement emailed to local media outlets Tuesday night, Perryville Mayor Debbie Gahan said the board would abide by voters' wishes.

"A vote of the people is the purest and most direct form of democracy," Gahan said. "The board of aldermen will proceed as the people direct us."

The board of aldermen meets at 6:30 p.m. today.

A discussion of the outcome of the election is among the items on the agenda for the regular meeting, which was moved from Tuesday to avoid a conflict with the election. City hall is the polling place for the second precinct.

Scott County results

A proposal to raise the tax levy for the Scott County Rural Fire Protection District no more than 50 cents per $100 assessed value passed with 142 "yes" votes and 91 voting "no."

A Scott County use tax on out-of-state purchases in an attempt to eliminate a sales-tax advantage for out-of-state vendors also passed 634-461.

epriddy@semissourian.com

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Pertinent address:

Perryville, MO