Elected or appointed? A debate worth having

Few people pay much attention to local government structure and why it matters.

People are rather content to pay their bills, and trust their local officials are doing what they are trusted to do. And usually those whom we elect do just that. Typically those who run for local office are upstanding people who want to help their communities run efficiently and thrive.

But occasionally, as we have learned in recent weeks, months and over the past handful of years, there can be some bad apples.

How our local governments are structured are very important in how those bad apples are discarded.

And if you're an elected official, it's very, very difficult to remove you from office.

The latest example is Perry County Coroner Herbert Miller, who was convicted of fraud and stealing some $80,000 from an elderly woman he befriended. As dementia took its toll on the woman, Miller, who had been appointed power of attorney, began writing checks to himself and the funeral home he owns. In court he claimed these were gifts approved by the woman. The court saw otherwise.

After Miller was sentenced to probation and a suspended imposition of sentence, he told a Southeast Missourian reporter he was not going to resign. Then along came the state's attorney general, who insisted Miller resign immediately according to the law. Miller then turned in his resignation.

There is a sense of empowerment that grips public officials once they are elected; often they vigorously fight leaving their public post.

We have two other local examples. In Perryville, the city council had no authority to fire its elected police chief, Keith Tarrillion, after an alleged fraudulent incident and after an investigation into misconduct revealed many allegations and incidents of unethical conduct, including sexual harassment and threats to employees. Only after a legal "memorandum of understanding" was struck, in which he temporarily agreed to step down, did he leave his leadership position. He was paid not to work, but eventually he was convicted of misdemeanor filing a false report and was ordered to pay back to the city the amount he was paid after he voluntarily stepped down.

In another case in Cape Girardeau County, the commission asked for the resignation of a county auditor, but had no authority to demand it after a longtime female employee found printed pictures of a scantily clad Pamela Anderson on the office printer. It was the second time the county commission had heard of such a complaint, and despite a previous warning and despite the county being placed in an extremely vulnerable legal position, the then-auditor refused to resign. Dealing with health issues at the time, he also missed many weeks of work, leaving his duties to the deputy clerks. He could not be removed from office unless it could be proven the job wasn't getting done. In that case, the very women he offended are the same women who saved his employment, and the generous salary that came along with it.

We can look to Kentucky for another recent example. County Clerk Kim Davis, despite a Supreme Court decision that ruled same-sex couples could not be denied the right to marry, refused to grant marriage licenses, a key component to her job as an elected official. The story became a national media firestorm.

In all of these cases, people were asking the very logical question: Why are they still working? Why aren't they fired?

Because elected people are protected in many ways from the whims of public fervor.

In Missouri, you have to be convicted of a felony or it must be proven your office is not doing the work.

In each of these instances, it's worth asking the question of whether these positions should be elected positions.

Perryville grappled with this issue in 2013, emphatically voting against making the police chief an appointed position as is done in so many other communities. Clearly, voters in Perryville believed they should have the right to decide who is best qualified to be the top cop in the city.

The argument on the other side would be that many of the local elected positions are skill-based positions and not necessarily political ones. An auditor, for example, most likely would be best suited with a financial and accounting background rather than having connections and affiliations with a political party or run the smoothest and smartest political campaigns. Many forms of government have boards who hire executives, who then hire important positions based on qualifications and experience, whether they can be found in their jurisdiction or outside of it. They also are able to fire people, immediately, when they step outside of ethical and legal bounds.

The debate over appointments and elected officials is one that should happen more often. Unfortunately, it most often comes to attention when elected officials need to be removed from office. In some cases, that may mean another four years of employment on the taxpayers' dime.