Seven candidates for contested seats on the Jefferson City Council this year -- Ward 1 incumbent Jack Deeken and challenger Randy Hoselton, Ward 3 candidate Treaka Young, Ward 4 challenger Chris Leuckel and incumbent Randall Wright, and Ward 5 candidates Mackenzie Job and Virginia Shetler -- joined the News Tribune's candidate forum Tuesday evening at City Hall.
Ward 3 candidate Amy Brix did not attend.
Moderated by News Tribune Editor Gary Castor, the forum posed questions from News Tribune staff and community members. People can still submit questions at [email protected]; the News Tribune will continue to publish candidate's responses, along with a voter's guide in the Sunday, March 17, issue.
Yard waste
The City Council voted in closed session a few weeks ago to terminate the city's yard waste service, a decision that caused public outcry via social media before the City Council reinstated the service, this time without staff at the site and estimated start up costs at $20,000.
Castor asked candidates whether they believe the City Council's vote should have been in a closed session and to explain their answer.
Almost every candidate said no, they didn't agree with the decision from the current council to make this vote behind closed doors.
"I'll give you the quickest answer of the night: No. It should not have been done in closed session," Hoselton said.
The city attorney is in charge of directing the City Council to enter into closed sessions and told the News Tribune that, because the City Council's vote was in the context of negotiated contracts, the decision was allowed under state law.
Had one councilman not motioned for the vote to be made public, the records for the meeting in late February may have remained closed.
Job said only the discussing of specific contracts is permissible in closed session.
"But they were discussing discontinuing the service," Job said.
Job said she's glad the City Council unanimously approved a motion to make those records public so residents were able to reach out to councilmembers with complaints and requests to reopen the site.
"That seemed to have an effect because now the yard waste site is coming back and it seems to be in a budget that the current council is OK with and that the citizens are satisfied with for the most part. But I think we can continue to work the problem until we find a solution that works the best for everyone," Job said.
Shetler said the City Council is allowed private discussions regarding whether to award contracts, though the vote to no longer provide residents with a yard waste dropoff site was what concerned residents.
"I think it's the quickest turnaround and certainly the immediate listening to the citizens by the council. A decision was made in closed session that decision was unpopular and they felt unheard and unrepresented, and so immediately, it got turned around. I'm grateful for that," Shetler said.
Young noted the City Council's agenda cited sealed bids, negotiations and contracts as the reason to enter into a closed session, which is allowed under the Missouri Sunshine Law.
However, Young said, the council should not have voted regarding the service in and of itself. She said the City Council receives agendas regarding what closed discussions are about before each meeting.
"The minute that the council realized they were discussing services, that's when you need the citizens' inputs. So no. It should have never been in closed session," Young said.
She said she'd rather the City Council hear from residents before making decisions such as one to vote on canceling a yard waste service that city government has provided for Jefferson City residents for several years.
"(The council) restored the services because they heard from the citizens. Let's try to do that first, not do it second," Young said.
Leuckel noted his opponent for the Fourth Ward seat, Wright, voted in favor of ending the service.
"I would never have done that," Leuckel said.
He said getting rid of a yard waste dropoff site has severe impacts, specifically regarding risks from residents excessively burning or dumping yard waste illegally.
"You may not see it immediately for the first year, but it's going to have a compounding effect. I think it was short-sighted, I think it was poorly executed," Leuckel said.
Leuckel said the reason the city was able to reinstate the service in such a short amount of time -- less than two weeks -- was due to Jefferson City residents reaching out to their council representatives.
"We should not have ever gone down this road," Leuckel said.
Wright defended his vote from Feb. 20.
"Just to set the record straight, we did go into closed session because there was a contract being presented to us," Wright said, referring to the bid from Federal Recycling.
Wright said the decision could have likely been handled better, though he maintained that after an "ad hoc presentation" from Republic Services, the company operating Jefferson City's landfill, the council determined costs were too high.
"We do have to be stewards of the taxpayer dollars," Wright said.
He noted the unanimous vote from the City Council to open the closed records.
"We did go into closed session to handle the contract, the (request for proposals) that had been submitted by staff, we had to go over that, so that was the purpose for going there. Could it have been handled differently? Yes, certainly, but that was the purpose and that was the reason why we were there," Wright said.
Deeken also defended his vote and said the City Council just received "poor advice."
He said he didn't think about whether the vote behind closed doors was inappropriate.
"And that's my fault. It was just one of those things," Deeken said.
Deeken said the decision was never meant to be final and he always expected the City Council to revisit the issue.
"No one was happy, the public wasn't happy, we weren't happy, the vendors weren't happy. It was getting to be pretty emotional," Deeken said.
Resident satisfaction
When asked if they believed residents were happy with how the council is governing, several candidates pointed back to the yard waste issue. Hoselton said it was one of several recent examples that voters had mentioned to him.
"A lot of residents feel that they have not been responded to," he said. "I don't know if that's so much a reflection on the council itself or city staff, but I was on the voter trail and talked to a lot of folks saying they feel disregarded by the city council."
Deeken said the controversy was due to poor advice on how to tackle the issue, and that members walked it back as soon as they heard about the outcry. He said it wasn't a common issue, and that meetings and council members are otherwise accessible.
The council can't mandate participation from the public, he said.
"My personal phone number's out there -- I answer my phone. I don't let it go to voicemail unless I can't find it," he said. "We advertise our council meetings, we advertise our agenda. Online or in person, we have three people, four people show up. We can't make them come up. It's not a conscription."
Young said she heard similar participation worries while conducting phone polls before starting her campaign, finding many of her constituents had concerns about closed meetings. She said it alienated voters who feel left out of the process by recent council practices.
"It is running in a way that they are told what's going to happen in this city, and they do not have input. They are concerned about that," she said, "and they're concerned about lack of representation. So they're looking for transparency, they're looking for civility."
She also noted some voters desired a landing page on the city website to more easily navigate the council process and voice their concerns that way.
Lueckel said the public's dissatisfaction with the way the council handled the yard waste issue was demonstrated in its quick reversal; he said many would have preferred to weigh in on the topic before decisions were made offline.
"Why would you go into closed session to do that? It doesn't need that, or precipitate that. Frankly, that should be something where our citizens should come to be able to offer their opinion," he said. "The reason that it was returned to some degree of yard waste site last night was because of the people. We should have asked, we should have inquired. We should have studied that -- we should have evaluated that long before it was ever shut off."
Wright said he agreed with his opponent's assertion that these ideas shouldn't materialize in a vacuum.
"Could we have done things differently, better, and with more transparency? Yes," he said. "I think that ... there were several fumbles along the way with the whole yard waste decision. I wish we could roll the clock back and do it differently, but I will roll the clock back all the way back to when we did the first decision last fall."
Wright said council members listened to the public when the issue emerged last year, and what they heard was a desire from constituents not to drive across the river to drop off their waste. He said the problem after that decision was the need to evaluate the next steps for a yard waste site.
Ward 5 candidates focused more on the process and culture around public engagement with the council. Job said meetings could be dry, so voters want a clear voice who can communicate the issues and their complexity back to constituents, while also making the process as approachable and clear as possible for those who want to participate.
"I think that they would like more clear instruction on what is happening and making sure that they're involved before decisions are made and making sure that people feel heard and invited to participate in the meetings, making it easier and simplifying the process for signing up to speak and making people feel welcome," she said.
Shetler noted an individual arrived at Monday's meeting after the appointed signup time for speakers, but the council listened to his thoughts on the yard waste issue anyway. She said the procedure for getting involved in a meeting can be daunting and complicated, as it was for her at first.
"I didn't know how to get signed up to speak at a council meeting," she said. "Maybe that should be a little bit more advertised and more open to the public, or for that process to maybe be a little more clear, but it needs to happen before the meeting starts."
The livestream of the forum was archived and is available on the video player appearing on this page, or on the city's YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQT25VYoD_A
Stephi Smith/News Tribune photo: Ward 3 candidate Treaka Young responds to a question during the News Tribune forum Tuesday evening at City Hall. Her opponent, Amy Brix, did not attend.
Stephi Smith/News Tribune photo: Ward 4 challenger Chris Leuckel and Ward 4 incumbent Randall Wright listen to another candidate answer questions during the News Tribune forum Tuesday evening at City Hall.
Stephi Smith/News Tribune photo: Ward 5 candidate Mackenzie Job, left, listens to Ward 5 candidate Virginia Shetler answer a question during the News Tribune forum Tuesday evening at City Hall.
Alexa Pfeiffer/News Tribune photo:
Jefferson City Council candidates answer questions in an election forum Tuesday, March 5, 2024, moderated by Jefferson City News Tribune Editor Gary Castor.
Alexa Pfeiffer/News Tribune photo: City council candidates answer questions in an election forum Tuesday led by Jefferson City News Tribune Editor Gary Castor.
Alexa Pfeiffer/News Tribune photo: Jefferson City News Tribune Editor Gary Castor preps those running for city council on the procedures of the election forum held Tuesday evening at City Hall.
Alexa Pfeiffer/News Tribune photo: Jefferson City residents look on Tuesday at City Hall during a city council election forum led by Jefferson City News Tribune Editor Gary Gastor.