Attorney accuses St. Louis County municipalities of using city dollars against Better Together
A politically connected lawyer working for a mystery client has sent letters to all 88 municipalities in St. Louis County demanding they account for any use of public dollars against the petition to merge St. Louis and St. Louis County.
Charles W. Hatfield, a lawyer at Stinson Leonard Street in Jefferson City, sent letters on Wednesday morning saying that Missouri law prohibits political bodies from using tax dollars to oppose a ballot measure, and that even putting out information on the issue could break the law. Hatfield said he believed some of the municipalities already were.
Municipal officials decried the move as a scare tactic.
“This is an attempt to stifle me from speaking to the residents of Des Peres about what could potentially happen to their city, to their services, to their police,” said Mark Becker, the mayor of Des Peres and a partner at the Hullverson Law Firm in St. Louis. “I can’t think of anything that would be more un-democratic than that.”
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/attorney-accuses-st-louis-county-municipalities-of-using-city-dollars/article_377f97df-e368-5441-aadc-a78239c65ec2.html