Mayor dictating managerial aspects of Belle PD, patrolmen

Roxie Murphy, Staff Writer
Posted 7/24/19

Belle Mayor Josh Seaver received a consensus July 8 from the board of aldermen to move forward with taking over managerial aspects of Belle’s police department.

Managerial aspects include …

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Mayor dictating managerial aspects of Belle PD, patrolmen

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Belle Mayor Josh Seaver received a consensus July 8 from the board of aldermen to move forward with taking over managerial aspects of Belle’s police department.

Managerial aspects include scheduling, mandated patrols, asking that the elected city marshal be present at city meetings as department head — and negating overtime, to name a few. Seaver met with Marshal Joe Turnbough on July 11 to discuss the changes to the police department.

“This is for the foreseeable future or until we can figure this out,” Seaver told The Maries County Advocate. “There is a managerial problem and the only way I know to fix it is to take charge. That is it.”

Seaver said July 18 that his role is primarily to “take charge” of the deputies, who are technically city employees, but not the marshal.

“We can’t do anything with Joe (Turnbough, marshal), but the rest are city employees. I made a schedule for them to adhere to. The council has been asking for inventory lists since I took office, and it will be done,” Seaver began. “The police department looks like a bomb went off in it and needs to be cleaned. We have a time table to get it done. All the basic management stuff.”

Alderman Jeanette Struemph said, “It isn’t anything we haven’t all wanted since the first time I have been on the council. Maintenance logs, that is standard practice, even on vehicles. How do we know when it is time to change oil or if something is going bad? It should be part of the safe-working practices.”

Struemph said the police department should also be coming to the board with bills when they need something, instead of just coming in and saying “we need…”

“They can’t just do something here and there, and then all of a sudden there is a bill,” Struemph said.

She feels the changes may cut down on the officers’ overtime and help make the budget work.

“The budget is pretty much what it was last year, minus the resource officer that was paid for by the school,” Struemph said, adding that she feels the new scheduling will work out great. “It also asks them to find a fill-in while on vacation or sick. The marshal’s job is twenty-four/seven. I understand everyone needs time off for something, but you can’t take all the time you want off, and have the town suffer by paying overtime. It’s not fair to the taxpayers when the marshal’s primary job is the marshal.”

Following the allotted time to complete their tasks, Seaver said each officer will receive a performance review.

“To my knowledge, they have never really had a performance review,” he said. “If you don’t want to do the job the council is asking you to do, it doesn’t look good.”

According to state statue, Section 79.110 is construed as granting the mayor and board authority to hire and fire individual police officers. Section 79.230 grants the mayor authority to appoint officers with the board’s approval. Section 85.620 has been construed to grant the city board of aldermen authority to regulate police. 

Additionally, according to Section 85.610, RSMo., “the marshal is ‘chief of police’ in title and grants the holder of that officer power of arrest. Power of arrest, however terminates at the city limits.”

Statute 85.620 RSMo., states “the marshal and policemen shall be conservators of the peace, and shall be active and vigilant in the preservation of good order within the city.” 

“I don’t think the mayor is overstepping his bounds,” Struemph said. “I think he did his homework before he done it. We can’t keep doing this.”

Paperwork, including inventory lists requested by the board, have never been received, according to Seaver and Struemph. Furthermore, department head and other submitted reports are completed by Capt. Kim Elrod.

“Elrod has been presenting at the meetings, off duty, which means he is getting overtime,” Seaver said. “Most meetings, I am assuming he is off duty. If he is on duty, then he is not doing police work. We want Joe at the meetings, presenting information about his department as the department head.”

Turnbough asked for another officer to be hired and serve as a school resource officer in May and the board turned him down. Turnbough claimed that having the fifth officer would help avoid overtime. Struemph said it is the lack of new court cases along with officer overtime that has lead the board to this decision.

“We have talked about the budget and talked about the budget,” she said. “I know we can’t make people write tickets, but there is no revenue coming in from tickets. We are not asking them to write more tickets, but how do we justify needing another officer running around if there is no crime now?”

Struemph explained that the officer overtime isn’t the only budget item draining the department’s budget, it is also unexplained bills, such as a Dickie Bub’s charge the board refused to pay at the July 8 meeting.

“We had a vote at a meeting — Joe wanted to start a charge card at Dickie bubs, and we said no,” Struemph said. “He went over there and put $200 of stuff on an account — I believe he bought bullets. We don‘t want a charge card. Bills come back to you and we don’t know what for. We didn’t pay the bill.”

Struemph said there is no power struggle between the marshal and the board of aldermen.

“People pay taxes in this town, we have to be wise with the funds and manage what we have got,” she said. “Being over budget two years in a row proves to me nothing is being done to solve the problem.”

This year the department was $9,000 over budget, but Struemph said it would probably have been in the $30,000s like the last two years if not for the $29,000 school resource officer contract.

She said that is why the board feels they need to get a handle on the situation early, as the budget was just implemented this month for the fiscal year. While Struemph said the board is not trying to point fingers, but make things work correctly, they have a right to oversee the deputies as city employees. Seaver adds they are not taking it over, but someone has to get a grip on the police department.

“You were elected to be a police officer and elected to protect this town,” Seaver said of the marshal’s position. “There is no power struggle, there is a managerial problem.”

Seaver said he is receiving calls from citizens who are struggling to get in contact with the police department. By taking some of the administration aspects away from the officers, and mandating a minimum of eight hours of patrol per officer, per shift, the city will see more of the marshal and more of the police officers.

“Mandates are laid out for city employees,” Seaver said. “I never told the marshal what he had to do. It leaves Joe to either do the job he was elected to do, or not do it, and the people are seeing it. People are seeing it every day. If he is comfortable with that and thinks it will keep him in a job, we can’t do anything else with it.”