BELLE  —  During a March 14 open forum to discuss Proposition 1, a ballot measure in the April 5 election to eliminate the elected marshal seat and create an appointed chief of police, Mayor Josh Seaver and Maries County Sheriff Chris Heitman answered questions concerning declared candidate Terry Connors.

The forum hosted about 10 visitors, including presenters. One of those present, Ronnie Stockton, asked, “Can you explain what’s going on right now? You got one person that signed up to run and he is not qualified. How does that work?”

Seaver replied, “Under city ordinance, and I believe there’s some state statutes involved there too, he has six months to complete the training.”

Seaver went on to say that currently there is not a qualified candidate for marshal living in the city limits and that is one of the reasons it is important to pass Proposition 1 and appoint a chief of police.

“That’s another reason this is the best option. Proposition 1 is the absolute best option for the city of Belle,” said Seaver.

“That pay has been cut down to how much?” asked Stockton, referring to the decrease in the marshal’s salary that was passed by the board of aldermen.

“$100 a month,” answered Seaver.

“And he’s still running?” asked Stockton.

“I can’t speak to why. I would of hoped he’d been here tonight. I can’t speak to why he’s running. I mean if he just has genuine concern for the city that’s great but I don’t know,” said Seaver.

The question of who had filed for the position and how long they had lived in Belle was raised by a woman in attendance.

Maries County Sheriff Chris Heitman answered, “It’s the guy who owns the Belle Motel, where most of our drug cases are out of.”

“Three, maybe four or five years,” said Seaver about the length of time Connors has lived in Belle. “I didn’t meet him until 2018 or 2019, somewhere in that neighborhood.”

“You said a minute ago you’re going to have to take over for Maries County. That means we’re going to have to buy two patrol cars. We’re going to have to pay for everything. That’s salary, uniforms, insurance…why did we not do that before we got to this situation?” asked Stockton. “You want to solve this problem but you didn’t want to solve it then. Evidently, something happened and now we’re in this situation where, no offense, we are going to be out a pile of money.”

Seaver said that the city still had all of its police equipment, including a patrol car. Seaver added that the plan the council is looking at to rebuild the police department would take three to five years and that the ability to appoint a chief of police was key.

“Where’s this money coming from? We got to rebuild, where’s it coming from?” asked Stockton.

“Representative Sassman filed the bill for us to allow us to be able to put on the ballot one half of one percent sales tax, the same the city of Vienna did to fund their police department. Once that makes it through the state level we’ll be able to place that on the ballot. We have to get it passed through the city, the voters, to do that,” said Seaver.

“What I’m saying…we had a problem then and the answer to that problem was pushing Joe out and contracting with Maries County. Now, we got to start this all over again. Why did we not do something then to keep us out of this now?” asked Stockton.

“What we would of had to do was impeach him. That is a very long and very very expensive process,” answered Seaver.

“There has to be other ways around it. You had to work with him,” said Stockton.

“When I took office in 2018, I had every intention of backing the marshal 110 percent,” Seaver said. “That’s what I ran on, was backing him. When I got in office, within a few short months I started seeing the cracks. There was a lot of things that I’ve never aired out, and I never will air out, that didn’t jive up.”

“You let it slide…and you let it slide and we got to this point,” said Stockton.

“I let it slide but when I realized what was actually happening I started bucking against him. Him and I had some pretty good rounds about it,” said Seaver. “Some pretty good rounds that were never made public.”

Seaver told those gathered that now the city is in a position to implement a solid police force over the next few years.

Seaver said, “There was a huge issue there and the only way out of it was either disband it and start over; do something different, or try to impeach him — which is no less than a three or four-year process and all the expense to the taxpayers.

“Right now we are in a better situation than we have ever been in. We know exactly what it’s going to cost us. We know exactly year to year what police service is going to cost. We know exactly what we’re getting. Before, we didn’t have a clue. We could budget $170,000 and he’d spend $240,000.”

“Nobody was overseeing it?” asked Stockton.

“There was no way to oversee it,” said Seaver. “He wasn’t accountable to anybody.”

“All the years prior to him, the city marshal had to answer for everything. He always did,” said Stockton.

“He didn’t really have to answer to anybody. We got fortunate where you had some marshals that would,” replied Seaver.

“Now you’re wanting to do this. How many times has this been brought up and it keeps getting voted down?” asked Stockton. “Do you think the public’s still going to stand behind the council?”

“I would hope that people would understand that this is the best path forward for the city,” said Seaver. “The elected marshal position is going the way of the buffalo all over the state of Missouri.”

Stockton said that the city board may say that an appointed police chief is the answer but that citizens were upset because they did not have a say in it.

“That’s why we’re bringing it to the people again. You are getting a say in it. It’s about accountability. With an elected marshal there is no accountability,” replied Seaver.

“All of this other stuff that happened should have never happened,” said Stockton.

“I agree,” said Seaver. “I’m 100 percent in agreement with you.”

Even with the city still in possession of law enforcement equipment, there will still be some costs to cover. Seaver said during the meeting that grants were available and asked Heitman for his input. 

Heitman said that there were quite a few grants available that the city would be eligible for and then he addressed the issue of the elected marshal position.

“The problem right now with what’s going on is finding a qualified candidate that’s willing to run for marshal, even if the pay was still $32,000 a year. Owensville pays their chief 60-some thousand a year. Getting someone that’s qualified to come in here and run; you just don’t have the pool of people that you used to have,” Heitman said.

“It’s just not Maries County, all the counties got the same problem. We can hire a chief of police, he gets a couple years under his belt he can run someplace else. Where’s that going to put us? We’re going to be right back to square one,” said Stockton.

“What’s the answer?” Heitman asked.

“I don’t know,” said Stockton. “It should have been solved years ago before we got to this point.”

Heitmann said that recruiting people is an issue for the city because, even though the benefits are great, the low pay is a deterrent.

“You’d get more qualified people to come with higher pay. They have fantastic benefits, you won’t find a place with better benefits, and that’s a huge part of it but it’s going to be hard to get someone to move to town and realistically stay for a while,” said Heitman.

“I’ve done a lot of reading on this and it’s just not Maries County or Gasconade. It’s statewide. They train these guys, they’re there for two years, three years then they go someplace else,” said Stockton.

“That’s how the sheriff’s office is too. I hire a lot of people out of the academy. I’m fortunate enough to work at the police academy. The problem is now you have someone that’s running for marshal who, I can tell you, will not pass the standards of our police academy. It’s going to cost the city money. Hopefully, he’ll do the right thing and withdraw his candidacy,” said Heitman.

According to city attorney Mary Weston’s understanding of POST certification, until Connors is certified he cannot write a citation or make an arrest. Weston also said he will need to contact POST to determine the actual number of hours he will need because the number in Belle Ordinance 200.010 concerning training requirements for the marshal may be too low.