BELLE — In a decision made during a closed session on Nov. 8, Belle aldermen voted 4-0 to proceed with a closed bidding process with Phelps Health in Rolla for the acquisition of new police cars. The vehicles were delivered to the city on Nov. 14, following a trip to Rolla by Mayor Daryl White, Jr., and city employees who personally retrieved them from the hospital.

The city purchased all three vehicles for $8,800, White said he is unsure if they will keep them all.

The discussion to purchase the cars began in September when Marshal Jerry Coborn asked the board for approval to bid on the cars and requested a budget. White tabled the discussion and continued it to the October meeting agenda where he said he would look at the cars first.

The topic was included on an Oct. 25 special meeting agenda but tabled again. It was also on the Nov. 8 agenda and moved to the closed session during the meeting.

Coborn said his understanding was the cars would be sold with the MOSWIN radios still intact, which were worth at least $6,000. He asked the board permission to bid on one, possibly two cars.

White said during the meeting that they would discuss the bid amount in closed session.

According to the closed session minutes, Alderman James (Pudd) Mitchell made a motion to bid on the 2010 Dodge Charger, a 2005 Impala, and a 2013 Ford Taurus using funds from Money Market. The motion was seconded by Alderwoman Barb Howarth with a 4-0 vote.

Coborn said the future purchase of the cars was still being determined after the previous meetings.

“They said they wasn’t sure if they could get the cars and then they were putting bids in,” Coborn said. “Daryl was the one that did the bidding. They called Daryl and said they won the bid, but I was not a part of that loop.”

Coborn said the cars arrived last week.

“We got the cars, and once we get the radios programmed, hopefully later today, they will be on the road tonight for second shift,” Coborn said. “Two cars will be police cars,  possibly all three, but right now we only have two full-time employees. One will be a training car for when we go places off-site.”

White said the opposite.

“Two of the three will be general-purpose cars and the third will be a police car,” White said. “We bought the cars for the radios. If we don’t hire another deputy, we don’t need the cars.”

White initially declined to share the purchase price of the new police cars with The Advocate.

“Stuart at MML said we didn’t have to give out the purchase amount if we didn’t want to,” White said on Tuesday afternoon.

Hayes clarified his advice.

“They don’t have to publish the amount that they spent but they do have to have financial documents that are open to the public,” Hayes said.

When asked why he didn’t want to share an open record purchase, White said, “Initially it was because we have been screwed by the newspaper before. If we sell the cars, everyone will know what we paid for them.”

He later shared that the city paid $8,800 for the cars.

“They are all completely set up to be police cars,” White said. “They are not marked yet, but they have the lights and the radios.”

The biggest drawback to purchasing the cars was the city’s budget.

Coborn acknowledged the police department’s budgeted income was not as expected, partially because the city’s school resource officer contract with the school remains unfulfilled. That would have infused an estimated $34,000 for another officer. Coborn said aldermen discussed transferring money into the police department’s budget to make up for the loss in revenue.

“They put $32,000 into our budget based on the fact that we were supposed to get money from school for SRO,” Coborn said.

The city’s closed session draft minutes did not reflect a transfer from any accounts to the police department. The budget is not an item covered under Sunshine Law that may be discussed in closed session. When asked if a transfer was made, White said no. When asked about the discussion of transferring the amount because of the lost revenue from the contract, White said nothing had been done. When asked if the city would remove the budgeted revenue item, he asked what would happen if they hired an officer.

A note from City Treasurer Charro Reasor in the police department’s budget said, “$34,000 needs to be deducted from the proposed income,” with the Maries R-2 School Contract in bold letters. When asked if aldermen have or plan to transfer funds to the police department’s budget to supplement the revenue, White said no.

“No money was transferred from one account to the other for the police department,” White said.

The Advocate requested information from the city clerk on Nov. 14 regarding missing information in the drafted minutes, including the purchase prices of the police cars and no recorded approval to transfer city funds between accounts, but was told she didn’t know how much was spent or what may have been transferred.

According to the closed session minutes, Frankie Horstman, the city clerk and recorder of record, was told by White, “that she could go ahead and leave the meeting (because) the only discussion was going to be cars.”

Closed session minutes were drafted by White and submitted to the clerk at a later date. 

Reasor provided aldermen with an update on city accounts during open session.

According to the October 2023 financial report, the Money Market account had an ending balance of $497,765.81 — an increase of $2,327.20 since last month.

General Funds reported an ending balance of $371,247.40 — a decrease of $19,170.81 since the beginning of the month; Special Road District had an ending balance of $115,105.94 — an increase of  $573.74; Bonds and Restitution had $149,859.37 — an increase of $700.64; and Show Me Courts had $5,030.62 — a decrease of $861.81.