Arnold Mayor Bill Moritz said he was astonished to learn someone had turned over closed City Council meeting minutes to the Missouri Auditor’s Office.
Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick said on Monday that his office received multiple sets of documents from a whistleblower over the past few weeks. The office is auditing the city and two transportation development districts related to the abandoned Arnold Parkway road project.
The Auditor’s Office had requested numerous documents, including unredacted minutes from eight closed Arnold council meetings held between Oct. 6, 2022, and Sept. 5, 2024.
While the city had sent many documents to the Auditor’s Office, it refused to send unredacted minutes from those meetings, with Arnold City Attorney Bob Sweeney saying that the closed meeting requests were beyond the scope of the audit and that the city should not have to turn over closed meeting minutes that would violate city employee’s privacy rights and information protected by law.
After the Auditor’s Office had requested the unredacted minutes, it also issued subpoenas seeking them. In addition, the city of Arnold filed a lawsuit on April 2 seeking a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction and permanent injunction to deny the request for the unredacted closed meeting minutes. A hearing in that case was scheduled for Tuesday, after Leader deadline.
However, according to a court filing from the Auditor’s Office attorneys, the whistleblower has sent those unredacted minutes to the auditor.
“There were four people who got the unredacted version of the minutes, and that would have been (former Ward 3 Councilwoman) Jessica (Bess), Ward 1 Councilman EJ Fleischmann, (former City Administrator Bryan Richison) and myself,” Moritz said. “I can confess that I am not the whistleblower, so you can narrow it down to three people.
Jessica Bess
“If they released closed session minutes, that is not a good thing.”
Bess, who resigned her Ward 3 seat on July 7, said Mortiz’s claim that only a few people knew about the unredacted closed meeting minutes is misleading.
“That information was shared with the city attorney, the city prosecutor, the city administrator, outside legal counsel, multiple other council members – let’s not forget former council members who were present at the meetings – and even a private developer, who despite having no official role within the city was allowed to attend at least one closed session where sensitive matters were discussed,” she wrote in a text message. “Any effort to narrow the list of informed parties misleads the public and distracts from the real issue: Why these minutes were withheld from the state auditor in the first place.”
On Monday, Fleischmann said he did not turn over the unredacted closed meeting minutes.
Bill Moritz
“I am annoyed by this,” Moritz said. “Bryan wouldn’t have done it, and it was not EJ. He said no, he definitely did not do this. If it was Jessica, and I am not going to say it was her, she betrayed a trust for her own agenda. That is a dog-gone shame. All she had to do is wait for (Tuesday) for the court ruling.”
On July 17, Jefferson County Div. 2 Judge Ed Page heard arguments from Bob and Allison Sweeney, whose law firm represents Arnold, and Robert Tillman and Leslie Korte, who represent the Auditor’s Office, in the civil case.
The attorneys had agreed to allow Page to review the unredacted closed meeting minutes and decide what information was protected by law and should not be turned over to the Auditor’s Office. Page also said he would order any redacted information not protected by law to be given to the Auditor’s Office.
As of Monday afternoon, the hearing was still scheduled, according to court documents.
On July 31, attorneys for the Auditor’s Office filed a motion to dismiss the case over the unredacted meeting minutes.
In the motion, the attorneys wrote, “Because the SAO is now in possession of the records being sought in its subpoenas, it no longer needs the court’s assistance to enforce the Auditor’s subpoena, and the SAO Petition is now moot.” The attorneys also said in the motion, “Because the state Auditor’s Office is no longer seeking enforcement of its subpoena, the city’s petition is also moot.”
Bob Sweeney said he was disappointed to hear the unredacted minutes had been sent to the Auditor’s Office.
“It’s a shame, because they (the closed meeting minutes) came directly or indirectly from a former public official, who, by doing so, breached a sworn oath and obligation to the city and has potentially created liability for the city,” he said. “However, so long as the city was not negligent in allowing the elected official to review the records, and I have no reason to believe that to be the case, the release of the information does what I and the city had hoped to accomplish the entire time, which was to protect the city from liability. A court order would have been preferred.”
Fitzpatrick said it is important that all those being audited cooperate and provide all records as required by law. He previously lambasted Arnold officials for denying his office access to all the unredacted closed meeting minutes.
“Given the lack of cooperation, the decision to withhold certain documents, and some of the conflicting responses provided by the city, it’s accurate to say this audit has been more difficult to complete than what we typically experience,” Fitzpatrick said.
In court on July 17, Sweeney told Page the city has willingly provided information needed for the audit, but it should not be forced to turn over information about personnel issues, unrelated litigation or confidential information related to Arnold residents that have nothing to do with the abandoned road project or TDDs.
“I believe that the court has already established that the auditor’s position that it is entitled to any and all records, all the time was decided when the judge agreed with the city that the court should review the documents and determine which records are appropriate,” Sweeney said. “As for the judge’s ruling impacting other cases, hopefully the Auditor’s Office will have learned a lesson. However, as for precedent in other jurisdictions, this is a circuit court ruling, so it has precedent only in this circuit.”
Fitzpatrick said he is interested to see Page’s ruling.
“If the judge proceeds with issuing an order that contradicts multiple instances of existing case law despite the case now being moot due to our receipt of the unredacted minutes, we will appeal the ruling to resolve the contradicting circuit court decisions.”
Fitzpatrick said the Auditor’s Office would not comment on the details of the audit until it is released to the public and that his office is working diligently to complete the report in a timely fashion.
In November, the Auditor’s Office started investigating how the city, the Arnold Retail Corridor Transportation Development District (ARC TDD) and the old Triangle Transportation Development District handled the scuttled Arnold Parkway project, a proposed $75 million, 2-mile, two-lane road that would have connected Hwy. 141 and Richardson Road. The proposed road project would have required the acquisition of 38 homes, multiple businesses and a portion of the Water Tower Place Shopping Center.
In August 2024, the Water Tower Place Shopping Center owners filed a lawsuit against the city, the TDDs and other current and former Arnold officials to stop the Arnold Parkway project. Attorneys for the defendants and Water Tower Plaza are currently discussing a settlement for that lawsuit, and a case management conference in that case is scheduled for 9 a.m. Sept. 9 at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Hillsboro, according to court documents.