Arnold Mayor Bill Moritz has told the Missouri State Auditor’s Office he wants the findings of an audit of the city and two transportation districts to be presented during an open City Council meeting on April 16.
Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick had his office on Nov. 6, 2024, start an audit of Arnold’s oversight and operation of the Arnold Retail Corridor Transportation Development District (ARC TDD) and the Triangle Transportation Development District (Triangle TDD) after receiving multiple complaints from its whistleblower hotline after the city announced and abandoned a proposed road project in August of that year.
“We have been accused of doing things in closed session to hide it from the public,” said Moritz, who said the city received a draft of the audit on March 4. “That is not true. We have been through this (audit) for over a year and a half now. I think it is time that the auditor comes and tells us exactly what they found. Good news or bad news, put it out there for the entire city to see it.
“There are some things in (the draft) that I don’t agree with, and there are things in it that we can certainly look at. There are things that are completely beyond our control because we are following state law.”
Auditor’s Office spokesman Trevor Fox in a March 6 email did not say if representatives would come to an Arnold council meeting.
He said the Auditor’s Office has provided a draft report, which is confidential until the audit is complete, to the city. He said Arnold has until April 3 to respond to the report, and the audit will be released after it is completed.
“The release date for this report is to be determined, but we will make it available as soon as possible,” Fox said. “The people of Arnold deserve answers, and we intend to provide them as soon as we can.”
During a March 5 council meeting, Moritz said two audit managers had met with the City Council in closed sessions in late 2024 and early 2025.
“The last time we met with them was in July 2025 when the audit managers came to what they called a pre-closeout session,” Mortiz said on March 5. “We were optimistic in July that the audit distraction was finally coming to a close. In that session, the auditors admitted nothing improper or illegal was done by the city of Arnold.”
Fox said the Auditor’s Office would not comment on the audit until it was released. The office posts completed audits on its website, auditor.mo.gov.
“Until the auditee is provided with an opportunity to respond and present their side, the draft report remains confidential,” Fox said. “We want to give the auditee the opportunity to present their side of the story in the report before it is released to the public.”
In an email to Moritz and other Arnold and ARC TDD officials, Audit Manager Wayne Kauffman said the Auditor’s Office sent emails on Feb. 9, 12 and 19 to schedule an exit meeting to review the draft of the audit in a closed session. He wrote, “The mayor has stopped communicating with our office and has not responded to our emails of Feb. 19 or Feb. 24, and the exit meeting has not been scheduled. This refusal to communicate with us to schedule the exit meeting will not delay the release of this audit report any further.”
“I don’t want to break from anything,” Mortiz said of not wanting to schedule a closed meeting with Auditor’s Office representatives. “We are not trying to pick a fight with the auditor. We are trying to get this done. We are going to have this audit response done in two weeks. I was working on it (on March 5). There are some things in that audit that I think are a stretch.”
The audit
The Auditor’s Office received complaints after Arnold officials announced and abandoned plans to have a 2-mile, two-lane road built between Hwy. 141 and Richardson Road to connect the city’s two main commercial districts over an 18-day period in August 2024. The road was to be called the Arnold Parkway.
The plan, which was projected to cost about $75 million, including the cost to acquire 38 homes, multiple businesses and a portion of the Water Tower Place Shopping Center, sparked outrage. Residents attempted to gather enough signatures to force recall elections for all Arnold elected officials, and the owners of the Water Tower shopping plaza filed a lawsuit to stop the road project and to dissolve the ARC TDD.
Arnold officials announced the road project on Aug. 8, 2024, only to announce it would not move forward with the project on Aug. 26, 2024.
City Council members voted unanimously on Oct. 3, 2024, to abandon the road project, but they also agreed that the city would continue to pursue a road project that would connect Hwy. 141 to Michigan Avenue. The connector road project was one of the projects listed to be funded by a 1-cent sales tax, which is collected mainly from businesses in the Arnold Commons and Arnold Crossroads shopping plazas and some businesses in the Water Tower shopping plaza, when the ARC TDD was formed in 2008.
In the 2024 letter announcing the audit, the Auditor’s Office identified the following three potential issues that possibly could constitute improper government activity, adding that there could be more issues.
The following are the three possible issues:
■ Ownership of property is located outside the boundaries of the TDDs.
■ High-level city officials serving as TDD officers.
■ Financial statements filed with the SAO (State Auditor Office) indicating the TDDs have paid off their debts and should be closed but remain open.
Lawsuit, property purchases
The owners of the Water Tower shopping plaza filed their lawsuit against Arnold on Aug. 12, 2024. A case management conference is scheduled for May 19.
Arnold City Administrator Anthony Traxler said the parties are continuing to work toward reaching a resolution, and a case management conference informs the court of the status of the litigation and is used to get input from the court that may assist with resolution.
“It is unknown as to when the case will be resolved as there are numerous complex discussions involved,” he said.
As the state audit and lawsuit have continued, Arnold has continued to purchase homes through the ARC TDD in the Key West Estates subdivision, which is made up of Harrys Lane, Christy Drive, Big Bill Road, Ridge Drive and Lone Star Drive.
Homeowners in the area had received letters from the ARC TDD offering $225,000 for their houses before the road project was abandoned.
Traxler said as of March 6, 22 of the 50 properties on Harrys Lane, Christie, Ridge and Lonestar Drives have been purchased by the ARC TDD, 19 properties are on a waiting list to be purchased and nine property owners have not responded to offers.
Bill Lehmann, Arnold finance director, said the ARC TDD has paid $5,677,322 for the 22 properties in the subdivision.
“Based on discussions our finance director has had with banks, the lawsuit has hampered the ability to expeditiously purchase properties via a loan agreement, which has forced the (ARC) TDD to do piecemeal purchases,” Traxler said. “It is these piecemeal purchases that has been the principal complaint from residents who are interested in selling their properties.”