For the second year in a row, a Jefferson County Circuit Court judge has ruled to remove impeached Pevely Alderman Dave Bewig from the ballot.
During a hearing Friday afternoon (Feb. 10), Div. 2 Circuit Judge Darrell Missey ruled that a Pevely ordinance prohibiting impeached public officials from running for office is valid. The ruling means Bewig, who filed in December to run for a Ward 2 aldermanic seat up for election April 4, will not be able to run.
Attorney Sean Westhoff of the Duggan and Westhoff law firm in Imperial represented Pevely in the case. Bewig represented himself.
Westhoff argued that the Pevely ordinance prohibiting the impeached Bewig from running was valid, while Bewig told Missey he believed the impeachment was not valid on several grounds and that the lawsuit to keep him off the ballot was part of a vendetta against him.
Missey said he could only rule on the laws and ordinances before him.
“I don’t know what goes on in the politics of the city of Pevely,” he said to Bewig.
Jefferson County Counselor Tony Dorsett participated in the hearing on behalf of the County Clerk’s Office. He said the County Clerk’s Office did not have a position in the case but requested an immediate ruling because ballots for the April 4 election needed to be sent to the printer at the end of business on Friday. In addition, Dorsett asked whether the court could order one of the parties in the case to cover the additional $10,000 to $15,000 cost if an immediate ruling could not be made and ballots had to be reprinted.
After Missey’s ruling, Bewig said he believes Pevely officials have violated his civil rights by not allowing him to run for city office again and says he will consider running again in the future.
“If I live in the city of Pevely, I will run again next year,” he said.
The Pevely Board of Aldermen impeached Bewig on Dec. 7, 2015, removing him from his Ward 3 board seat. Then in January 2016, Bewig filed to run again for alderman, that time in Ward 2 because of redistricting that put his house in that ward.
In December 2016, though, the aldermen had passed an ordinance banning impeached officials from running for an elected city office.
In January 2016, Jefferson County Div. 3 Circuit Judge Nathan Stewart ruled in favor of Pevely in a decision worded virtually the same as Missey’s.