By Laura Marlow
For the Leader
A petition has been filed seeking to force an election aimed at removing Annette Acre from the Mapaville Fire Protection District Board of Directors, the latest in a series of controversies plaguing the small district in central Jefferson County.
Wendy Cauley, a firefighter with the district for five years, filed the recall petition on March 26 with the Jefferson County Clerk’s Office. As of Monday, she said, about 430 of the required 505 signatures had been collected.
“We should be going out this week, and I’m pretty confident we’ll get the rest by the weekend,” Cauley said.
Jefferson County Clerk Randy Holman said that if the required number of signatures are gathered and found to be valid, his office will certify the petition and call for an election to recall Acre and fill the remainder of her six-year term, which expires in April 2021.
Holman said the situation is unusual.
“This (a request for recall) doesn’t happen very often in Jefferson County. It’s kind of uncharted waters,” he said. “But we’re going to just follow the statutes and go from there.”
Holman said he doesn’t yet know if Acre could refile for her seat in a recall election.
The petition was filed less than two weeks after volunteer Mapaville Fire Chief Darryl Reed filed a lawsuit in Jefferson County Circuit Court, naming the district and five current board members as defendants – Acre, Marvin Boehme, Mike Lawhorn, Ron Beckett and Sherri Hensley.
The suit, filed March 15, alleges “purposeful, calculated and malicious” violations of the Sunshine Law and asks the court to order penalties of up to $1,000 for each knowing violation and up to $5,000 for each purposeful violation.
The Mapaville Fire board voted at its April 16 meeting to advertise for applicants for a paid fire chief position.
Reed said the board took that action after trying for several months to push him out of the job, claiming in the lawsuit the board is attempting to replace him with Jordan Acre.
“It’s a mess, frankly,” said Reed, who has led the district for more than 33 years. “Never once has my performance been questioned until December.”
Mapaville Fire covers 22 square miles, including parts of Pevely, Hills-boro and Festus mailing addresses, serving about 3,000 residents. It employs three full-time and 15 part-time firefighters and has about 15 volunteers.
Frustration on both sides
Cauley, 52, a part-time paid firefighter, said the petition is a result of frustration she and other district employees and residents have with the way Acre, the board secretary/treasurer, has handled board business.
Cauley said some of the complaints she and others have against Acre stem from a situation surrounding Acre’s son, Lt. Jordan Acre, a current or former – depending on whom you’re talking to – volunteer firefighter with the district.
“He hasn’t showed up for more than five months,” Reed said. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s gone.”
Reed said he sent Jordan Acre a letter terminating his status as a firefighter and asking him to return his equipment.
“He sent me back a letter saying that the board and the district’s attorney told him not to worry about turning in the equipment, that he had been granted a leave of absence,” Reed said. “Then, I got a letter slipped under my door, on letterhead, unsigned, that is dated April 18. It says Jordan Acre’s leave has been extended until further review by the board.
“In the past, the chief has always been the one to approve leaves. That’s what the SOGs (Standard Operational Guidelines, the district’s policy manual) say.”
Annette Acre and other Mapaville Fire board members say there’s more to the story than the version given by Cauley and Reed.
“We’re frustrated that the real picture isn’t getting out,” Beckett said. “When this is all said and done and the dust is settled, when we are free to speak, some people are going to feel really foolish and shocked when they find out what the real deal is.”
■ Both Cauley and Reed allege that a number of discussions and votes have taken place in closed executive sessions that should have happened in open meetings.
“The list is endless of what Sunshine Laws (board members) are breaking,” Cauley said.
She said Acre and fellow board members Ronald Beckett and Sherri Hensley have discussed district business outside meeting times.
“The three of them stood on the parking lot for 15 minutes talking,” Cauley said. “I don’t know what was said, but they were holding checks and other paperwork from the district and were pointing to them and talking.”
Hensley takes issue with that statement.
“Absolutely false,” she said. “This is an example of people taking things out of context.”
She said she arrived at the February meeting to find fellow board member Beckett heading back to his car. “Annette was with him, and I walked over and said, ‘What’s going on?’ and they told me the meeting had been canceled because Ron couldn’t breathe.”
She said Beckett, who suffers from breathing difficulties, had an adverse reaction to some cleaning products that had been used at the firehouse earlier in the day and was unable to continue the meeting.
“I was just finding out what was going on,” Hensley said. “Wendy and some of the others rushed out and said, ‘You can’t have a meeting out here,’ but we weren’t.”
■ Cauley also alleges that Acre fails to record or mis-records meeting minutes.
“We have (audio) recordings from meetings, like when they were talking about an ad they were going to do,” she said. “You can clearly hear them say the ad should say, ‘15 years of experience’ for a position, then the ad came out later saying ‘10 years.’
“That might be a little thing, but it’s the idea that whatever she (Acre) wants to put down, that’s what gets recorded as the official minutes.”
■ Cauley said Acre has refused to provide information, such as minutes and financial statements, until presented with a Sunshine Law request.
“Even then, the law says you should get it to (the requester) in 72 hours,” Cauley said. “She takes up to two weeks.”
Reed said he recently made a recommendation to the board for several promotions, with raises to go along, but then was unable to attend the meeting where the board voted on his recommendations because of illness. Afterward, he said he asked whether his recommendations were approved.
“Annette Acre said she had to check with the lawyer to see if she could tell me whether the promotions and raises were approved,” he said. “Why does she have to talk to a lawyer? Either the board did or they didn’t approve.”
■ Cauley said community members are frustrated and angry about the haphazard way meeting notices have been getting posted.
“She (Acre) waits until the last minute to post meeting notices; she posts late at night and on the weekends. A lot of the time, she posts less than the required time in advance.
“People in the community are getting really aggravated by these meetings. We get 15 minutes for public comment – three minutes per person – and no two people are allowed to talk about the same topic. Nothing ever gets answered. It’s a control thing.”
Acre said the situation in the district is opposite from the way Cauley describes it.
“At this point, the only response I’m willing to give is that the accusations that have been made against me are so inflammatory and untrue that they don’t warrant a response,” she said. “People who know me will know there is no truth to what is being said, and those who don’t know me will make up their own minds one way or the other. I can’t control how people think.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there and eventually it will come to light. Eventually the truth will come out.”
What happens next
Cauley said Mapaville staff and community members are working daily to get the rest of the signatures needed for the petition.
“We have been trying to go out for a few hours every evening, knocking on doors,” she said. “Evenings between 6-7:30 p.m. seem to work the best. We’ve done some Sunday afternoons, but we really try not to bother people. It’s tough because everybody has to work, of course, and we’ve had all this rain.”
The petition will be turned over to Holman for certification.
“We check to see that everyone who signs is a registered voter,” Holman said. “The number they need is 505; that represents 25 percent of the registered voters who voted in the most recent gubernatorial election.”
If all the signatures check out, the petition goes on to the next step; if not, the petitioners have 10 days to amend it and resubmit.
“Once the petition is certified, we would call for an election to fill the spot being recalled,” Holman said. The election would be for the remainder of Acre’s term.
Acre was appointed to the Mapaville Fire board in the fall of 2014 to fill the unexpired term of Gary Westfall, who resigned; she was then elected to a six-year term in April 2015.
Missouri state statutes dictate that the election be held “not less than 45 nor more than 120 days” from the time the district’s board of directors receives the certified petition.
Exactly when the election would be held and how much it would cost depends on when the certification is completed.
“If it (the recall vote) goes on with another election in August or November, then the district would bear part of the total cost of holding the election,” Holman said. “Outside those dates, they would bear the entire cost.”
Holman said the certification process will take some time, so even if the petition is submitted to his office soon, there is little chance of getting it certified by May 29, the deadline for placing anything on the August ballot.
“According to state statute, they have until Sept. 23 to submit the petition. So, if they get it in fairly soon, they still could get it on the November ballot,” he said. “But if not, we’re talking a special election.”
Holman said his office would likely seek legal counsel for the recall election, if it becomes necessary.
“We would have to get a clarification about where (candidates) would file, with us or at the district,” he said. “Probably with us, but we have to check.
“And we would seek a legal opinion about whether anyone could file, including Ms. Acre.”