This is the first part in an ongoing series on Peaceful Village, a small municipality in northwest Jefferson County with about 90 residents. The Village was incorporated in 2008 under the leadership of Jack Walters, who owned and operated a church and camp on 78 acres of land on Antire Road near High Ridge.
After the Peaceful Village Board of Trustees decided in January to place a six-month moratorium on annexations into the village, board member Daniel Ross III called for a special meeting on Feb. 14 and asked for that board decision and several others to be reversed.
Village Clerk and board member Danielle Shannon said the board got 24 hours and 23 minutes notice before the special meeting, adding that Ross did not provide board members or the public with the proposed ordinances listed on the agenda to review before the meeting.
In addition to asking for the repeal of the moratorium on annexations, one of the proposed ordinances asked the board to repeal the village’s recent decision to become a member of the Missouri Municipal League. One sought to hold regular board meetings twice a year instead of once a month. Another recommended the appointment of Ross’s father, Dan Ross Jr., as the village’s official building inspector. One bill would have granted the annexation of four properties into the village, and one resolution asked the board to hire an attorney.
The five-person board, however, made it through just two bills in about two and a half hours before the trustees learned that Ross III had used a personal lawyer to draft the legislation for that night’s meeting.
Board chair Kelly Fagala said Ross’ use of a personal lawyer violated state transparency laws.
“(The lawyer’s) interest is to protect you, not the board,” she told him during the meeting. “The whole point is that you are paying her. We’re looking for ethics; I know ethics seems to be a challenge for you.”
“(The lawyer’s) interest is to get it right,” Ross responded.
His proposed bill to leave the Missouri Municipal League failed by a vote of 5-0, with Ross, himself, voting for the village to remain in the league. The next agenda item, to limit regular public meetings to twice a year, also failed after Shannon and Fagala voted to deny it. Ross and his wife, Rachel, who also serves on the board, voted for it, and the fifth member of the board, Steve Duncan, abstained from the vote.
Fagala joins the board
Fagala was elected to the board as a write-in candidate during the April 2024 municipal election. She said Ross Jr. encouraged her to run for the position.
Fagala said after about three or four months on the board, she became increasingly concerned about mismanagement and the lack of documentation for village business. She said she eventually realized that the village was a governmental body that needed to follow the law.
She said that ever since 2017, when members of the Ross family became a majority on the board, state statutes for governmental procedures have not been followed, including filing board meeting minutes, giving notice of public hearings and properly recording roll call votes.
“Before 2017, before the Ross family kind of took over the village, (the board) didn’t do a lot,” Fagala said. “It was just a sleepy little village where nothing ever happened. Now that Pandora’s box has been opened, people are like, ‘Wait, we can’t do this; wait, you’re doing that?’”
Ross connections with church, sober living homes
In 2015, Ross Jr. purchased the Peaceful Village church property from Jack Walters, the founder of the village, and it became New Hope Fellowship Church, which was established in the 1930s in Valley Park before moving to Fenton and then finally to Peaceful Village, according to its website. Ross III joined the church as a pastor in 2010.
Shannon and Fagala allege that Peaceful Village board members illegally annexed property the Ross family owns.
According to a report Fagala and Shannon wrote and submitted at the Jan. 14 board meeting, BRR Investments LLC petitioned the board in 2022 for a voluntary annexation of 5920 Antire Road so two sober living homes could be built there. At the time of the annexation, Ross Jr. and Ross III were board trustees and “organizers of the company (that own the sober living homes).”
The homes, called Cedar Oak, officially opened last May. Cedar Oak is a faith-based residential facility for those enrolled in a sobriety program.
Three of the five board members were present at an Aug. 30, 2022, meeting to approve BRR Investments’ petition for annexation: Rachel Ross, Ross III and Ross Jr, the report alleges.
The report also states there was no evidence found of a public notice posted for the meeting, nor were all five board members notified of the meeting. A public hearing on the annexation was not held, and no roll call vote was recorded.
In addition, the report says Ross Jr. was an illegitimate voting member of the board because he was not a Peaceful Village resident. Fagala said Ross Jr. served on the board for about six or seven years while living at a Byrnes Mill address.
According to previous Leader stories, Ross Jr. ran unopposed for a board seat for two terms in 2019 and 2021; no seats were up for re-election in 2022; no candidates filed in 2023; and Ross Jr. did not file for re-election in 2024.
Shannon said Feb. 14 that Ross Jr. resigned from the board in March 2024.
“(The Rosses) didn’t instruct citizens on how to get on the ballot if they wanted to run for a seat (on the Board of Trustees),” Fagala said. “They just quietly went to specific people they sort of cherry-picked. To my knowledge, for the last seven years, everyone who has served on the board of Peaceful Village as a trustee has either been a member of the Ross family or has been someone who attends their church, myself included.”
Fagala said the annexation of the sober living home property violates the state’s conflict of interest policy, as well as procedures outlined by the state on annexation proceedings. Also in question are all the board’s past actions that Ross Jr. was involved in.
Ross Jr. called the allegations a personal attack on him and his family.
“Things happened in that meeting on (Feb. 14) that shouldn’t have happened. Things were said that should not have been said; untruths were told,” he said. “I’m saddened by what a few people do to set a narrative, to make a person or a family look like they are in it for personal gain. Some of the people who have attacked, we’ve helped. That doesn’t seem to matter.”
Ross Jr. added that under his leadership, the church worked to provide resources for unhoused people and people struggling with addiction.
“People want to paint a different picture of us,” he said. “We have been pastoring this church for 23 years and have become a part of the community. We have lived our lives trying to help people, and we just have people who are attacking us personally.”
Ross III said that since January, he has no longer been a part of BRR Investments or Cedar Oak.
He said while there were “some procedural missteps” in annexing the sober living home property, the board decided to annex it after receiving guidance from the county.
“First of all, we don’t have a conflict-of-interest policy (in the village),” he said. “A lot of the ones for the state statutes are more about hiring. In a village of 90 people, everybody is going to have an interest in everything. We’re talking about such a small village.”
Fagala disagreed.
“I know that if I owned property adjacent to the Village, and I wanted to annex it, I certainly would recuse myself from that vote,” she said. “I would not participate in any kind of discussion. I would not participate in any kind of voting on that because that would be, as defined by state law, a conflict of interest. I don’t care if you have a village of 30 people – if you have what state or general ethics define as a conflict of interest, you have a responsibility to disclose that to the public and then recuse yourself from any appearance of using your office or your authority as an elected official in a way that would benefit you.”
February regular meeting
The board meets at 6 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at New Hope Fellowship Church, 5919 Antire Road. At a Feb. 11 meeting, members Rachel Ross, Ross III and Duncan were absent, so the board could not vote on any proposed items.
Since about two dozen people had shown up to the meeting before Shannon or Fagala realized there would be no quorum, the two board members opened the floor for public comment in an informal town hall-style meeting.
Village resident Larry Shannon said during the meeting that he has grown increasingly disillusioned with the board since he opposed a measure on the April 2024 ballot calling for Peaceful Village to be disincorporated. The measure failed 47-9 and the village maintained its status.
Shannon said he supported maintaining the village’s incorporation but has since changed his mind.
“I will never understand how hard I fought to keep this village, (only) to be sucker punched as much as I have in the past six months, to the point where I really don’t care and I would push the community to go back (to the county),” he said. “Mark my words, this is the beginning steps to the downfall of a village.”
Fagala told village residents she and Danielle Shannon are working to investigate prior board actions and to fulfill requests for records. They are also working to make sense of the village’s documents.
She said meticulous records were kept in a filing system from the period when the village was first incorporated to about 2017. After that, record-keeping became spotty.
Fagala said the board is currently working to file two delinquent annual financial reports for 2022 and 2023 with the state Auditor’s Office.
“Without any kind of register or ledger, it’s been very difficult,” she said.
Shannon, who doubles as the village’s custodian of records, said she has worked to digitize files and develop policies for mail and managing paperwork, adding that the village now has an official mailing address: P.O. Box 125, High Ridge, 63049.
The board will also begin posting agendas, as mandated by state law, the Friday before regular meetings at the Northwest Branch of the Jefferson County Library, 5680 Hwy. PP, as well as in the lobby of the New Hope Fellowship Church, she said.
The next regular meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, at the church.
“As chair, I’m 100 percent dedicated to being 100 percent transparent with the public,” Fagala said. “I think that transparency has been lacking over the last few years, and I don’t think there’s anything at all the board should be doing that isn’t freely available to the public, information-wise.”
Click here to read more of the Peaceful Village story series.