CLAYTON 鈥 最新杏吧原创 County Executive Sam Page instructed department leaders not to communicate with members of the county council, according to a letter from the council chair.
Chair Shalonda Webb, in a , asked Page to 鈥渞etract his directive鈥 and allow department heads to talk with councilmembers.
鈥淚f we are going to move 最新杏吧原创 County forward, we must work collectively and transparently without walls or unnecessary hurdles that prevent progress,鈥 wrote Webb, a Democrat from North County.
Doug Moore, a spokesman for Page, said on Tuesday that the county executive believes partnership with the council is important.
鈥淚t can be frustrating for council members when a department director does not always have the answer to the questions on the spot,鈥 Moore said in a statement. 鈥淭hat can feel deliberate. It is not.鈥
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Page and Webb talked at length about the issue last month, Moore said. It is important to Page that the council is 鈥渁rmed with information to make informed decisions,鈥 the statement said.
Councilman Mark Harder, a Republican from Ballwin, said he has been told he needs to go through Page鈥檚 office to get information from department heads.
But other councilmembers said they haven鈥檛 had trouble.
Republican Councilman Dennis Hancock of Fenton said he hasn鈥檛 had any issues communicating with directors, though they don鈥檛 鈥済o out of their way to expand on things.鈥
Councilwoman Lisa Clancy, a Democrat from Maplewood, said she hasn鈥檛 had trouble. Republican Councilman Ernie Trakas of unincorporated South County said he always receives timely responses from directors.
Councilwoman Kelli Dunaway, a Democrat from Chesterfield, said she was unaware of any policy regarding communications between the council and department heads.
It鈥檚 common for councilmembers to seek information from department heads in order to respond to constituent and community inquiries.
A few years ago, for instance, Democratic Councilwoman Rita Heard Days of Bel-Nor emailed with public works Director Stephanie Leon Streeter about moving a no-parking sign to allow a University City resident to park closer to her home. Streeter and her team communicated directly with Days explaining why the change wasn鈥檛 possible, according to emails from March 2022.
And the legislative assistant for Trakas worked with Streeter last April on a constituent complaint about broken and uneven sidewalks, according to emails. Public works managers evaluated the situation and responded within a few weeks 鈥 someone had taken it upon themselves to remove and repour concrete without county permission, and did it poorly.
Days didn鈥檛 immediately respond to a request for comment.
最新杏吧原创 County Executive Sam Page unveiled a new logo for the region during his State of the County speech on Jan. 10, 2023. He explained what the logo represented in his speech. Video courtesy of 最新杏吧原创 County.
