Outgoing mayor asks for ethics complaint dismissal

Prior to his last day in office, Mayor Bob Stephens filed to dismiss an ethics complaint levied by the Springfield Police Officers Association.

The association in February accused Stephens and other Springfield officials of using city funds, personnel and equipment to influence the April 4 election. The complaint sent to Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley was referred to the Missouri Ethics Commission in March, according to a news release from Stephens’ hired attorney, James Owen of Owen Law Firm LLC in Columbia.

In his April 7 dismissal motion, Stephens seeks to have the complaint thrown out and asks for damages against SPOA President Christopher Welsh.

“In addition to adamantly denying these allegations, it’s clear the complaint doesn’t even belong in front of the MEC,” Owen said in the release. “It also didn’t belong in front of the Missouri attorney general.

“The people behind this filing don’t have an actual grievance, otherwise they would have read the law and followed it. They had political motivation to embarrass Mayor Stephens in hopes of benefiting their own agenda.”

The complaint from the SPOA — provided last month to Springfield Business Journal by Councilwoman Kristi Fulnecky — cites a January 2016 event called the “Mayor’s Final Birthday Bash,” in which Stephens is accused of using his “official mayoral communication medium” via Facebook to advertise the ticketed event with proceeds to benefit Ken McClure’s mayoral campaign. Stephens has said there is no official mayoral Facebook page.

The SPOA also took issue with Stephens’ use of a Public Works truck in a December 2016 Christmas parade.

“The association believes it was wholly improper for the city of Springfield to incur vehicle and manpower expenses in facilitation of the gratuitous self-promotion,” the SPOA complaint reads.

According to the release from Stephens’ attorney, there’s no timeline on the MEC investigation.

Today, McClure is scheduled to be sworn in at noon as Springfield’s next mayor. Last week, he defeated competitor Fulnecky in the municipal election.

McClure also was mentioned in the SPOA complaint, but according to a March letter sent to Stephens by the MEC, he was not eligible for investigation because of the proximity of the election, the Springfield News-Leader reports. Owen and city spokeswoman Cora Scott could not be reached by deadline for a copy of the letter.