YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
The process for selecting members of Springfield City Council standing committees is under scrutiny by a group of neighborhood residents.
In a letter sent to council members and signed by seven city residents, the letter writers call into question involvement of Mayor Jeff Schrag in discussing and voting on appointees to the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission as an ex officio member of council’s Public Involvement Committee.
It’s a concern first raised by a P&Z Commission member at a town hall meeting held by Councilmembers Abe McGull and Craig Hosmer on Jan. 29.
Commissioner Eric Pauly was in the audience, and he asked a question about council’s failure to reappoint three commission members, Bruce Colony, Chris Lebeck and Betty Ridge, who were eligible to be reappointed for another term. Instead, the committee recommended three new members: David Jacquez, Jennifer McClure and Chris Souliere. The trio were approved by council vote.
“When you look at the three that were appointed to those positions and look at their background and history, there seems to be a lot more of a slide toward development, toward business and toward the chamber of commerce,” Pauly said at the town hall meeting. “I think that we have skewed that particular commission in a way that doesn’t fully represent the city of Springfield.”
The concern was echoed in the Feb. 17 letter to council that was obtained by Springfield Business Journal.
The letter explained that PIC members met Dec. 11, 2025, to consider P&Z appointments, and the mayor joined in as an ex officio member and participated in voting – practices two former mayors state were not the norm for previous administrations.
“Lebeck, Ridge and Colony, all willing to serve, could have been appointed to serve the remaining three years of their four-year term,” the letter states. “All three were up for reappointment (or replacement).”
The PIC minutes from a previous meeting on Dec. 12, 2024, show that the committee decided to stagger terms to let Colony’s second term and Lebeck’s first term both expire Jan. 1, 2026 – also the date when Ridge’s term was scheduled to expire. That change set the stage for the triple removal on Dec. 11, 2025.
The signers of the letter to council were Linda Simkins, Delaware neighborhood; David and Vicky Trippe, Phelps Grove; Maggie Castrey, Kevin Evans and Nancy Williams, University Heights; and William Cooper, Seminole-Holland.
The letter writers made several requests of council, and one is to seek a formal, independent legal advisory opinion on whether the mayor is an ex officio member of council committees with voting rights. They also ask that the full council approve standing members of council and that P&Z appointments be diverse and serve the public interest.
Commissioner objections
In an interview after McGull and Hosmer’s town hall meeting, Pauly explained his own objections to council actions.
He said the new appointees lean toward business, development and chamber of commerce interests and change the balance of the commission, which often must weigh in on issues where neighborhood and developer interests compete.
“We’re not there to rubber-stamp or check boxes,” Pauly said. “We’re there to go through information as deeply as we can and point out pluses and minuses and make recommendations to council, who will go ahead and make a decision on it.”
Differing opinions are healthy, Pauly said.
“Unfortunately, I get a sense that if we start heading in one direction or another, we’re not going to have that type of healthy disagreement between different individuals and different bodies,” Pauly said.
The new appointees are described in the letter as a Realtor (Jacquez, also a member of both the Greater Springfield and Missouri boards of Realtors), a former Chamber employee (McClure) and a home builder (Souliere, also a member of the Home Builders Association of Greater Springfield).
Through the appointments, the letter stated, council lost the expertise of a construction manager, an attorney and a retired journalist – Colony, Lebeck and Ridge, respectively.
Complaint outlined
The letter said that at the Dec. 11 PIC meeting where the P&Z recommendations were made, members Derek Lee (chair), McGull and Brandon Jenson were present and Bruce Adib-Yazdi was absent, but the votes for the new appointments were all 4-0, with Mayor Schrag participating in the vote.
“It is believed the mayor is ‘stacking’ council committees (and as alleged by at least one council member) and attending select council committee meetings to exercise power for political purposes,” the letter stated, adding, “By voting as an ex officio member, we believe the mayor is exceeding the power granted to him by the charter.”
The letter said ex officio status is a matter of statutory or charter mandate.
“The charter does not grant the mayor ex officio membership status on council committees nor does it grant him the power to vote,” the letter stated. “He is seizing power he doesn’t have. Historically, it is not believed the mayor has done this.”
It added that the city has a council-manager, weak mayor form of government.
“The charter states the mayor is ‘recognized as head of the city government for all legal and ceremonial purposes’ and ‘shall have no veto power,’” the letter stated.
Mayor responds
Reached Feb. 17 by phone, Schrag said he considers his committee appointments to be a point of pride.
“I do take commission and board assignments pretty seriously,” he said. “I worked hard to find folks, to vet folks and to look at folks that I believe represent the community best.”
He said his goal is to leave no seats vacant and keep all slots full of good people.
“When I started on this journey, I thought the mayor appointed everybody,” he said. “I was a little bit heartbroken to realize the mayor only gets a few, the manager gets some and the council gets some. I think the mayor should get all of them.”
He added, “If Jeff could wave a magic wand, that’s one thing he’d change – all appointments come from the mayor.”
Schrag said he feels very good about the quality of the three people appointed to P&Z. McClure worked for the chamber, but she worked for the Home Builders Association as well.
“Home builders need climate, they need neighborhoods and they also deal with regulations all the time,” he said. “I think she sits in a nice sweet spot of understanding the importance of getting new housing stock to our community, and she’s incredibly smart.”
Souliere had served on a P&Z commission in a smaller city, he said, and Jacquez brings experience as a Realtor with an understanding of the importance of housing stock and new construction.
Schrag added that he had studied committee structure as set out in various ordinances, and he had also studied the charter. Many of the practices done previously were not dictated by charter, but by tradition.
He said there are four council standing committees that must exist and must have four members each.
“If I wanted to, I could put the same four people on every committee and call it a day,” he said.
But he also felt it was important for every council member to have some representation on a committee, and the only tradition he upheld was the idea that each member gets assigned to two committees.
“I’m going to go ahead and say it – I feel very good about how the committees are working right now,” he said.
Schrag added that before he changed committee processes, he sought direction from the city attorney, and all of his actions are in according with the city charter and the law.
Former member weighs in
In a Feb. 4 interview, Colony said it looks to him like the mayor is trying to tilt the balance of P&Z toward development interests.
“I wouldn’t exactly call myself not developer-friendly,” he said, adding he has made his living off of development for the last couple of decades. “Without developers, I wouldn’t have a job – but I’m certainly a fan of responsible development or development that fits in a community. I’m not for build-whatever-you-want-wherever-you-want-it.”
Colony said when he took his oath for his second term, he was advised by the city clerk that the term was reduced to just one year in order to balance and stagger terms – a decision made at that Dec. 11 committee meeting.
“Why they chose my term as opposed to Bill Knuckles, I’m not sure,” he said, referring to another P&Z commissioner.
He said that the three commissioners who were removed have backed neighborhood residents in many instances, and that’s the result of P&Z members listening to pros and cons from all sides, including city staff.
He gave the example of a contested 7 Brew Coffee location at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Sunshine Street as an example of an occasion when council and P&Z disagreed.
“That particular case was denied by Planning & Zoning three times,” he said. “There didn’t seem to be any local support other than some fairly high-profile investors and developers that really wanted that 7 Brew there.”
But, he said, despite P&Z denial and previous council remands of the issue, council ultimately approved the coffee shop anyway.
“If everyone thinks it’s a bad idea, maybe it is,” he said. “Maybe it just doesn’t fit. Maybe the thing you think you want to do there might be better somewhere else.”
Colony said developers have influence, but P&Z offers guardrails against that influence.
“You need to have those guardrails to make sure development is in the best interest of the city,” he said.
‘False narrative’
As a new P&Z commissioner, McClure objects to the idea that she operates on behalf of the chamber.
McClure served as vice president of strategic communications for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce for a six-year stint, ending in 2023, but she said in an interview Feb. 19 that the role was not the sum total of what she brings to the table. Rather, she described herself as an educated, engaged citizen who cares about her community.
“My civic and nonprofit contributions have been very important to me for decades,” she said.
McClure said she is now 60 years old, and it has been hard to see some 35 years of professional and civic contributions overlooked.
“I feel a little bit bullied and harassed by a false narrative,” she said. “It hurts to be minimized in that way.”
McClure’s background includes city commission service, including service on the Springfield-Greene County Park Board and the Mayor’s Commission for Children. In the community, she has been active on boards, including present service on the board of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Springfield, and on parent-teacher organizations, with seven years as a Court Appointed Special Advocate.
Of P&Z, she said, “I see it as a continuation of serving a community that I love.”
She added that she feels privileged to serve in any capacity.
“With any responsibility, it’s my intention to serve with integrity, to deliberate carefully and to comply with all the rules and regulations,” she said.
McClure said she also has a 35-year track record of professional contributions, and a period of service with the chamber is only one part of it.
“It’s incredibly hurtful to me that someone would distill me to I guess maybe being a puppet of one employer,” she said. “That’s really offensive and insulting to me.”
Mayoral perspective
Bob Stephens, Springfield mayor 2012-17, said he remembers appointing council members to standing committees, but not serving as a voting member of them.
“I just appointed them,” he said. “I tried to match them up best I could with their talents and the responsibilities of the committees. You try to get the best person you can.”
One member in particular struck Stephens as someone who should have been retained: Colony.
“He was an excellent member,” Stephens said. “There’s no reason he shouldn’t have been reappointed.”
In fact, he said, the three people who came off the commission were all squeaky clean.
“I would be a little concerned about the tilt toward the pro chamber, pro business, pro development thing,” he said. “You kind of see the same thing going on in the state legislature, national legislature – it’s creeping conservatism.”
Stephens doesn’t like the idea of the mayor appointing all committee and commission members.
“The mayor is elected by the people, but so are all the other council members,” he said. “You’re not trying to set up a rubber stamp.”
Stephens said the fact that Schrag formerly served as chair of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce gives him pause.
“All the connections there are just a little bit suspicious to me from a pro-business, pro-development standpoint,” he said. “He may be overstepping a bound or two.”
Jim O’Neal served as mayor 2009-12, and he said the tension between business and resident interests is not new.
“A fundamental balance has to occur, and it’s never perfect,” he said. “Sometimes it seems that the council is too closely aligned with the chamber, and sometimes council doesn’t recognize problems and obstacles that city government puts in the way of businesses in Springfield. You have to look at both of them.”
O’Neal said he has known Schrag a long time and believes the mayor understands the balance.
“The mayor’s his own person, and he cares deeply about the community,” O’Neal said.
He added that Schrag comes from a business background, and it’s only natural that he would align with business interests.
O’Neal said if the charter allows the mayor to vote, doing so is his prerogative.
“The bigger issue is to have awareness of the balance between the business community and the citizens and the services they’re looking to receive,” he said. “It’s a perception issue, for the most part.”
O’Neal said the four council standing committees were established during his term on council, which was 1987-91.
“Each council member of the eight served on two committees, and there were four members on each of the four committees,” he said. “I don’t remember getting much deeper into what the mayor’s role really was.”
He added that he did note vote as an ex officio member unless it was to break a tie.
Chamber voice
Councilmember Hosmer said it’s impossible to tell where a P&Z appointee will line up on neighborhood/developer issues.
“You want a board just like you want a council,” he said. “A bigger cross section of the community makes better public policy. When you pack it full of people that are all pro-development, what happens is neighborhoods don’t think they get a fair shot.”
That leads to distrust, referendums and a lot of other issues, Hosmer said.
He said P&Z appears to represent a less diverse cross section of the community with the new appointments.
“I know Jen McClure has worked for the chamber, not that that’s bad,” he said, “but it shows there is a propensity to favor that side over a neighbor’s side.”
That perception matters, according to Hosmer.
“If you have boards that people feel like are just rubber stamps, you sort of lose that feeling that you get a fair shot in front of a board or commission.”
Hosmer was critical of Schrag’s committee adjustments. He said he was removed from his longtime membership in the Community Involvement Committee, and Schrag packed the Finance and Administration Committee with him, Jenson, Monica Horton and Adib-Yazdi.
“That’s a committee that historically hasn’t done a whole lot,” he said of Finance and Administration. “That way he has at least two people that are more chamber people on each of the other committees, so there’s not much in the way of crossover.”
Hosmer added that Schrag put Lee, a general council representative and not a zone representative, in charge of the PIC, which makes board and committee appointments.
“For the 12-13 years I’ve been on council, that’s always been chaired by a zone member, and all zone members are on there,” he said. “You want a cross section of the community to be on boards and commissions.”
A provider of hyperbaric oxygen therapy opened its first Missouri location on Aug. 12 at 1316 E. Republic Road.
