Halt annex work until after election
In less than 60 days, voters will pick two new Clay County commissioners. Until then, present commissioners should give no further consideration to the controversial, $20 million annex a plan – one marked by outrages against the public’s interest.
What are those outrages?
• Neither of the two embattled commissioners, Gene Owen and Luann Ridgeway, is running for reelection, but the county went ahead with approving $1.2 million in contracts for architectural and engineering work on the annex. The hurry to spend so great a sum of money when neither commissioner will be in a position to see the project through to completion is an outrage.
• Using a bizarre county rule, Owen alone approved the contracts without a public vote. The rule should be repealed for being an insult to the public, a violation of the spirit if not the letter of the Missouri Sunshine law, and an outrage against the public of the highest caliber.
• Owen committed all of that public money without the public being…