In October, then-Willard Mayor Sam Snider resigned just before impeachment proceedings against him could begin. One of the problems at issue — disagreement between Snider and the city’s Board of Aldermen on whether to hire a permanent city administrator for the town, population 6,500.
Also last fall, the city had two complaints forwarded to the Missouri Attorney General’s office over whether the Willard Board of Aldermen properly followed Missouri’s open-government statute, commonly nicknamed the Sunshine Law. Key provisions of that law make it mandatory for local governments to make documents like meeting agendas available to the public — in a complete and timely way — so ordinary people can participate in democracy.
One of the two complaints focused on whether Willard had properly listed a discussion of the city administrator job on a meeting agenda back in September.
According to the complaint response letter sent to Willard by the attorney general’s office, Willard officials added a section to the September 11 meeting agenda for non-specific “unfinished business,” then discussed the city administrator job at that meeting without explicitly disclosing that to the public in advance, as required by the law. The attorney general’s office said it looked like this was Willard’s first Sunshine Law issue, so the recommended remedy is training for city officials.
Sam Baird is the current Willard Mayor. He says once a new board of aldermen is seated after April city elections, they’ll take the training.
Baird told Ozarks Public Radio, "Anytime we're dealing with a governmental entity, as renowned as the Attorney General's office, and they say they've got concerns. Well, you know, what, we've got concerns too. And the other thing they said was, hey, if the attorney, if the AG’s office is prepared to close the complaint, as long as the city agrees to undergo Sunshine Law training in the near future, and that's a no-brainer. So they point out an issue, and they point out a resolution. And we are happy to move forward in that fashion.”
KSMU wasn’t successful in reaching the Missouri Attorney General’s office by deadline to confirm when Sunshine Law training for Willard would take place and to get a rough idea of how much time and money the office spends each year, training local officials on the open-government law.
Baird says he thinks Willard governance is going better these days than it was last fall, and he’s encouraged that more city residents seem to be attending meetings and participating in their government.
