• About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
Friday, January 15, 2021
31 °f
Platte
32 ° Sun
35 ° Mon
34 ° Tue
36 ° Wed
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
No Result
View All Result
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
No Result
View All Result

Judge is asked to hold Parkville officials in contempt

Debbie Coleman-Topi by Debbie Coleman-Topi
November 19, 2020
in Headlines
Contempt
27
SHARES
666
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email

New developments in Sunshine Law court case

The Parkville area resident suing city leaders for violations of the Sunshine Law is asking a Platte County Court judge to hold officials in contempt of court for purposely withholding documents under subpoena and repeatedly delaying providing the requested information under the Missouri Civil Discovery laws.

“Those materials will likely provide direct or circumstantial evidence that the city knowingly and purposefully violated Missouri’s Sunshine law,” the filing states.

RelatedNews

Winter weather to impact travel Friday

State ethics board investigating Parkville mayor

Three want spot with health department

The latest court brief asks that the following be found in contempt: Mayor Nan Johnston, City Administrator Joe Parente and each of the eight-member board of aldermen: Tina Welch, Robert Lock, Marc Sportsman, Dave Rittman, Brian Whitley, Greg Plumb, Philip Wassmer and Douglas Wylie.

The filing alleges the officials have used their city email addresses as well as private email servers to communicate with each other and have disobeyed recent court-ordered subpoenas to produce communications from private server communications. In addition, the documents have been withheld “without excuse” or explanation, the filing alleges.

Platte County Judge James Van Amburg, who ordered the parties to comply with the release of documents during an August hearing, will consider Maki’s contempt request during a Friday, Dec. 11 hearing.

Contempt is punishable by a fine, jail time or another action, including community service or any combination of the listed sanctions.

Maki, who is representing himself, filed the suit this past February and his court documents state that city officials have failed to comply with even the most basic requests for information during an early court process known as civil discovery.

The case’s next court hearing is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 20, when the judge is expected to rule on the city’s refusal to release documents despite his stern order during a seperate August ruling. The judge told the city’s lead attorney, Steve Coronado, that Maki “is entitled to that information and I want it provided.” Coronado first insisted that Maki’s requests were too broad, unclear and that the documents he requested already had been provided before finally telling the judge he would do what he could to comply.

In a hearing this past Friday, Nov. 13, Jacob Bielenberg who is one of the five attorneys the city has working on the case, requested 10 days to file an additional court brief explaining the city’s position regarding the motion to compel, despite Maki’s complaint that the city has already had four weeks to produce additional court briefs.

The judge said city officials should be ready to produce the requested information by this Friday’s hearing set Nov. 20.

Maki has claimed the city’s actions constitute persistent stalling and his motions claims evidence that officials are not taking the court order or subpoenas seriously.

Maki’s contempt filing offers examples of how officials have purposely hidden requested documents. In some cases, an official has neglected to provide an email, exchanged between two parties, while one of the officials produced the requested document.

In the contempt filing Maki provides multiple other examples claiming that Parkville Mayor Nan Johnston has failed to produce documents known to exist, produced documents with missing pages and sometimes cut off conversations mid-correspondence, according to the filing.

Johnston, who was arrested for DWI in September, also has been found guilty by the Missouri Ethics Commission for campaign violations during her candidacy for mayor in 2019. The commission ruled she violated the law by illegally accepting corporate contributions and concealing contributions. She was fined for those infractions.

In addition, Maki’s filing states that Alderman Tina Welch “produced zero documents in response” to Maki’s Sunshine requests despite her public city email account being automatically transferred to her private home server.

In another example, Maki states that officials provided a “curiously” identical document despite it supposedly being produced by officials with different email servers and programs, according to the contempt filing. Maki claims the document is the same copied piece, with identical spacing, margins, type style and font, indicating city elected officials used the same response to his requests instead of searching their separate email systems for the required documents.

Maki accuses officials of failing to produce documents in spite of a September 2019 order advising officials to preserve documents related to Maki’s Sunshine requests in advance of possible litigation and because, at the time, the Missouri Attorney General’s office already was investigating the city’s actions. Therefore, it was illegal for documents to have been destroyed. (The state office launched an investigation into the city’s operations but decided to drop the probe after Maki filed suit.)

The officials received instructions on fulfilling requests via individual subpoenas, which stated the documents should be produced “in electronic format as they were ordinarily maintained and in their native format and in all cases with all metadata preserved,” requesting that data should not be “altered, destroyed, or omitted.”

Maki’s filing also states officials continue to fail to release documents although they already have “waived objections to subpoenas that conform to the court’s order on otherwise identical subpoenas served on the individuals earlier this year.”

In past filings, Maki has speculated officials refuse to release documents because they will provide evidence city leaders have animosity toward him. He has made requests for documents since the September 2018 approval of a massive development in the city known as Creekside. City officials and their attorneys have repeatedly claimed the requests are over-burdensome and have detracted from city business.

The development, which is currently under construction, includes more than 350,000 acres of residential, retail, and light industrial buildings, parking, and amenities. Maki, along with other residents, formed Citizens for a Better Parkville, a group dedicated to uncovering what they claim has been the city’s attempt to hide that many decisions regarding the development were made behind closed doors. The groups’ claims, which have been outlined in Maki’s lawsuit, allege that city officials met privately with developer Brian Mertz (a violation of the law) to negotiate details of the development before bringing the issue to the public in September, 2018. City officials, however, contend they complied with the law because they held the required public hearings to keep citizens informed.

Details provided in Maki’s recent court documents suggest that the city may have withheld documents from the public regarding Creekside.

Documents sought from personal email accounts

Subpoenas go out in Parkville Sunshine case
Tags: ethicsLawsuitsNan Johnstonparkvilleplatte countySunshine Laws
Debbie Coleman-Topi

Debbie Coleman-Topi

Debbie's journalism career began at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where she was trained.

Her works have appeared in The Kansas City Star and its Sunday magazine, The (Independence) Examiner and TWINS Magazine. Debbie has written for The Landmark for the past four years where she has reported on a wide range of Platte County area issues and people.

These include the longest-running issue of her three-decade career--a massive development in Parkville, which spawned a citizens' movement that objects to the way city officials manage the city.

She is the author of "TWINformation: The Biology, Psychology and Development of Twins”, written in response to having and raising fraternal male twins (she and her husband later welcomed a girl to the family.)

She is also the author of “Memories of A War Bride,” which chronicles the life of her husband's Godmother, a WWII English war bride.

Debbie and her husband, John, live in Blue Springs, a long car drive from events and meetings she covers for The Landmark. In fact, when she first met publisher Ivan Foley, after answering his ad for a reporter she told him she should have packed a lunch for the long journey. When she heard no response following the job interview, Debbie called to ask if Foley was not interested in her joining the staff. He was interested, but assumed the drive was too long.

Obviously, he was wrong.

Related Posts

45 Years Ago–January 16, 1976

by Ivan Foley
January 14, 2021
0

Mr. and Mrs. Michael McGinness, of Platte City, announce the birth of their daughter, Marcie Gayle McGinness, at North Kansas City Memorial Hospital. The grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Taylor and Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. McGinness of Lathrop,...

30 Years Ago–January 18, 1991

by Ivan Foley
January 14, 2021
0

Alma M. Hubble has been named as nursing manager for the Obstetrics Department of Spelman Memorial Hospital in Smithville. She and her family recently relocated to the Platte City area from Springfield. An expected seven percent decrease in revenue from...

15 Years Ago–January 12, 2006

by Ivan Foley
January 14, 2021
0

The message is clear. Annexation is a priority for the Platte City Board of Alderman. As part of that message delivered at their regular meeting on Tuesday evening, three points were clarified by board members. They are interested in annexing...

The Big Lie

Sometimes the big lie gets used as a political strategy

by Ivan Foley
January 14, 2021
0

Looks like Nan Johnston should just set an annual appointment time with an investigator from the Missouri Ethics Commission. Landmark Live will be a magical time when we come back to life for a show Thursday, Jan. 14 at 6...

Next Post
Five vehicle crash on I-29 kills one

Five vehicle crash on I-29 kills one

Popular News

  • Carlotta E. Palmer

    A $20 drug deal goes horribly wrong

    53 shares
    Share 21 Tweet 13
  • State ethics board investigating Parkville mayor

    25 shares
    Share 10 Tweet 6
  • Court upholds suspension of area doctor’s license

    24 shares
    Share 10 Tweet 6
  • Love Notes From Nan – Investigation Edition

    85 shares
    Share 60 Tweet 10
  • Three want spot with health department

    10 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 3
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
Call us at 816-858-0363

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Subscribe Online
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved