This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 10, 2012 -The St. Louis Police Officers Association's president is going public with his opposition to Proposition A, the statewide proposal to return control of the police department to City Hall, ending 150 years under state oversight.
But the association's business manager, Jeff Roorda, says the group's executive board remains on board in support of the proposal. Roorda said a special meeting will be called within a week to "resolve our differences."
Local control opponents began circulating this week the letter from association president David Bonenberger, which asks voters to reject Proposition A.
The letter takes verbal shots at the alliance of Mayor Francis Slay, who long has sought local control, and wealthy financier Rex Sinquefield, who helped bankroll the initiative petition drive that got the proposal on the ballot.
"I was surprised by the letter,'' Roorda said, adding that the association's executive committee had voted last fall in favor of Proposition A. Since then, local chapters of the ACLU, the NAACP, among others, are challenging Proposition A on various grounds.
Slay and his allies, including Democratic state Senate nominee Jamilah Nasheed, maintain that it’s time for the city to run its own police department and that the change could lead to greater efficiencies and better operations.
Bonenberger disagrees, noting in the letter that the police association “has been fighting against local control for our 44-year history. Why you may ask? Quite simply because state control through the five-member Board of Police Commissioners works just fine.”
In the letter, he continues: “Last year Mayor Francis Slay formed a very unique and unorthodox relationship with billionaire Rex Sinquefield. Sinquefield decided to dedicate $8 million to distribute a ballot initiative petition at the constitutional level that would have completely eliminated the police department as we know it. With that it would have eliminated our pay, benefits, and our pension. We would have been left with nothing. Midway through the year the SLPOA reached an agreement that would stop the Slay/Sinquefield attempt if we would agree to support a change in legislation to give the city control of the police department.”
Slay chief of staff Jeff Rainford called Bonenberger's letter "the guy's personal opinion."
Bonenberger won election a year ago, as part of a split within the association over local control. He contends that Sinquefield’s involvement in the local-control effort is linked to the financier’s opposition to the city’s earnings tax. Because of a Sinquefield-financed initiative that won statewide in 2010, St. Louis voters must vote every five years on whether to retain the tax.
As for Slay, Bonenberger contends that local control is tied to the police pensions; Slay has actively worked to revamp the pension plan for the city firefighters.
Roorda said the association's leaders are in talks with the pension's board of trustees and are in the midst of "earnest conversations over pension reform."
