CLAYTON — The ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Council, during a contentious three-hour meeting Tuesday, turned back an effort to use $1.25 million in federal pandemic aid to help women get out-of-state abortions and also provide services for mothers with infants amid a national shortage of formula.
The measure, sponsored by Councilwomen Lisa Clancy, D-5th District, and Kelli Dunaway, D-2nd District, failed by a vote of 4-3 when one of the council’s four Democrats joined with three Republicans, who warned the measure would invite a legal challenge from Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt.
Clancy and Dunaway proposed to use federal American Rescue Plan Act money to pay for transportation, child care and other logistical help for women seeking abortions outside Missouri as well as help address infant nutrition needs amid the nationwide formula shortage.
Council Republicans, all abortion opponents, said the infant formula assistance should have been a separate proposal, which they could have backed.
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“I can certainly support the infant formula piece. I cannot support the rest,†said Councilman Tim Fitch, R-3rd District.
In addition to Fitch, Council members who voted against the measure were Ernie Trakas, R-6th District; Mark Harder, R-7th District; and Shalonda Webb, D-4th District.
Clancy, Dunaway and Council Chair Rita Days, D-1st District, voted for it.
Just last month, all four Democratic women were united in support of a resolution to condemn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade. A Missouri state ban on nearly all abortions, passed in 2019, went into effect after the high court’s action.
Webb said Tuesday night that she was “pro-choice†but opposed using “public funding to support activities that is not for the public as a whole.â€
Republicans said the bill was illegal, citing a threat from Schmitt that he would sue to block the measure. Schmitt has also threatened to challenge a similar measure approved last week in a 15-8 vote by the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Board of Aldermen.
“This is going to get tied up in the courts,†Fitch said.
Clancy said Wednesday that she was “disappointed†by the vote but was considering resubmitting the same bill or seeking funding other than federal aid money.
“Reproductive justice is a priority and I am evaluating all of the options,†she said.
Rejection of the abortion funding bill came after several other contentious votes, including the council’s turning down Webb’s proposal to give the $2.5 million to buy and renovate the former Trinity Catholic High School in Spanish Lake, which closed in 2021. PAL coaches youths in sports, homework and other after-school activities.
The bill, which had been on the agenda for weeks, had not previously undergone any public discussion.
Trakas revealed during the Tuesday meeting that Webb is a board member of the organization. He said that posed a conflict of interest.
“I think that is an inherent conflict of interest,†he said.
Webb denied that there was a conflict of interest but declined to explain further until a council working group on ARPA spending meets. Webb is the chair of the three-member working group.
Harder said the revelation swayed his vote on the issue, and he joined Trakas, Clancy and Dunaway in rejecting the measure.
Webb, Fitch and Days voted in favor.
‘Hard decisions’
Neither vote would have occurred had the council not decided to hold first-round votes on several competing proposals for roughly $74 million in ARPA dollars remaining to the county.
After delaying decisions on competing proposals for ARPA money at Days’ request, the council agreed on July 9 to form a working group to expedite the process.
The group, which also includes Clancy and Fitch, has not yet given a public notice for when it will meet. Webb did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Clancy asked to advance the abortion proposal and two other bills seeking ARPA money so that they could be ready for a final vote once the working group makes its recommendations, to cut out a week’s wait in the usual legislative process.
Her request came after several other council members had already held their ARPA bills.
Webb asked Clancy to wait, or else she would insist on rewinding the agenda to advance her ARPA proposals.
“If we move forward with hers, I want to move forward with mine,†Webb said. Trakas, Fitch and Harder followed suit with their bills.
Days asked to wait until next week to move all the bills at once: “I think what we’re doing now is piecemealing, and I’m not comfortable with that.â€
But Clancy said it was up to each council member to decide how they wanted to handle each of their proposals and argued the council had already been through too many delays. She promised to withhold a final vote until the working group finished its deliberations, but said she had yet to hear details from Webb about how the working group would proceed or how long its deliberations would take.
“It’s time for us to start making some hard decisions,†Clancy said, “and by moving these forward now that’s one less hurdle to clear ... should the working group decide to fund these items.â€
The other council members then decided to go back and advance each of their own proposals for ARPA money so that they could be ready for a final vote at a future meeting.
The council also voted 4-3 to advance a proposal by Clancy that would have given $5.2 million to , a nonprofit supporting early childhood development, to fund scholarships and pay incentives for teachers and caretakers. Clancy, Days, Dunaway and Trakas voted in favor of the bill; Fitch, Harder, and Webb opposed it.
Webb said she was concerned that the bill would “help individuals†without an overall plan for supporting early childhood care.
But she also prefaced the vote to say that it was not “personal†payback for the rejection of her PAL program. And she said she had planned to discuss her concerns during the working group meeting.
“I wanted to have some of these conversations during the working group so we could have a reasonable discussion,†Webb said.
The council by voice votes advanced several other ARPA funding proposals without opposition, including a revised plan by Trakas calling for $18.5 million for a range of projects in his south ºüÀêÊÓƵ County district, which is mostly unincorporated. A previous version had called for $25 million.
{span style=â€background-color: #fdd8d8;â€}Posted at 11:45 a.m. Wednesday, July 20.