Let’s say you’re driving home from work and you pass one of the ubiquitous speed traps in ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
Maybe you’re on Interstate 44 near Webster Groves, or you’re on Clarkson Road between Highway 40 (Interstate 64) and Manchester Road, where there is nearly always a Chesterfield or Clarkson Valley police officer writing tickets.
You’re speeding.
You get pulled over.
The conversation goes something like this:
“Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?â€
“Yes, officer. I was speeding.â€
“You admit it?â€
“Yes, officer. The speed limit was 40. I was going 50. A retired county attorney told me that was OK.â€
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For most of us, that conversation would not go over well.
But for former ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Police Chief Tim Fitch, this is the argument he is making to his colleagues on the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Council. Fitch, who was elected last November to the council, so he can collect his police pension while serving on the council.
Since he took office, the Post-Dispatch’s Jeremy Kohler reported this week, Fitch hasn’t been paid his police pension because county law doesn’t allow a salaried employee in the county to earn a salary and county pension . Council members are paid a $20,000 salary. Fitch knew the law before he took office. He tried to get former Councilwoman Colleen Wasinger to sponsor a bill to change it.
On one hand, it’s easy to feel sympathy for the former police chief.
He earned his pension fairly in a 31-year career in law enforcement, and it’s a good pension. If he doesn’t get his pension while serving four years on the County Council, Fitch will stand to lose $340,000. Police officers put their lives at risk every day, and the knowledge that they have secure pensions is one of the few but important payoffs that attracts people to that important line of work.
But as a politician, Fitch, a Republican, has pitched himself as a “law-and-order†guy. And the law says he can’t double dip.
Now he’s trying to get his colleagues on the council to change the law on his behalf.
Stung by the brouhaha in 2017 when County Executive Steve Stenger pushed through a change to county law that allowed former Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch to earn a county and state pension at the same time, Fitch’s new colleagues aren’t budging.
The comparison to McCulloch, a Democrat, irks Fitch.
“That was all hidden behind the scenes,†Fitch told me Thursday. “I want it to be a public conversation.â€
Now it is. Here’s the problem: Fitch acknowledges it would be a conflict of interest for him to sponsor a bill that benefits his pension. So why isn’t it a conflict of interest for him to ask the county counselor to draw up the bill, and then pitch the bill to his council colleagues so one of them will sponsor it?
Indeed, this is a tale as old as politics.
There is a long history of Missouri legislators making changes to pension laws, only to find out later that they were the beneficiary after a governor appointed them to a sweet state gig. During a time in which ºüÀêÊÓƵ County government is under a dark cloud of suspicion as the U.S. attorney’s office investigates Stenger’s administration, Fitch’s attempt to use his elected office to change the law for his particular benefit seems like more of the same.
It’s a cousin to Stenger appointing former council ally Pat Dolan to an amorphous parks department job, where Dolan took over the office space formerly occupied by Lou Aboussie, who was moved to a different parks office and whose personnel file was included in the recent federal subpoena of county records. It’s McCulloch asking his pal Stenger to pad his pension. Everybody gets a soft landing, paid for by taxpayers, as long as you know the right people.
All too often, elected officials believe that the laws don’t — or shouldn’t — apply to them.
This is one of those cases.
To be clear, that’s not how Fitch sees it. He told me he is fighting for the right of all county employees to enter a life of public service and keep their pensions. He says he has hired an attorney and plans a lawsuit.
Frankly, that’s not a bad idea.
Like a guy fighting a speeding ticket, Fitch can plead his case before a jury of his taxpaying peers.