HAZELWOOD • A dispute between Hazelwood and a fire district the city wants to cut ties with is moving beyond the courtroom and toward the ballot box — challenging Missouri laws on campaign finance and fire districts in the process.
The Robertson Fire Protection District sued the city in February after the Hazelwood City Council voted in December to cancel its 23-year-old pact with the district, which serves about . The city pays the fire district tax for about 4,834 residents, through a signed at the time Hazelwood annexed their neighborhoods.
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Tax increases approved by voters in the Robertson district over the years have raised the city’s bill to $3.6 million in 2017 from $1.16 million in 1995. Hazelwood officials say the escalating cost of the contract is jeopardizing other city services.
Hazelwood officials want the city’s fire department to take over Robertson’s portion of the city. In fiscal year 2016, the city paid $4.7 million for its fire department, which serves 14,690 residents. The city paid the Florissant Valley Fire Protection District, which serves a third of the city under the same annexation agreement as Robertson, about $1.2 million last year to serve about 6,157 residents.
Robertson says that the cancellation was illegal and that Hazelwood owes the district at least $3.2 million. Hazelwood’s annual payment to the district accounts for about half its operating budget, according to the district’s attorney Chuck Billings. A trial date is set for October.
Last month, residents filed a petition with more than 700 signatures to force a vote in April on whether to allow Hazelwood’s firefighters to take over the fire district’s part of the city. Supporters repeated the city’s estimate that the takeover would save $1.8 million a year.
But the fire district directors have refused to turn over the petition to the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Board of Elections. The deadline to get measures on the April ballot is Jan. 22.
“That essentially guts the Robertson Fire District, so the board did not accept it,†Billings said. “The petition drive is asking the board to do something that the board doesn’t have the power to do.â€
State laws allow fire districts — which are defined as political subdivisions — to reject petitions that ask for something outside of the fire district’s authority, such as changing a state gas tax.
But residents asking for a vote on disbanding the district that serves them is within the letter of the law, said Patrick Cronan, a retired lawyer. Cronan was one of two authors of a guidebook revised as recently as 2011 by the University of Missouri to help fire districts comply with state law.
“As a general matter, if it’s within the authority of the board then it ought to be taken to a vote,†Cronan said. “They have some say as to the timing of turning it over and various things like that, various kinds of ministerial stuff. They don’t have a great deal of authority over the substance of it.â€
State laws provide for , as well for petitions to fully dissolve a fire district to be . Cronan said Robertson voters also had the right to petition to cut off parts of the district if they chose.
“It might be a stupid idea, but you’ve got to let the voters do what the voters want to do,†he said.
Eric Fey, Democratic director of elections at the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Board of Elections, which is tasked with administering elections, said he was not sure that state law required Robertson to turn over the petition. He said initiative petitions in fire districts were uncommon.
“This is the first one I’ve ever even heard of,†he said. “The ball is in the district’s court at this point.â€
‘Not public money’
The takeover petition seeks a vote on an ordinance that the Hazelwood City Council approved in August. City attorney Kevin O’Keefe that the fire district was authorized by law to , so Hazelwood could take over the Robertson area, pay the fire district, and then require the district to return the money.
“Legally that is how it would have to be done,†City Manager Matt Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman said the city had nothing to do with the petition, though the petition effort received a $25,000 donation from a Hazelwood economic development board.
The committee circulating the petition — Residents for Hazelwood Inc. — formed Oct. 25. It accepted a $25,000 donation from the Industrial Development Authority of the City of Hazelwood (IDA), according to a Nov. 23 filing with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
The IDA issues discounted bonds for commercial ventures to spur economic growth in the city and collects a fee from those businesses. It is a corporation housed at City Hall with volunteer board members appointed by the City Council.
Hazelwood officials insist the IDA’s donation was not public money.
IDA president Michael Berry also leads the Hazelwood economic development sales tax board, the TIF commission and the board that sets the city’s comprehensive development plan.
He said that because the IDA was incorporated in 1984 as a nonprofit, it is separate from the city.
“Now, obviously we work closely together with the city but they can’t tell us what we do because we’re a nonprofit corporation that’s not under the city umbrella at all,†Berry said.
Berry said that Hazelwood officials kept the IDA informed of their talks with the Robertson fire district and that O’Keefe was also the IDA’s attorney.
The board of the IDA decided on its own to back the petition, he said, because the taxes the fire district imposes make the area unattractive to businesses.
Cronan said the IDA money was public.
“Even though it’s got a separate checking account it still is an instrumentality of political subdivision and still has its public character,†he said. “I don’t think that area is particularly gray but it’s to the advantage of the city to make that as gray as possible.â€
Margo McNeil, former former state representative for an area that includes parts of Hazelwood and treasurer of the committee circulating the petition, said none of the IDA’s donation had been used.
High costs, overlapping boundaries
Hazelwood officials and backers of the petition say they have good reasons to sever ties with Robertson: $1.8 million each year in savings.
“If the city continues as they are, they won’t be able to continue as they are,†said Jenn Hatton, a member of the petition committee.
The city had a budget deficit of $985,084 in 2016 and a deficit of $729,070 last year. Zimmerman said the city would have faced a deficit of about $2 million had it not canceled its pact with Robertson.
The switch would also mean lower taxes for Hazelwood residents in the area Robertson serves.
Robertson voters approved increases over the years that have raised its tax rate to $2.50 for each $100 of assessed value, up from 99 cents per $100 of assessed value. For 2018, the .
The district, which has about 40 firefighters and covers a 14-square-mile area that includes parts of Hazelwood, Bridgeton and unincorporated ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, imposes the among the 23 fire districts in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County. Metro North has the highest rate, charging residents $3.15 for each $100 of assessed value.
Florissant Valley’s tax rate is $1.82. Hazelwood’s municipal property tax rate is 99 cents.
The money it collects on each property is less than what the Robertson tax imposes. That means all of Hazelwood residents’ tax dollars go toward paying the fire district’s costs to the city, no matter who fights fires for them, said Hatton, who doesn’t live in the Robertson boundaries.
Hazelwood resident Ann Cronin does live in the Robertson boundaries. She voted against the Robertson tax increases and said the rising costs were unfair to other Hazelwood residents who couldn’t vote on them.
“It’s like if you bought your house and someone says well, you’re going to have to pay two and a half times as much as you did before,†she said. “And you have no choice in it.â€