A resident’s complaint alleging that St. Louis County improperly used public resources to promote the passage of a sales tax recently was dismissed by the Missouri Ethics Commission.

Tom Sullivan, longtime activist and critic of county government, filed the complaint in March with the Missouri Ethics Commission, alleging that St. Louis County, County Executive Charlie Dooley and County Council Chairman Skip Mange, R-Town and Country, failed to report expenditures made by the county to promote a one-eighth-of-a-cent sales-tax increase that would have benefited the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

The sales-tax increase, Proposition P, was rejected by voters April 6.

Approval of Proposition P slipped out of the county’s reach with 49.71 percent of voters supporting the tax — 59,877 votes.

A difference of 687 ballots, however, showed that more than half of voters opposed the tax April 6 with 60,564 total votes saying “no” to the parks tax — 50.29 percent.

Sullivan also filed a second complaint in March to the Ethics Commission after obtaining additional information, including a copy of a detailed four-page Ballot Marketing Plan and Timeline, that he contended proved the county was running a “full-fledged campaign to promote the passage of Proposition P.”

State law prohibits the direct spending of public money to either support or oppose ballot proposals. Campaign disclosure law also mandates that campaign finance disclosure reports are submitted 40 days before the general election, which was Feb. 26 for the April 6 election. The county submitted no such reports.

The commission had sent investigators to St. Louis and spoke with Sullivan and county officials regarding the complaint, Sullivan said.

After investigation into the matter, the Ethics Commission notified Sullivan last week that commissioners recently had voted to take no further action on his complaint and close their file.

“Please be advised that at the June 3, 2004, meeting of the Missouri Ethics Commission, the complaint filed against St. Louis County was considered,” Commission Executive Director R.F. Connor stated in a letter to Sullivan dated June 8.

“The commission determined that the actions of St. Louis County did not violate section 115.646 RSMo by using county funds to support or oppose a ballot measure. However, the county executive has been informed that it appears to the commission to be an inappropriate use of county employees to stuff envelopes with material paid for by a campaign committee,” the letter stated.

This explanation is all Sullivan was given regarding his complaint.

“I’m not surprised,” Sullivan told the Call. “The Ethics Commission has been called the most notorious, inept outfit in state government and I think they’ve proved it once again.”

Mange told the Call in March that nothing wrong had been done, and at that time, Sullivan was attempting to divert attention from the real issues at hand. Mange and Dooley had served as co-chairmen of the Citizens for Quality Parks, a campaign committee that was formed and designed to promote the parks tax.

“As St. Louis County government, it is perfectly proper for staff to prepare informational documents at the request of a county councilman ..,” Mange told the Call then. “As a council member, I am fully authorized under the law to advocate for these kinds of things. To claim county employees are advocating the issue is false … There is a committee that has been formed, which will advocate for the tax. All costs are born by the committee. No county assets have been used to advocate the tax.”

County assets had been used to provide informational materials, including statistics of the parks, their condition, budget information — which is all public record, he told the Call.

Sullivan is disappointed in the commission’s decision because the evidence is overwhelming, he contended, that many county employees were working on the sales tax campaign.

Sullivan said he believed he had exhausted every avenue possible regarding his complaint and has no plans to pursue the complaint further.

“I had the law on my side. I had the evidence on my side … but the Ethics Commission decided they didn’t want to pursue it,” he said. “The commission is not only unable to enforce the law, I don’t think they can understand it … I think they put people on the commission who might — they seem to be afraid of really enforcing the law, especially when it comes to a little bit more high-level politicians … They’re just inept.”

Despite the complaint’s outcome, he said, “I think it might cause the county to be a little more careful …”