The Crestwood Board of Aldermen voted last week to reject on first reading an ordinance that would have required City Administrator Mark Sime to submit all of the city’s bills to the Board of Aldermen once a month and then post the bills on the city’s website for residents to view.

Aldermen opposed to the ordinance at the board’s Oct. 28 meeting included Ward 1 Aldermen Richard Breeding and Darryl Wallach, Ward 2 Alderman Mary Stadter and Ward 4 Alderman Mike Vincent.

Voting in favor of the ordinance were board President Mike Tsichlis of Ward 4 and Ward 3 Aldermen Paul Duchild and Bill Boston. Ward 2 Alderman Tim Trueblood voted “present.”

Duchild proposed the measure at the board’s Oct. 14 meeting, and aldermen voted 5-3, with Stadter and Trueblood in favor, to have City Attorney Lisa Stump draft the ordinance.

During a discussion of the ordinance last week, board members debated a variety of issues, including the city’s transparency; whether the city’s accounts payable, or AP, report should be placed on the website or actual bills received by the city should be posted; and whether employee salaries should be posted on the website.

Also discussed was the amount of storage space on the new website, with Sime noting the city now is using roughly 25 percent of the space on its website and anticipates using about 75 percent for posting data.

However, he added not enough space is available to post “all of the audio.”

Tsichlis said, “… I think this is a no-brainer for anybody, who as Alderman Duchild says, any city or entity who wants to be at the vanguard of transparency, as some cities have … I’m really hard-pressed to see objections to this …”

But Vincent later said, “… In my opinion, the web postings proposed are just, in my mind, not about transparency, but about the reliability of our staff’s financial processes and integrity. Citizens should know that every invoice, month after month, is reviewed by our CFO, a finance clerk and by Mr. Sime, and I believe that process assures that expenditures are within policy and appropriately charged.

“My vote is simply to have citizens know that, in my opinion, they can trust our reliable staff and our department heads. I respect very much Alderman Duchild’s driving this process. He has publicly stated that he feels we have a transparency problem, and I am simply by my vote publicly stating that I feel we do not have a transparency problem, and that I trust our staff and our citizens should, too …”

Mayor Gregg Roby asked Sime, “Is there a specific cost to us doing this?”

The city administrator replied that if the city’s actual bills were to be placed on the website, it would take an employee roughly two hours per week to scan those bills.

But Duchild later said the intent was to post the AP report, which is already sent to members of the Ways and Means Committee, on the website.

Breeding later asked if a citizen wished to make a public-records request for the city’s bills, “… What’s the turnaround time on that?”

Sime said, “Three days.”

Breeding said, “… I’m all for transparency, but I don’t — this seems like a lot of …”

Sime interjected, “I should say three days or less.”

Noting Tsichlis’ earlier remark, Breeding said, “… You call it a no-brainer. I think that’s degrading everyone else’s opinion. You wanted my opinion. You asked me before for my opinion, I’m giving it to you. It seems like a lot of time, space, energy when someone could request this and get it. I don’t see the non-transparency you’re discussing …”

Wallach contended an ordinance was unnecessary, and the bills should be put before the board as an agenda item.

“… It requires the Board of Aldermen to review it, and that’s what the citizens want,” he said. “Just because it’s on the website doesn’t mean a board member’s going to review it, do their due diligence.

“And that’s why again, I continue to harp that this is better said as an agenda item on our meetings rather than on the website …”

Tsichlis later said, “This is in response to Alderman Breeding. I will again say, I believe this is a no-brainer if you believe in transparency and expanding transparency. If you want to bring up other issues surrounding it such as bandwidth, such as storage space and so forth, we can discuss that.

“But if, as I know you just said you’re all for transparency and you had just mentioned that in asking if someone would have to submit a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request and it takes three days and additional staff time to put something like that together, to me, Richard, just to me, it’s a no-brainer that if this information were just available and those processes could be eliminated from city staff time, it just makes sense and then puts it out there for everybody else to see … I don’t mean to suggest your opinion isn’t a valid one …”

Breeding asked how many public-records requests the city has received for bills.

Sime said, “Zero. We’ve had zero information requests for bills, other than legal bills.”

Police Chief Frank Arnoldy cautioned against posting employee’s names on the city’s website.

“With respect to transparency and the employees’ information, we’re in a post-Ferguson age, and I think we need to look long and hard at posting our employees’ names on the website with the issues that that could lead us,” he said. “I’m all for transparency, but I’m also for safety for our employees. So if we’re proceeding toward putting the salary structure on the website, let’s make a long and hard consideration of posting them by titles and not by individuals so that we provide us an additional level of security for our employees …”

Boston and Tsichlis said they agreed with Arnoldy.

The only member of the public to speak on the issue was Sime’s wife, Kelly.

“… I’m at a loss here to understand. This has become so convoluted and so watered-down, I don’t think you have anything to approve right now,” she said. “That’s my opinion, and I’m in agreement with Mr. Vincent. To me, this is just an extension of the ongoing campaign to discredit the mayor, to discredit the city administrator and discredit the city attorney, and to somehow find some nefarious deeds that they’re up to.

“You continue to speak about transparency and you gentlemen, particularly you Mr. Tsichlis and Mr. Duchild, have a very interesting idea of what should be transparent … I don’t even know what you’re voting on any more. Are you voting on putting up all the bills or are you voting on putting up the AP report? … I don’t believe it needs to be an ordinance.”

In a separate matter, aldermen briefly discussed requests for proposals, or RFPs, for planning consultants to assist city officials with the expected redevelopment of the former Crestwood Plaza shopping center and to assist city officials with the creation of a citywide comprehensive plan.

Responses to the RFPs are due Nov. 21.