Photograph by Greg Rannells
In 2006, Jeff Whitteaker, then mayor of Valley Park, made news on both coasts by taking a vigilante approach to illegal immigration. Then he got tangled up in a redevelopment proposal that roused Jeffersonian ideals about private property. Finally, two weeks before the April 2008 election, former employee Roxanne Ruppel confessed to an affair with the mayor and sued the city for $1 million for unlawful termination.
Grant Young's a family man who runs a family restaurant famous for its fried chicken. His only political experience came from watching his dad serve as alderman. But on April 8, 2008, his supporters stood at polling places holding red cards with a single word lettered in white: "INTEGRITY ."
He won by a 2-to-1 margin.
Young's the kind of guy who'll start a sentence, "I'm the kind of guy who ... " He talks a lot about being "a new kind of mayor," "that different mayor." He starts hyperdetailed explanations with the phrase, "I do my homework."
And he does do his homework; he's had to. In his first year, working with longtime aldermen he was soon calling "my political enemies," he strategized constantly, documented everything, and invoked Robert's Rules of Order the way a preacher invokes scripture.
When I show up in March, nearly a year after his swearing-in, he ushers me past his staff and shuts his office door firmly. He's looking sharp, in an earnest sort of way, with wavy hair, a neat mustache, a black-and-white checked sport coat, and a paisley tie. Hoarse from a week of meetings and negotiations, he describes exciting projects on Valley Park's horizon: a possible $35 million office building; a definite $1.3 million LEED-certified building for Circle of Concern; negotiations for an addition to Carol House, the furniture giant spawned when Valley Park resident Nat Dubman started selling dry goods out of the trunk of his car. For decades, Carol House loyally risked its warehouse of furniture to the floodwaters. Now that there's a new levee, the store's expanding, and Young wants to use the momentum to transform nearby Front Street into a long ribbon of parkland, adding a farmers' market and antique train cars ("Look what Kirkwood did with their railroad tracks") and renovating the 1893 Frisco Hotel.
It all sounds swell, but when I ask a seemingly innocuous question, Young murmurs, "I'll tell you about that outside of the office." Is this his way of saying it'll be off the record? I ask another question. "We can discuss that maybe outside of City Hall," he says. Finally, he leans forward. "My clerk," he whispers, nodding his head toward the outer office, "is the former mayor's sister. And my secretary is his daughter."
He waits for this to sink in. "I think a lot of people feared that when I got in, I was just going to chop heads," he says, "and I didn't replace one single person. I'm smart enough politically to know that I don't have the power to do that. And I'm a patient man."
Patient, that is, until Ward 4 Alderman Steve Drake adds a long list of last-minute items to a meeting agenda, or the other Ward 4 alderman, Mike White, challenges Young's use of the city credit card. "Talk about double standards," he mutters, bending to unlock a desk drawer. "In the past year, I've charged the city for $100 worth of office supplies and two lunches, both under $30. I can show you hundreds of dollars charged by the previous mayor." (He seldom refers to Whitteaker by name.)
Young swears that when he took office, he saw receipts for "lunches with alcohol and, scribbled on the back, 'safety meeting'"— but when he went to retrieve them, they'd vanished. All he has left are Whitteaker's credit-card statements, which include lunches at Shooters 141, Duke's Bar and Grill, Fandango's Sports Bar, J.J. Twig's Pizza & Pub, and The Corner Pub & Grill.
He relocks the drawer and straightens. "How about a tour?" He guides me out the back door of his office rather than run the gauntlet again. Outside, he visibly relaxes, answering every question at length. He says he likes to be as open as possible with the media: "One, I want to get good press. And two"—he grins—"I know it irritates the board members."
Young has high hopes for the upcoming election: Alderman White's not up for reelection, but Young would love to see a "friendly" replace Alderman Drake, and he's found a candidate he thinks can shut out Whitteaker, who's already back, running for alderman in Ward 3.
In a small town, nobody ever goes away.
As we pull out of the City Hall parking lot, a truck rumbles past, carrying sawn slices of a huge tree trunk, and a Quikrete concrete truck follows. Valley Park's all about getting the job done.
Except when it comes to politics.
The heart of Valley Park—and the flash point for most explosions—is Ward 1. Its Lower End is the ragged flood zone, down where fishermen once harvested pink muckets (freshwater mussels). The "river rats" who live down here give their kids nicknames like "Catfish" and "Carp" and can tell you how high the water's going to rise just by looking at its color. On slightly higher ground, old-timers live in houses built four generations ago, before a swath of development west on Manchester Road dumped torrents of stormwater into the Fishpot Creek and Grand Glaize Creek watersheds. Flooding was always a danger—people kept johnboats tied to their porches. But now water that used to take hours to reach the river is there in 20 minutes.
City Hall's in the center of Ward 1, as are the tracks of the two railroads that brought vacationers to Victorian hotels here at the turn of the last century. Valley Park was a resort town, everybody's playground. Then one of the world's biggest glass factories opened, and Valley Park became a company town; you can still see the narrow, tall row houses built for employees and the increasingly splendid homes built for managers and execs.
Alas, the factory flooded, then burned, and the Lower End fell into rough river-town ways—until 2006, when 6-year-old Cassandra "Casey" Williamson's murdered body was found in the factory ruins, and the area got cleaned up fast. By then, a new $50 million levee was in place, and the soggy, vulnerable landscape was dry and ready for redevelopment.
Redevelopment's a sore subject with the Ward 4 residents; they can't understand how Ward 1 property owners could have been greedy and obstinate enough to demand more money a few years ago, scotching a deal with Sansone Development. Ward 1's houses and stores and factories are a jumble, like a kid came along and messed up somebody's board game.
"Ward 1's been subject to a good 40 years of spot zoning," explains Young, who grew up here. "You've got everything from single- family to multifamily to industrial and commercial all on one block, and these are not long blocks. I as a mayor will never spot zone! It causes the collapse of neighborhoods."
He crosses Highway 141 and cruises through Wards 2 and 3—mild-mannered, carefully zoned residential neighborhoods that are virtually indistinguishable. Then he enters Ward 4, the pricey West County–wannabe part of town that is Ward 1's polar opposite. Many of Ward 4's newcomers (meaning they moved in maybe 12 years ago) itch to raze the rusty old buildings and tidy the barren, scraggly yards in Ward 1. "We're different in Ward 4: We want to see progress, and we actually kind of demand it," says Drake. "We don't care if you're a fourth-generation Valley Parker; all we want is to see our town improve. It's almost as if there's a civil war between people who want to see progress and development and people who don't."
Young wants to please both, preserving the old while making way for progress—which is like balancing on one foot in a rowboat when the current's strong. He says soon after he became mayor, an architect pointed to a map and said, "You've got these crap properties here ... " Young drew himself up. "Those properties you just referred to as 'crap,'" he said, "are the private property of some citizens, some stakeholders, of my town."
He turns back onto Highway 141, Valley Park's straight new spine, traffic whizzing by on the divided lanes that expedited a federal project but screwed up local retail. Vance Road is the next intersection, with his family's homey Young's Restaurant and Ice Creamery surrounded by karaoke, tattoo, and exotic bird shops.
This is the corner that started it all.
Grant Young watched his father go through eminent domain twice, moving the family business as Highway 141 expanded, then expanded again. The roadwork was for the public good, he says, so the family coped, building a new restaurant in 2002 on a lot safely tucked off Vance behind 141.
Five years later, in November 2007, a customer came into the restaurant and took Young aside, urging him to come to City Hall that night because there would be "a big bombshell."
"So I come down," Young recalls, "and I see this stranger sitting in the crowd: an attorney, a 'development advisor' he called himself, working for the city but with his fee paid by QuikTrip. There was going to be a QuikTrip development"—he hits the words hard—"and they wanted to redevelop the entire corner, 13 small businesses. The way they wanted to do it, the city could have blighted and condemned everything in the area as long as slightly over half was blightable.
"This," he adds grimly, "was eminent domain for private gain, not for the public good."
He called Anthony Martin, ombudsman for property rights under Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, and Martin told him his only chance was to "start a fight and get the public in an uproar." But he also warned Young of the potential risks: "You have to live here. Nobody wants to fight city hall, and I don't blame them. City government has more control over your everyday life than any other government body."
Young nodded—and started printing flyers. "He had probably 150 people show up on a Saturday morning at 9 a.m. in his chicken store," recalls Martin, who came to answer questions. Young also went door-to-door, urging people to oppose the use of eminent domain for private, commercial gain. "Two hours after I hit the street, my property got cited for code violations," he says wryly. "I'd been warned about six months before about some peeling paint and deteriorated shingles, but the city had been cooperative; we're rehabbing a 105-year-old house ... "
At his court date in January, Young says, "The mayor and Aldermen Drake, White, and Carroll came in, went out of their way to greet me, and then sat down immediately behind me." Drake, the only one of the four who agreed to comment, says he doesn't recall doing that, but was definitely pushing for action: He owns a roofing business himself, and he can't understand how Young, whom he calls "Mr. Mayor Man," dares leave an old house to rot on Valley Park's most historic street. Drake also demanded a sanitation audit, because the house is unoccupied and therefore trash bills have not been sent, which is technically a violation of a city ordinance.
"And the eminent-domain thing is a selfmanifested prophecy," Drake adds, insisting that even if the redevelopment corporation technically had the right to use eminent domain, Valley Park would never have done it. "As for his father, his family put their chicken shack right at the end of the 141 construction, so of course the road was going to go through again. Now, could redevelopment at Vance and 141 not direct a ton of traffic there and make his restaurant more viable? Of course it could. His argument's moot, man, it's ridiculous!"
The paint and shingles, alas, were all too real: Young wound up with court fees, one year's probation, and a fine of $500 with a suspended imposition of sentence. By then, though, he'd already won the first skirmish: The city had temporarily shelved the redevelopment plans. But nobody was opposing Whitteaker, and Young was afraid he'd bring back the QuikTrip plan the instant he was reelected. Residents were begging Young to run: The legal bills associated with Whitteaker's illegal-immigration ordinances, which had provoked a slew of lawsuits, were nearing a quarter-million dollars.
On the last day to file, Young entered as a candidate. His campaign materials emphasized a businesslike cost-benefit approach, transparency, and long-term planning—and ignored illegal immigration altogether. "I'm not against a fight if the fight is holy," he says, "but I just didn't see where, in even the greatest stretch of imagination, a mayor and eight aldermen were going to somehow solve a national issue."
The weekend before the election, Whitteaker circulated a flyer: "Let's be perfectly clear: my opponent was recruited and is being backed by the American Civil Liberties Union," he wrote. "If they are successful, they will hold up my scalp as a warning to any other official or government body that attempts to uphold the rule of law regarding illegal aliens."
By Monday morning, the ACLU had issued a press release pronouncing Whitteaker's claim "blatantly false."
By Tuesday evening, Young was mayor.
Young once spurned cellphones; he now carries two, plus a laptop. "Some things I do on my personal cell, because my city cellphone is a public record," he explains. "The first thing the former mayor did when I was elected— and he did it for three months in a row—was Sunshine-request my cellphone records." (Maybe he learned it at home; the former mayor's wife had been Sunshine-requesting his cellphone records for months.)
Interestingly enough, when Young asked his clerk—Marguerite Wilburn, Whitteaker's sister—for a copy of Whitteaker's Sunshine requests, he says she didn't remember their existence. Valley Park bookkeeper Patti Laufer does remember the requests and has the receipt for the copies produced, but says she can't find the original requests in the files. Wilburn did not return calls for comment.
Young says his first political stumbling block came when the board held up the mayoral appointments he proposed on April 21. "I thought if I didn't get my appointments through, politically I was going to look weak," he confides. "So I lobbied the neutrals to support me and got a 6-2 vote" (on June 2, 2008). "That was my second big coup. My first was getting a neutral, Randy Helton, elected as president of the board. I went to the neutrals and said, 'You know what's going to happen out of Ward 4: Steve Drake is going to nominate Mike White.' I knew I had two to three friendlies, but I needed five votes. So I reminded them that if they nominated Helton, it wouldn't shift power to the new part of town.
"I try to finesse things," he explains. "I want to move past the days when we butted heads at the meetings. We've had board meetings in years past when chairs were thrown and fights broke out in the parking lot."
Young's next strategic move was to abstain on a touchy vote (involving costs of the illegal-immigration lawsuits) rather than break the tie. Alderman Mike Pennise, who knew and agreed with Young's real position, slammed his fist on the table in frustration. But Young suspected the Ward 4 aldermen of pushing that particular issue to drive a wedge between him and the board president, and he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction. "I said, 'Votes like this create bitter division. I want to be a different mayor and have consensus, not tiebreakers,'" he recalls. "'This obviously needs more discussion. Things that are brought up the night of the meeting to me speak of nothing but politics.'"
That's a pointed reference to Drake, who was furious about Young's refusal to break the tie ("Why are you sitting in the big chair if you can't make the big decision?"). Drake says he added last-minute items to the agenda "because nobody else did, and we had things we needed to address." Why not contact Young ahead of time? "He has never called me," Drake counters. "He has never interacted with me. I've been calling him out, right out of the box, for who he is." Drake says his mind was made up the night five copies of Ruppel's lawsuit showed up on top of the bar at J.J. Twig's (a place Whitteaker and his friends frequent) before the suit was public knowledge.
"News to me," Young says when I mention the copies and ask if he planted them. "I could have beat that political drum, if I'd wanted to, the whole year; the affair was common knowledge. But I wanted to move forward."
For Drake's last-minute agenda items, Young soon found a strategy: Refer them to committee. ("He loves to push stuff into committee," Drake groans. "We're just a little bitty town! Let's get 'er done!") For attacks that involved issues left over from the previous administration, Young found a phrase: "That predates me."
When Drake accused Young of stalling on a sanitation audit, Young remembers retorting, "Where were you 41/2 years ago when this problem started? Tell me how, on a budget that was not my budget, there was a $106,000 shortfall in the sanitation accounts." (He knows how, actually: "The gal who used to do the billing was the one who had an affair with the mayor.")
"Steve Drake likes to refer to the farmers' market as a 'fruit stand,' just because he doesn't want to give it any credence," Young says with a sigh. "I could vote for a pay raise for him, and he'd go against it."
Drake became an alderman in 2005. "At first it was really slow; it was actually kind of a boring experience," he says. "Then Whitteaker became mayor, and it was great: Things started happening, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom! It was, 'OK, what are we going to do this week?'" He sighs. "Valley Park used to be an old, corrupt little river town, and we have made huge strides. Unfortunately, we are not making any progress right now." He calls Young "incapable" and "so anal-retentive he locks his office if he just goes to the bathroom."
Young says that after being advised to put gifts for city staff on the city credit card, and then double-checking and paying the city back, and then getting challenged two months later in an aldermanic meeting for abusing the card—a little paranoia's understandable.
Take city attorney Eric Martin (no relation to state property rights ombudsman Anthony Martin). "Nice guy, I like him—but he'd do me in on a moment's notice," Young says cheerfully. Martin has an interesting history in Valley Park: a 30-year tenure, made suspenseful by at least three mayors who wanted to oust him and one who succeeded. Exiled, he wound up representing next-door Peerless Park, overseeing its legal dissolution. Upon returning to Valley Park in the next administration, he helped them take steps to annex the former Peerless Park.
Young says, "Previous mayors were parttime mayors, glad-handing and going around town drinking free beers ... so most operations in the city got passed to the city attorney. When I campaigned, the city attorney had made more than $220,000 out of the city the previous year—those are big bucks for a little town. I said, 'Eric, you know I've got complaints about high legal expenses. For the last 10 years, you've kind of been the [unofficial] city administrator. I am ordained as the chief executive officer of the city, and I will run the city, and you will not.'
"Eric and I have a great working relationship," he adds. "But I'm not saying I have him fully reined in. There are times I think he has to tell me things because I find out!"
Called for comment, Martin sent his receptionist back to the phone with a succinct message: "He said to tell you he is not interested."
Whatever people think of Martin personally, though, they all agree he's an adroit lawyer (a revision of that notorious illegal-immigration ordinance, focused only on prohibiting city employers from hiring illegal immigrants, was recently upheld unanimously by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals). And the fact is, Valley Park needs an adroit lawyer. "I inherited a city with nine lawsuits and two [Housing and Urban Development] complaints," Young says wearily. "I said, 'Gee, boys, let's get one more so we can have an even dozen.'"
Even before Whitteaker's antics, there were scandals in Valley Park: a police chief who allocated too much money to the pension fund, lawsuits when a new mayor came in and fired people whose loyalties could have been in question (Young's magnanimity begins to make sense), and the forced resignation of that new mayor. But what's interesting about the most recent lawsuit is the rocks it lifted and the tiny truths that scuttled out. When Ruppel sued the City of Valley Park and detailed an affair with Whitteaker, her petition was served to the city clerk—his sister. The suit alleges that members of the city council blamed Ruppel for the affair and, in retaliation, tried to discipline her for putting city-paid postage on Drake's campaign literature, when others, including Wilburn, "had violated ordinances [far more] extensively in using city employees to assist in various aspects of their political campaigns."
Drake says, "They made a big stink because Roxanne put a few stamps on my campaign literature. That was so stupid! I really dug Roxanne; she was a crackerjack employee. I could always count on her to do anything, over and above the duty."
It's April 7, 2009. Another election day. Young is halfway through his twoyear term, but his efficacy hinges on today's results: If he can add a few more "friendlies" to the board, he can move his ideas forward.
The other cliffhanger's the vote to annex the unincorporated pocket that was once Peerless Park. The idea's been in the works since 1999, but Valley Park had to take St. Louis County to court to win the right to put it to a vote. Annexation would be the second biggest thing to happen to Valley Park since the levee was built, and just about everybody, including residents of both Ward 1 and Ward 4, thinks it's a great idea. But the residents of the former Peerless Park also have to vote yes.
Young drives up the bluff just south of Valley Park's border, stops his car, and points to a condo development. "There they are," he says. "Twenty-one registered voters." The future of his city is in their hands; although the former Peerless Park measures less than a square mile, it's lined with businesses, fast-food restaurants, and a Drury Inn. Annexation would increase the assessed commercial value of Valley Park by 65 percent.
Young heads back to Ward 1 to pick up Alderman Stephanie Reynolds, who hobbles to the car. She had hernia surgery yesterday, but still made it to last night's board meeting ("They gave me morphine"). Young and feisty, Reynolds was born and raised in Ward 1; now a roofer, store owner, and landlord, she followed her dad into politics after suing Valley Park over its new illegal-immigrant housing ordinance. She and Young decide to cruise past the senior center where residents of the former Peerless Park are voting.
One of Young's cellphones rings as they chat. "This is the city one," he explains gravely, answering on the first ring. As he's saying, "And the board is OK with that?" his other cellphone squawks, and his hand darts into his pocket to silence it. "Hey, and have you heard much 'word on the street,' as they say?" he continues. Hand over the mouthpiece, he relays the news: one vote against annexation (somebody's relative knows the voter) and at least three in favor.
He drives over to the senior center, and Reynolds draws her breath sharply. "Bad move, Grant." Several aldermen are standing in front, schmoozing, and Whitteaker's black truck is just pulling out. Young chuckles. "Good, they'll have something to talk about!" But as he drives away, his tone turns rueful. "At times, I see some of these plots and subplots and think, 'Boy, what a cheap B-movie!'"
He and Reynolds join Glenn Koenen, executive director of the Circle of Concern food pantry, for lunch at Valley Park's controversial (what's not?) new teahouse, granted only a conditional permit because it's on the edge of a residential area. They talk about how much has changed, how back in the 1980s, "there were days when the water would come out of the tap opaque," Koenen recalls. Wainwright Industries had contaminated the water table with trichloroethylene; now the Superfund cleanup's finished. Even the compost company's less redolent these days, and people are realizing the garbage landfill needs years to stabilize before it stops spewing methane. "I've heard aldermen say, 'Hey, that could make a heck of a ski slope,'" groans Reynolds. "Then they wanted to make it the world's second largest mall."
Young shakes his head solemnly. "That's dead now."
They talk about all the new businesses and restaurants, the trailhead and parks. Valley Park's starting to realize its potential— woodland, bluffs, river overlooks, a great location, Peerless Park revenue, a strong levee, increasing prosperity (thank you, Ward 4). But everybody has a different definition of progress.
One of Drake's campaign flyers referenced "the political roadblocks associated with the redevelopment of our coveted Vance and 141 area." Young reads it aloud, letting irony cool anger that's still close to the surface. "Now, I thought I owned private property," he says. "For someone else to covet it ... " Later, he gives more details about that corner ("I do my homework ... ") and as he talks, he tears up. Eminent domain was his father's fight first. And his father died right before Young won the mayoral election, after proudly going doorto- door all fall campaigning for his son.
"My big goal as mayor," Young says, his voice resolute again, "is to prove that development can happen without the use of eminent domain."
He spins his car through another polling place, waving to a couple of the good ol' boys, including Whitteaker. "You are really going to get them talking!" Reynolds exclaims. But Young's already nodding to Nathan Grellner, who's running against Whitteaker and incumbent Alderman Eddie Walker in Ward 3. Grellner's well-liked, a newlywed homeowner just back from military service in Iraq, and his grandfather is a retired police judge who was a golf buddy of Young's father.
And so, a new old-boys' network forms. In a small town more than a century old, connections are inevitable. The trick is to keep them from knotting.
April 20, the swearing-in of the new aldermen. Reynolds is here, neat in a blazer, her chiseled features devoid of makeup. She chats lightly with John Brust, a "neutral," and Don Carroll, an "enemy" about to be ejected from his chair. City clerk Wilburn sits at Young's right hand, and when he thumps his gavel, she reads the election results: In Ward 1, Brust was unopposed. In Ward 2, a newcomer sympathetic to the new mayor, Laurie Henderson, got twice as many votes as incumbent Don Carroll, who was sympathetic to Whitteaker. In Ward 3, both the incumbent and Whitteaker lost to Grellner, who received 166 votes to Whitteaker's 82. And in Ward 4, another newcomer sympathetic to Young, Jeff Lloyd, squeaked into office with three votes more than Steve Drake.
(Drake's still steaming: "I didn't lose to a man; I lost to an effort." He holds up one of his campaign flyers, pointing to a tiny black blur. "See that?" It's a union printer's stamp—but he hadn't used a union printer this time, he'd just Xeroxed the old flyers. So a 93-year-old he says was a straw candidate, Ethel Wende, circulated a letter accusing him of forgery.)
Wilburn ends with Valley Park's consensus vote: the annexation. In Valley Park, 978 yes, 45 no. In the former Peerless Park, six yes, one no. Victory at last.
It's all happy news for Young, but he seems nervous; he's playing it very straight tonight, saying only what's necessary, with quick ducks of his head at each segue. Wilburn hands plaques to the outgoing aldermen, and when they've removed their nameplates and stepped down from the dais, Young gives his first small smile and announces the oath of office for incoming aldermen. They carry their orange binders of meeting minutes up the steps and take the vacated seats. Young asks if there are any additions to the agenda, and there's pin-drop silence. The agenda is adopted. They roll through a series of simple ordinances and discussions—a proposed Cinco de Mayo celebration at Bobby's Place that police fear will be too crowded, subdivision signs, the possibility of exhibiting a Milwaukee Bluebonnet, part of the train that used to chug through Valley Park, in the new train park along Front Street ...
With each vote, the count is seven yes, one absent. Young starts saying, after each vote, "Thank you, Board."
The first and only squeeze comes when White suggests delaying the mayor's new appointments for discussion at the next meeting. No one seconds him, and the appointments pass.
In her clerk's report, Wilburn tells the board of a new hire in her office. Cassy Kollmeyer, the previous mayor's daughter, has resigned in a swirl of rumors about her personal life. "I have a question," Reynolds says. "No relative to anybody?" Wilburn smiles without rancor: "No. I think she was even asked that." Somebody in the audience mutters, "Hallelujah."
For Young, it's looking like smooth sailing, at least for the next year (Valley Park terms last only two years). But at the very next meeting, former alderman Carroll's on his feet in the audience, protesting the words "eminent domain" in a memorandum drafted by Carol House's lawyers. It takes Young the better part of an hour to calm the room; point out the irony of accusing him, of all people, of even considering eminent domain; and explain that the letter came from a packet of background material and predates the Valley Park attorney's response.
And so it goes. Young grits his teeth and tries to focus on his definition of progress— like the $35 million office building that is indeed going up in what used to be Peerless Park. Above the site, high on the Wet Willy's mountain, there just might be room for a community center, set on 31/2 acres that roll right into Upper Buder Park. "There's a million-dollar view up there," Young says happily, "and it's all Valley Park."
The developer of that office building? Kevin Voss of Triax Development.
The same developer who wanted to put in the QuikTrip at the corner of Vance and 141.
