For weeks now, St. Louis County leadership has been bedeviled by a plan to kill a good number of the dogs at the county animal shelter that was leaked to the press in February.
County Health Department leadership has been adamant the “shelter-wide” euthanasia plan was always a non-starter. However, that same leadership does appear to have lied about its existence, setting off a scandal that encompasses two lawsuits, a resignation and, now, discreetly recorded audio that the county says undercuts at least one of those suits.
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The saga began in August when county resident Lisa Pearse filed a request asking for any records showing the plan to transition the shelter from being controlled by a third-party contractor to being back in the hands of the county. Three days after she made the request, the county replied that no such plan existed.
At the time, records requests for the County Health Department were handled by, among others, longtime employee Rhonda Belics. Belics says in a lawsuit filed last month that County Health Director Kanika Cunningham instructed her to lie in response to the request, and she refused.
Her attorney, Mark Pedroli, says that it was Cunningham herself who replied to Pearse saying that no responsive records existed.
Then, a few days later, on September 5, Belics filed a formal grievance with St. Louis County, saying that Cunningham had directed her to lie, according to Pedroli.
What happened the next day is a matter of contention. The one thing all sides agree on was that Belics had been informed she was being reassigned and would be working on a different floor at the County Health headquarters in Berkeley. That morning, Belics carted some items from her office out to her car.
Cunningham confronted Belics about what she was doing and ended up searching her car later that morning. Cunningham conducted the search herself, with a deputy department director and security guard also present.
Belics alleges in her suit the search was “coercive” and a humiliating invasion of privacy, conducted as retaliation. The lawsuit stated that Belics resisted the search, but Cunningham didn’t relent. Belics’ version was detailed in a Post-Disparch story the day after the suit was filed.
Enter the discreetly recorded audio, which St. Louis County has since released. Cunningham was rolling tape during the interaction, and in it, Belics can be heard telling her boss, “You can walk down there and look at my trunk. It’s all my stuff.” Shortly thereafter, she adds, “You can look in my car. It’s nothing county-owned.”
County spokesman Doug Moore says that audio belies Belics’ allegations that the search was coercive, and therefore the credibility of her whole lawsuit is called into question. Moore adds that, contrary to what Belics alleges, the search did turn up county property, including a document that contained a county resident’s medical information. He said Belics’ vehicle also had notes related to open records requests.
Belics’ attorney Pedroli disagrees, saying Belics only consented to the search under duress.
“We just had a trial against St. Louis County that we won four months ago, where a woman consented to police officers entering her home, but only because she felt like she had no choice,” he says. “It was still considered coercive and under duress. That’s what the jury ruled.”
“The key count in our lawsuit is count two,” Pedroi says, referring to the allegation of retaliation. “If you listen to the tape, the tape substantiates this claim, and Belics being taken off of [records] responsibilities.” In other words, the very fact that Belics was reassigned, which no one disputes, is evidence that Belics was reprimanded.
Moore says that Belics was moved off records duties because she performed poorly at them, not doing a good job filtering what records were responsive and what weren’t, sending too many potentially responsive records to attorneys for review, causing delays, and running up the taxpayer tab.
Pearse, the county resident whose records request set this controversy in motion in August, has since filed her own lawsuit, alleging a conspiracy to violate the Sunshine Law. About six months after her request was denied, the plan the county said didn’t exist was leaked to the Post-Dispatch, which posted it on their website.
“The original sin here was lying to Lisa Pearse,” says Pedroli.
The plan for the animal shelter said that when the county regained control of the facility, dogs that had been in the shelter for 30 to 60 days, that are ill or showing signs of stress from confinement ought to be killed. Doing so would allow the new staff to start “with low numbers.”
But Moore explains that the county didn’t provide the document when Pearse originally requested its plans back in August because Health Department leadership so thoroughly rejected the proposal that no one considered it a plan at all.
St. Louis County, like pretty much all municipal governments, is no stranger to getting sued. But they are pushing back against this one in particularly strong fashion.
In addition to releasing Cunningham’s audio, county personnel told KMOV reporter Melanie Johnson that Belics broke the law by stealing government documents in September.
Pedroli pointed out that, if what the county is saying is true, then they kept a thief on staff for nearly six months.
He called the KMOV story “insane.”
