Fight Over Leadership Takes Over St. Louis County Council Meeting

CBS St. Louis

January 13, 2021

Tuesday night’s St. Louis County Council meeting took an unprecedented turn. Councilwoman Lisa Clancy was voted last week to be the council chair. During this week's meeting, a majority of the council voted to revisit last week’s vote that let her keep that title because a councilperson with an expired term, Rochelle Walton Gray, participated in the vote. A charter change approved by voters in August delayed the swearing-in of Gray’s successor. Gray’s term was set to expire at the end of 2020. During Tuesday night’s meeting, Fitch told Clancy, “You are no longer the chair.”

Clancy and Fitch then went back-and-forth. When Clancy tried moving the meeting forward, Fitch interrupted. “No ma’am, we are not going to allow you to move on to bid openings,” he said. “We have a motion on the floor, you cannot deny it.” “Councilman Fitch, I will not allow you to bully this council,” Clancy responded. “You may have been a bully as the police chief, but you will not bully this council.” News 4 spoke with Fitch after the meeting adjourned just after 7 p.m. “Lisa Clancy actually had the police called to have me removed, obviously they declined to do that. That didn’t work for her, so she told the person running the meeting to cut off my microphone. That didn’t work either because I knew how to put it back on, I knew how to unmute myself. So, she just refused to recognize the fact that she wasn’t the chair anymore," he said. Fitch also said Councilman Ernie Trakas, who was in his view was illegally voted as vice-chair, lost that position too. The St. Louis County Executive’s Office claims the vote has no legal weight.