Markland Retires, Implies Scandals on Way Out

After reciting a list of unsavory political practices dubbed names such as “Schnucks-gate” and “Prosecuting attorney-gate,” Alderman Ron Markland announced Monday he is leaving the Ballwin Board of Aldermen.

At , Markland said his midterm retirement was prompted by a wave of unfavorable weather, but only after describing a series of incidents, mostly recent, wherein city personnel misled board members and possibly the public.

Among other allegations, Markland said city representatives swapped out election paperwork provided by St. Louis County in favor of a locally drafted form more favorable to Ballwin’s incumbents.

“By the discussions at recent meetings, it seems the city even went as far as changing the candidacy form to eliminate items regarding payment of taxes from the form,” Markland said, suggesting that procedures were changed to ensure that Aldermen James Leahy and James Terbrock were certified candidates in April’s elections, despite at the time of filing.

“This appears to be at the very least a violation of (board) policy,” Markland said. “I hope there will be future discussion as to if this did happen, and if it did, who knew and when did they know it.”

Additionally, Markland said that City Attorney Bob Jones, City Administrator Bob Kuntz and Mayor Tim Pogue did not tell board members about pending disciplinary action against the city’s former prosecutor, despite knowing about the controversial incident .

“The Board of Aldermen had to find out about this by reading the Post-Dispatch,” Markland said.

Markland’s comments came just more than an hour after Municipal Judge Virginia Nye swore in a new permanent city prosecutor, who replaced Keith Cheung and his interim successor David Porta following earlier this year.

Markland also said City Attorney Jones failed to disclose a conflict of interest with Schnucks Markets; Markland said that at the same time Jones represented the city during over a new Schnucks location, he also represented Schnucks Markets as an active client with his private law firm.

“The city attorney failed to notify the Board of Aldermen prior to the rezoning of the property at Kehrs Mill and Clarkson that Schnuck’s previously was a client, and that (they) had been an active client during the rezoning debate. Only after the fact with direct questioning was this discussed,” Markland said.

Markland and his wife purchased a home in Florida in September, but didn't decide to make that home their permanent one until a recent bout of rainy weather inspired them to go, Markland said.

"We decided that we would place our home for sale and see what happened," Markland said. "Well, we put it up for sale and on the first day, we got a contract, and we will be relocating permanently to Florida.”

Editor's Note: A previous version of this article misidentified an alderman in regard to candidate filings. This reference has been fixed, and we very sincerely regret this error.