Since last Tuesday’s sudden announcement of City Manager Eric Osterberg’s resignation during the Ferguson city council meeting there has been no statement from the Council as a body or from Mayor Ella Jones in response to the resignation. Residents have since launched a recall of Councilor Toni Burrow, whose statements triggered the resignation. Individually, Council member Linda Lipka posted her support of Osterberg and encouraged residents to send emails to all council members and the city manager, while Councilor Mike Palmer also stated his support of Osterberg and asked others for their opinions.
The City Manager is required by charter to remain politically inactive and cannot comment or request a possible change of status of a council member. As such, no statement beyond Osterberg’s submission of his resignation during the meeting on September 27th is expected. Despite the lack of information, it appears there has been an on-going problem long before Burrow pushed for a vote on a personnel rule for exit interviews during the council meeting. The City Manager has sole oversight of personnel administration.
An Emergency Meeting was held Friday September 30th but went into closed session, with no public information released. A Special Meeting is scheduled for Monday October 3rd, at 6:00 pm in the council chambers, with no agenda posted and no online zoom access given. This was confirmed to the Observer to be another closed session on “personnel.” Another Special Meeting has been posted for Tuesday October 11, with zoom information but, again, without any agenda or indication of the meeting’s focus.
Announcement of a petition to recall Councilor Toni Burrow was posted on Facebook on Thursday September 29 by Peggy Faul. Eligible signers must be registered as voters at the address of their Ward 2 residence. Canvassers started over the weekend to collect signatures, with a goal of getting 800 signers by October 9th to get the recall on the February ballot. Should more time be needed, the petition can be filed later for the April ballot.
Information on signing recall petitions can be found at the following links:
Information on why the recall was started can be found here
Petitions are available at 100 S. Clay (click here for more information)