A St. Louis Civil Service Commission hearing to decide whether to fire personnel director Sonya Jenkins-Gray, as Mayor Tishaura Jones wants to do, could include top city officials being subpoenaed to testify.
Jenkins-Gray’s lawyer, Ronald Norwood, on Wednesday asked the commission to issue subpoenas to Jones, Comptroller Darlene Green, City Counselor Sheena Hamilton and Airport Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge. The commission declined to call Jones and is expected to announce its decision on the others at the next meeting on Tuesday.
The hearing stems from a July 2024 incident in which Jenkins-Gray took a city vehicle to Jefferson City with another department worker to get personal documents. She said she didn’t know she was breaking city policy and paid the city back the $170 cost of the trip.
Norwood said he wants Green to testify because she’s responsible for city vehicles.
“This is right in her wheelhouse,” Norwood said.
Norwood would like to question the city counselor and the airport director about Jenkins-Gray’s claim of political interference by Jones.
Jenkins-Gray has argued that she’s been targeted for political reasons and because she didn’t go along with decisions that Jones wanted.
Attorney Reggie Harris, who is representing the city for the Stinson law firm, called his final witnesses Wednesday, including Jones’ chief of staff Jared Boyd and deputy chief of staff Sara Baker.
Boyd argued that the investigation is about more than just the $170 and that Jenkins-Gray put others, like the worker who drove her, Anthony Byrd, in an uncomfortable situation.
“You don’t get to reimburse the city after you get caught,” Boyd said in his testimony. “And the underlying offense wasn't just about the mileage, it was about unknowingly taking your subordinate and putting him in a precarious position.”
Norwood will call witnesses for Jenkins-Gray when the hearing resumes Tuesday.
The hearing began Jan. 7 and has so far lasted five days over the course of four weeks.
“I think that the commission can see that it's clear that we need to move things along, said Harris. “Skipping entire weeks, entire weeks without any testimony, without any evidence, without any hearing whatsoever is a bit ridiculous.”
Tensions escalated between commission members and the lawyers representing the city and Jenkins-Gray over scheduling conflicts.
“My workday is on hold right now,” Commissioner Vincent Flewellen said. “I’m beginning to feel uncomfortable with taking such an amount of time.”
The hearing is unprecedented. Jones appointed Jenkins-Gray in 2022, but the mayor doesn’t have the power to fire the director without a civil service commission hearing, according to the city charter. The position was established in the 1940s, and no director has ever been fired.
Hearing officer and retired Judge Edward Sweeny acknowledged that the lawyers and commissioners are navigating new territory.
“The city charter lays out the open hearing, and that's all it says really about the hearing, it doesn't lay out any process,” Sweeny said. “We are trying to work with everybody to be fair, to make sure that both sides get their fair hearing, to present the evidence that each side feels that they want to present.”
