Author Archives: Mark

Asset Forfeiture and the Columbia City Council

At its April 1st meeting, the Columbia City Council approved the purchase of a Lenco Bearcat armored personnel carrier with a price tag well over $200k. $36,505 of the cost was to be covered by asset forfeiture funds.

For those who are unfamiliar with asset forfeiture, I’ll try and explain it in a proverbial nutshell. Before I do that, it is important to thank the policy analysts at Americans for Forfeiture Reform for their work on this subject. Without them, I doubt many people would be talking about the evils of asset forfeiture. For those who would like to learn more, AFR has a very informative website.

In a nutshell, as promised, asset forfeiture is the means by which the government circumvents the 4th, 5th, and 10th Amendments to the United States Constitution to steal property from its citizens as it makes unreasonable seizures without due process and overrides the Missouri Constitution. If property is suspected to have been used in the commission of a crime or gained as the proceeds of illegal activity, that property can be seized by the government. More on that later.

There are two problems with asset forfeiture. First is the problem of where the money goes. Second is the problem of how the money is taken.

Article IX, section 7 of the Missouri State Constitution states:

All interest accruing from investment of the county school fund, the clear proceeds of all penalties, forfeitures and fines collected hereafter for any breach of the penal laws of the state, the net proceeds from the sale of estrays, and all other moneys coming into said funds shall be distributed annually to the schools of the several counties according to law.

So, according to the Missouri Constitution, moneys confiscated via asset forfeiture is to be sent to the schools. With this being the case, how are law enforcement agencies in Missouri able to pay themselves from these funds?

The answer is a federal loophole known as equitable sharing. Equitable sharing basically works like this. When local law enforcement finds some good stuff while investigating a crime, they take it and process the forfeiture through the federal government. Most law enforcement agencies have federally deputized officers who can process the forfeiture. Sometimes it’s merely a matter of paperwork. When this happens, the feds take a small cut of the proceeds and give the rest back to the participating law enforcement agencies. This allows for an end-run around the Missouri State Constitution. The money is effectively laundered through the Department of Justice.

Here is what Americans for Forfeiture Reform has to say about equitable sharing:

Initiated in 1986, the Equitable Sharing Program was designed to foster cooperation between state and federal law enforcement agencies in the war on drugs. Few states had forfeiture laws at the time and state and local agencies that participated could receive a portion of the income generated from federal forfeitures. Since then all 50 states have passed either civil or criminal forfeiture laws and now the equitable sharing program serves not only to foster cooperation, but as a way for state and local law enforcement agencies to circumvent their own state forfeiture statutes.

Once local law enforcement hands a case over to the feds, state law ceases to apply. This means that police departments in California, North Carolina, and Nebraska do not have to convict a person before taking their property. Agencies in Hawaii stand to receive as much as three times the amount of money from a forfeiture processed in federal court than they would if done through their own court system. State mandates to avoid policing for profit, such as in Missouri where forfeiture proceeds are supposed to be deposited in a fund for education, are bypassed as well.

Instead of going to schools, the money is funneled back to local police, either as grants or as cold, hard cash. As Columbia’s Police Chief Ken Burton described it, it’s like “pennies from heaven.”

I’d argue that these funds are really pennies from hell, usually stolen from citizens, but we’ll get to that later.

Not only are the forfeiture funds not going to our school children, the equitable sharing process sets up a system of policing for profit which further degrades our local political system that should be answerable to the people. Funding is one way the people of a community possess to maintain local sovereignty and control or support of local law enforcement. When law enforcement uses equitable sharing of forfeiture dollars to self-fund, the community loses one check and balance and the police have a perverse incentive to prosecute profitable crimes or wait to act until certain crimes become profitable.

Case in point: Columbia’s infamous Kinloch Ct. S.W.A.T. raid. One of the main problems with this raid was that the police supposedly had reliable intelligence from a confidential informant who stated that there was a large amount of cannabis at a residence. The police waited 8 days after the warrant was issued to kick in the door with guns-a-blazin’, shooting two dogs in front of a small child only to find a small amount of cannabis and no cash.

So why the delay? While it was explained away as a staffing problem, the real reason was likely the hope of finding piles of cash. If the police know there is a big pile of drugs at a dealer’s house and they send S.W.A.T. in immediately, all they find is the drugs. If they wait a week, hopefully the drug dealer has sold enough of his product to amass a big pile of cash — cash that can be used to buy cool new Department of Homeland Security toys and tools like the Lenco Bearcat.

There’s just no money in rape and murder these days.

We’ve established that there is a problem with where the money goes. It’s not going to our school children as directed by our state constitution and it establishes a means of self-funding for law enforcement, circumventing local control and creating perverse enforcement incentives. Now let’s tale a look at how the money is taken in the first place.

To keep things simple, let’s divide asset forfeiture into two categories — criminal asset forfeiture and civil asset forfeiture.

Criminal asset forfeiture is when property is seized by and forfeited to the government when the owner of such property is convicted of a crime. There are some reasonable arguments that can be made in support of this system. When a person is convicted of a crime, forfeiting property can be part of the punishment. Of course we’ve discussed the problem with self-funding above, but when we look at it as punishment, regardless of where the money goes, it seems to make sense. When a profitable criminal gets out of jail, they should not be able to go home to a mansion purchased with the proceeds of his/her criminal activity.

Civil asset forfeiture is the real problem. In a civil asset forfeiture proceeding, a citizen does not need to be convicted of a crime to have their property taken by the government. In fact, the accused doesn’t even need to be tried and acquitted. All that really needs to happen is an arrest, justified or not, and the government seizes property.

Since the forfeiture is made in civil court, the old “innocent until proven guilty” protection that we all learned in 6th grade does not apply. Cases are literally made against the property and read like, “United States of America v. United States currency in the amount of $638,202.00 et al.” To get their property back, property owners must hire a lawyer to argue for the innocence of their property, which is assumed in civil court to be guilty. Sound absurd? Well, it is absurd.

The case listed in the preceding paragraph as to do with property taken from a local Columbia business owner during a raid executed by the Boone County Sheriffs Department. Kevin Bay, co-owner of a local business, BoCoMo Bay, was suspected of a crime. Once arrested, the charges against Mr. Bay were quickly dropped, but not before several million dollars worth of cash, precious metals, collectible coins, and collectible firearms were seized and made subject to civil asset forfeiture.

Read about Kevin Bay’s ordeal HERE.

That’s right. Mr. Bay was arrested, never officially charged with a crime, yet faces a lengthy federal court battle to have his rightful and legal property returned to him. This is theft, plain and simple.

While it might be worth it, although a hard stone to chew, for Mr. Bay to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get his millions returned, if he is successful, imagine a case where only $10,000 worth of property is seized. Why would a victim if civil asset forfeiture spend $20,000 in legal fees fighting for the return of $10,000. In these cases, the only choice is to forfeit the money.

This happens all the time. Click here to see a raid where a grandmother’s $5000 dollars was seized because someone in her house had a crack rock and pipe in his pocket. That money is gone, no matter what.

At last week’s Columbia City Council meeting, the council approved the use of $36,505 of asset forfeiture funds to purchase an APC for the CPD. Here is the council discussion regarding the purchase during which Michael Trapp leads the charge for accountability in the use of the vehicle. Asset forfeiture gets a mention during the discussion, but comes up later, in a meaningful way.

During the public comment portion before the vote, Keep Columbia Free’s Treasurer Elect addresses the council.

Keep Columbia Free President Mark Flakne also addressed the council.

And it looks like someone on the council heard us. At the end of the meeting, Councilperson Laura Nauser asked for a staff report on the use of asset forfeiture dollars in the City of Columbia. She expressed an interest in starting a public discussion centered around asset forfeiture to see if it is something that our community wants to use as a source for funding police.

We have also heard from another councilperson, who shall remain nameless for the time being, who said that he is open to the idea of championing asset forfeiture reform in Columbia, especially with the passage of the 911 tax which will allow for the return of funds to the city that can be used to replace forfeiture funds.

Please help educate your friends and family about civil asset forfeiture. Sadly, the majority of folks in Columbia and across the country simply have no idea what asset forfeiture is. Thanks to Americans for Forfeiture Reform and other groups like the Institute for Justice, people are waking up to this practice and overwhelmingly finding themselves to be repulsed by it.

Read about some of the forfeiture cases being handled by the Institute of Justice HERE

Now is the time to call your councilperson and let him/her know in no uncertain terms that it is time to end the use of asset forfeiture to fund our local police. We should fully fund our police department through traditional means. Using asset forfeiture as a funding mechanism, while technically legal, is a morally abhorrent practice. We should all be demanding local sovereignty, government accountability, and local control of our law enforcement.

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Bill Samuels and Spencer Pearson Chime In On The 911 Sales Tax Proposal

A couple of local politicos have entered the fray on the 911 tax.

Republican Committeeman Bill Samuels sent an email far and wide listing all of the reasons why one should vote “no” on the tax.

From Bills email…

CONSIDER BEFORE VOTING:

1.We have all heard that we need another local tax increase of more than $8 million a year with no expiration date. The most common talking point for those who want a higher tax rate even on milk for the children, according to their own website, is better 911 service for both city and county. they say that for the entire county there is only one person on 911 answering duty at all times. Considering how many people the city and county employ all together, why not just just reassign few to answer the phone ?2. They claim that theY must have plenty of $ because they expect that new communications technology which may develop in the future will be more expensive. How do they know that ? The massive changes in communications which we’ve seen for decades have been making phone calls CHEAPER, not more costly.3. Every tax measure should have an expiration date so it will be subject to automatic voter review. We should always voter against any tax measure which has no sunset provision.

4. You can only raise any kind of tax so high before it reaches a point of diminishing returns. There is already at least anecdotal evidence of people shopping, especially for big ticket items, outside the city and county to save $ on sales taxes.

5.Like ANY general sales tax which applies even to groceries, it would fall hardest on the middle class and the working poor. Yes, richer people can eat more expensive foods more frequently, but this has obvious limits: nobody eats lobster three times everyday, or if anone ever did he probably developed a horrible food allergy.

6. They claims it’s only a small tax increase : less than 1 cent on the dollar. they always say this . they nickle and dime people to

7. When in doubt, a good citizen always votes “No”, especially when it will cost more than $8 million every year with no end in sight. If this really is needed we can vote on it again later, probably in a better form.

THERE ARE MANY OTHER GOOD ARGUMENTS FOR VOTING AGAINST THIS TAX INCREASE. FEEL FREE TO ADD YOUR OWN AND FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW WHO VOTES IN BOONE COUNTY.

Spencer Pearson wrote the following on his liberty blog The Freedom Beat

First up, County Prop 1, the 911 sales tax. The issue here is simple: 911 services for Columbia-Boone County Joint Communications (C-BCJC) is painfully understaffed and their technology is out-of-date. The proposed bill would raise funds by adding a 0.375% sales tax on all goods sold in Boone Co. According to the ballot language, the tax aims “to fund 911 and emergency management services upgrades, including a new facility, new equipment and more emergency personnel.”

While everyone can agree that 911 services are a vital part of modern government and most also agree that Boone County’s 911 services could definitely use an upgrade (for the record, I had to use our 911 services last week and got right through with no wait time whatsoever), many are leery of the way in which this upgrade is being sought. For starters, there are concerns that the tax will be indefinite, since there is no sunset provision in the proposed tax. This means that after the money has been raised and the new upgrades have been paid for, the tax would remain in place. This would then become a slush fund for any county official that could come up with a plausible way to spend the money. And I think we all know that governments are all too eager to come up with different ways to spend our money for our supposed benefit.

Of course, Keep Columbia Free urges you to vote “NO” on this tax increase. Send the government back to the drawing board and demand that they return with a more reasonable plan.

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Letter Claims 911 Joint Comm Mismanagement and Bullying

Yesterday I received a mysterious, anonymous letter from an employee of Columbia-Boone County Joint Communications. In the letter the author claims that there are more problems with Joint Communications than money can fix, not even a $20,000,000 lump sum and $9,300,000 every year after, until the end of time.

This is not the first time I’ve heard claims from city employees that whistle-blowers face retribution from city staff and it’s not the first time I’ve heard this from employees of Joint Communication and 911 Emergency Management.

The author cites the need for, “an internal investigation of funds and also of personnel,” due to employees abusing sick leave and sleeping while on duty — insinuating that the meager funds allocated to the department are being mishandled.

Before voters approve an egregious tax increase, or any tax increase at all for 911/Joint Comm, it looks to me like the departments need to be cleaned up. If we can’t trust the leaders of Joint Communications to work efficiently and ethically with their current jalopy budget, how can we trust them once they are on the Proposition 1 Cadillac Plan?

I realize that an anonymous letter might seem a bit “fishy” to some folks, but I assure you that I don’t have the time to manufacture such a ruse. My lovely wife, who is far less outspoken than me, retrieved the mail and watched me open it late last night after I returned home from the KCF/MoCLA candidate forum. Of course, I could have mailed a letter to myself, but did not. Although exhausted from a long day that found me eating dinner at 10PM, I was up late, tickled by the thought of receiving an anonymous letter dripping with bureaucratic political intrigue.

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CPOA Executive Director Calls Sexual Assault By TX Troopers “Customer Service”

The screen shot below was captured on 3/27/2013 at 8:20PM on the personal Facebook page of Dale Roberts, Executive Director of the Columbia Police Officers Association F.O.P. Lodge #26, A private organization that is not part of the Columbia Police Department. Although the CPOA is a lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, the organization claims not to be a labor union. The overwhelming majority of C.P.D. officers are members — I’ve heard 98%, but can’t back that up.

In his post, Roberts refers to the sexual assault of two women at the hands of Texas state troopers on the side of the road as “Customer Service.”

Before going any further, it is important to note that CPOA Executive Director Roberts is not a cop. According to KOMU, along with his position at the helm of the CPOA, Roberts is “currently the vice president of the Missouri Highway Patrol’s Citizen Alliance Alumni Association. In the past, Roberts served as the Assistant Chief of Investigations for the Missouri Department of Insurance, the director of a state-wide law enforcement agency and the Chief Judge of a 9-judge panel. He is also a former member of the Missouri Police Chief’s Association. Roberts has been an adjunct assistant professor with the University of Missouri for more than 20 years, teaching law courses.”

The screen shot above comes on the heels of some rather unbecoming comments made on the official CPOA Facebook page, comments that were called satire by some, including Roberts, and racist by others, including Mayor Bob McDavid after the post made national news.

Here is what McDavid had to say…

Roberts did issue a formal apology saying, “Although intended to be satirical in nature, the post was taken out of context and perceived to be quite different than intended.”

After the armored personnel carrier comment made national news, the CPOA Facebook page was overrun with comments from outraged folks around the country. Those comments were promptly (and wisely) purged along with other mildly offensive posts.

Interestingly, as of tonight, 3/27/2013, posts like this one were still active.

So much for community policing, eh?

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No Sunset On The 911 Tax Hike

Just when I thought the list of problems with Boone County Proposition #1, the 911 tax increase, couldn’t conceivably grow any longer, another problem has come to light. The newest problem might actually be the biggest problem of all. It seems that the authors of the tax increase and funding plan failed to write a sunset provision into the proposal.

The new sales tax, that will affect every purchase from food to Ferraris, will generate an estimated $9.3 million annually. Of this $9.3 million, $2.2 million will repay the bond debt incurred to purchase $8.7 million worth of new equipment and build an $11.3 million above-ground bunker. $6.4 million of the $9.3 million will fund the annual budget. That leaves around $600,000 unaccounted for, but who’s counting?

So what happens if the economy recovers and the new sales tax generates more funds than estimated? Even without an economic boom the CID sales tax far outperformed estimations. So what happens to the $2.2 million in annual debt payments when the bond debt is completely retired?

My guess is that it will become the only two words Boone County politicians and bureaucrats love to hear more than “tax increase…,”

…SLUSH FUND!

And remember, it’s only $2.2 million if the economy fails to improve and we fail to add the extra $600,000 into the slushy equation.

Without a sunset provision, this tax has the potential to create a slush fund well in excess of $3 million per year. What more could a rural Missouri county government ask for?

With both the proposed and impending state sales tax increases coupled with the 911 tax, Columbia’s sales tax will be pushed to at least 8% with the possibility of ending up well over 9%. Our city and county governments will get a taxpayer bailout after decades of poor financial stewardship. We will have an Emergency Management castle on the Sheriff’s campus that was neither vetted by the public nor subject to competition from any alternative plans. This grandiose plan and budget will be controlled by just three county commissioners and an advisory board comprised of government bureaucrats and a few hand-picked citizens. And all the while the City of Columbia will go on wasting money on parking garages, airline guarantees, and refinishing Blind Boone’s bathroom instead of funding public safety — all on the backs of our hardworking taxpayers.

Oh yes, and Boone County will have its very own slush fund as soon that the debt is paid.

We must stop this silliness and demand that our elected leaders come back to the table with a reasonable plan and a new set of fiscal priorities that put basic public safety at the top of the list and pet projects at the bottom.

Boone County 911 Emergency Management and Joint Communication must be fixed immediately without further burdening the taxpayer.

Vote NO on Boone County Proposition #1 on April 2nd

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Financing Our Own Financial Demise

The government is using your tax dollars against you, financing the campaign for a tax increase.

Last night I attended the Boone County Pachyderms meeting to listen to the debate about the proposed 911 tax hike. The ever-principled and polite Steve Spellman made well-reasoned arguments against the tax increase and against the hastily ill-conceived plan to rebuild the entire 911 department.

Boone County Commissioner Janet Thompson and Joel Bullard, member of the Blue Ribbon Panel which devised the plan, both spoke in favor of the plan.

All three speakers made the case that the the Boone County 911 system is in need of a serious overhaul. Where they differed was on how it should be financed and the need for and feasibility of the grandiose plan.

Mr. Bullard gave the usual “it’s for the children” argument, and both he and Thompson cited anecdotes where 911 emergency callers were placed on hold. Bullard also said, “The sheriff came to us and said that he needed 25 employees, so we gave him 25 employees.”

Everyone knows that when a government wants something, it sets up a panel of yes-men (and yes-women) to formulate a plan. When the sheriff asked for 25 employees, did anyone ask if the job could be done by 20 employees?

From the discussion after the presentations it became clear that a privatization option was not explored. Since the Boone County Fairgrounds was mismanaged by the county for decades and only pulled back from jaws of bankruptcy after being turned over to a private company for management, it seems like the privatization option should have been explored. If Ed Robb’s tenure on the commission had not been cut tragically short, I’d bet privatization would have been on the table. Considering that with Ed’s untimely departure we were left with three big-government Democrats on the commission, a tax increase for bureaucratic growth is par for the course.

In fact, no other options were explored. If the county said it needed an $11.3 million building, the Blue Ribbon Panel said, “OK.” There was no out-of-the-box thinking. It seems there was no thinking at all. Like most bad government plans, this deal was rushed through a vetting theater and rushed to the voters with no public input.

As should be clear by now, Keep Columbia Free has mounted official opposition to this new tax. We believe that the city and county should use existing money to fix the problem. Over the past four decades our leadership has squandered our tax money on silly projects while ignoring 911 Emergency Management and Joint Communication. The city and the county have failed to cooperate, each grabbing their proverbial slice of pie and each refusing to fund 911. Instead, our city leaders have spent $22 million on a giant parking garage that sat empty until the city decided to lease spots to its own departments, are building the Short Street garage to serve private developers with an initial cost of $12 million, offered a $3.1 million underwriting package to American Airlines, spent $28 million painting bike lanes that make intersections dangerous, paving unneeded bike paths along Providence, and $3 million of that to market the bike ideas, and are now considering a $500,000 investment in the Blind Boone home. Our local government is like a gambling addict who loses his paycheck at the black jack table and then asks a friend for money to pay his electric bill.

Shouldn’t the 911 service have been funded before these silly plans? Shouldn’t these various local governments find a way to cut the waste and apply those savings to the 911 issue?

As the only official opposition group, our task seems like an uphill climb, especially when we are working against paid government employees who are spending public man-hours actively campaigning in favor of the new tax. How do regular citizens stand a chance against these well-paid officials? Isn’t it ethically questionable for paid employees of the county to campaign to fill their own coffers? All three Boone County Commissioners have been making the rounds speaking in favor of the tax increase and all three commissioners are each paid well over $80,000 per year. Sheriff Carey has also been actively campaigning in favor of the tax. The Sheriff makes well over $100,000 per year.

Since these officials are paid by our tax dollars, dollars that are taken from us by law whether we like it or not, when we pay our county taxes are we not funding the campaign for this tax increase? When the county spends public money campaigning to raise taxes it seems to me to be a clear violation of basic ethics. How in the world can normal people compete with the deep pockets of a government monopoly?

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Keep Columbia Free Opposes New 911 Tax

Download printable press release HERE

There is little doubt that the Boone County Emergency Management and Joint Communications 911 system faces serious operational challenges and difficulties. Something should be done to address its problems, but a tax hike to fund an exorbitant, unaccountable budget is not the correct approach.

Taxes are already high and this proposed tax increase will push the sales tax rate in many local stores to over 8 percent. A tax increase on basic goods is ill-conceived, especially when many families are struggling to survive in a troubled economy.

In fact, we citizens are already paying enough to fund these emergency operations, but decades of financial mismanagement at the hands of elected officials and government bureaucrats have squandered these funds. Our elected officials have neglected these fundamental emergency services in favor of other more glamorous and less needed budgetary objectives aimed at making headlines rather than providing safety. The proposed tax hike is nothing more than a bailout from the taxpayer for these elected leaders who have misspent our hard-earned tax dollars.

The proposed 911 budget stands as an excessive increase that will more than triple the current annual budget, moving it from $2.7 million to $8.7 million, and concentrate $20 million in the hands of just three county commissioners in the first year alone. These professional politicians, each with an annual salary in excess of $80,000, rule by consensus. No guarantees and few details have been released about the planned $11.3 million building or how the remainder of the $20 million lump sum and the $8.7 million annual budget will be spent. It is wrongheaded to take these extra funds from the citizens and pay them to the county government where there is limited representation, no firm plans for the new multi-million dollar building, no accountability, and no guarantee that our current crop of elected officials and appointed bureaucrats will be better stewards of these funds than those of the past.

We demand that politicians find a way to adequately fund and manage our 911 services without further burdening the hardworking taxpayers of Boone County. We demand that our elected officials examine their spending priorities and work within their existing means.

Please VOTE “NO” on Proposition #1 (the 911 tax) on April 2nd.

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