This website is best viewed in a browser that supports web standards.

Skip to content or, if you would rather, Skip to navigation.

Listen Live
Donate
MARYVILLE

KXCV-KRNW


News Brief

Aug. 6, 2024 |  By: Clara Bates - Missouri Independent

Suit claims Missouri agency violated Sunshine Law while awarding housing funds, tax credits

gavel

By Clara Bates - Missouri Independent

The Missouri Housing Development Commission awarded millions of dollars in public funds and tax credits without notice or public votes, a former employee alleged in a lawsuit filed last week.

The lawsuit, filed in Jackson County, claims the commission regularly violated the state’s Sunshine Law and the law governing its actions, which requires an “affirmative vote of at least six of the members.”

The lawsuit was filed by Jesse Mofle, who was employed by the MHDC from March 2021 until October 2023. 

In addition to the Sunshine law claims, the lawsuit alleges that Mofle was also sexually harassed by a coworker. He was fired in retaliation for complaints he made about sexual harassment and complaints he made to the attorney general’s office about Sunshine violations, the lawsuit states.

Rather than hold public meetings where commissioners would vote on which developers were to receive millions in public funds and credits, the lawsuit states, MHDC staff would email commissioners their recommendations, to be implemented unless there were objections.

The lawsuit also claims that the commission has violated the Sunshine law by failing to deliver records Mofle requested in September by the time the lawsuit was filed on July 31. 

The Missouri Housing Development Commission oversees the administration of low-income housing tax credits. There are ten commissioners, including the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and state treasurer.

Last year, it awarded $380 million in tax credits for low-income housing.

The lawsuit alleges that “in order to avoid conducting public meetings,” the MHDC staff would email commissioners the “list of proposed funding recipients and…if a given commissioner had no objection, [MHDC] would implement the list as is.”

That violates the statutory requirement to hold a public, noticed meeting with recorded, affirmative votes, the lawsuit alleges.

The agency “knowingly violated the Missouri Sunshine law,” the lawsuit states, “each and every time funding was allocated without an affirmative vote, a meeting, notice of the meeting, and recording of the vote.”

The lawsuit is a last resort, Dan Curry, Mofle’s attorney, wrote in the court filing.

Curry also serves as attorney for the Missouri Press Association.

Mofle “has exhausted any and all required administrative prerequisites” in an attempt to gain satisfaction without going to court, Curry wrote. 

The lawsuit alleges Mofle was sexually harassed by a coworker and reported the behavior — which included “her tracking [Mofle’s] movements and stalking behaviors” — several times without resolution.

Mofle took leave at the end of July 2023 because he was uncomfortable working due to the alleged sexual harassment and the “anxiety of being asked to violate the law,” the lawsuit states.

He submitted a request for accommodations signed by his doctor to find another position that would “avoid the need to follow directives from executive staff to violate the Sunshine law,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit requests that the court void funding allocations that were made without proper votes.

A spokesperson for MHDC did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The Independent previously found that developers who make large political donations to statewide officers on the commission received a significant share of the awards.

Between 2018 and 2023, approximately $1 of every $6 in tax credits awarded since the start of 2018 has gone to the five developers who contribute the most.

At the last meeting, held in December, members of the commission asked no questions about the staff recommendations. One member said he’d just seen the recommendations for the first time during the meeting.