RAYTOWN, Mo. — A seat on the Raytown Board of Alderman has been vacant since November when Alderman Eric Teeman stepped down from his position.
Shortly after Teeman's resignation, Mayor Michael McDonough told the board he was considering Melissa Beall, a funeral home manager and member of the Raytown and Grandview chambers of commerce, to fill the position.
McDonough called Beall an "undeniably qualified candidate." To make sure members of the board were able to meet and interview Beall, the mayor gave them two months before voting on her appointment.
That vote finally came on Tuesday night, when the Raytown Board of Alderman struck Beall's appointment down on a vote of 6-3.
"You have the questions of why did people choose to vote the way they did," Beall said of the results.
She wasn't the only one who was confused. Tony Jacob lives in Raytown and is an administrator in the popular Raytown Unleashed Facebook page.
"Only one person said anything negative, and there's was not even negative against her. It was a question about procedure, so I mean, where are they even coming from?" Jacob said.
41 Action News reached out to all six aldermen who voted against Beall. Only one would explain why on the record, and he also shared his reasoning with the public at Tuesday night's meeting.
"I just can't see myself putting someone in a position that is supposed to be on a ballot and elected," Alderman Mark Moore, Ward 3, said.
According to state law, that's exactly what the mayor and board are supposed to do when there's a vacancy. Someone is appointed to serve until the next election for the seat, which in this case isn't until April 2019.
Resident Matthew Cushman said people in Ward 5 can't wait until next spring for the position to be filled.
"They will be without a voice on the Board for nearly 18 months if this does not get resolved. Depriving them of that voice is an un-democratic as it could possibly get. They have effectively disenfranchised the people of Raytown," he wrote in a statement to 41 Action News.
Each ward is allotted two aldermen; currently, only Alderman Bonnaye Mims serves Ward 5.
McDonough described appointing Beall as a matter of making sure everyone has the same representation at City Hall.
"It's not that the person in that position currently is not doing their job. It has nothing to do with that. It's just that everybody else has two," McDonough explained.
McDonough went on to thank Aldermen Karen Black, Jason Greene and Steve Meyers for voting in support of Beall's appointment. He told 41 Action News he does not have plans to present another candidate, especially if one so qualified was turned down.
Beall said she did have a chance to meet with seven of the nine aldermen ahead of Tuesday's vote. Two members of the board, who she would not name, did not take the opportunity to meet.
The whole ordeal hasn't soured Beall on politics. She plans to come back and run in 2019.
"I've heard a lot of no's in my career, and I didn't get to where I was by listening to the no's," she said.
