Who's in charge? Staver and Norton debate the limits of mayoral power

The two most powerful people in Rochester elected government took the proverbial gloves off Monday night, as Mayor Kim Norton and City Council President Randy Staver squabbled over the merits of the mayor’s recent dealings with Kmart park-and-ride developer Camegaran. 

In comments made during council discussion, Staver said he was troubled by Norton’s private meeting with the developer — going so far as to accuse the mayor of setting a “horrible precedent” on how the mayor’s office exercises its authority.

As we reported here last week, the mayor met with Camegaran president Patrick Regan after a council action approving the first phase of the parking lot. During the discussion, Norton leveraged her veto authority to strike a deal she viewed as more favorable (more on that below).

Norton states she was using the limited power she has to act in the best interest of the community. But Staver believes she overstepped — and on Monday he did not hold back his thoughts on how the move could, in his opinion, impact how other private parties interact with the city.

“We go through this process, we have these difficult decisions, we look out in the audience and we cast our votes — and then we find out that someone could go to the mayor’s office and in a little quid pro quo, exchange… I'll give you this in exchange for a vote or don’t vote — in this case, veto an action,” remarked Staver. “Now we come back to the public and say ‘trust us, there’s nothing going on behind closed doors.’ That’s the part I find objectionable.”

Mayor Norton immediately rebuked the allegation, saying the meeting benefited the community as a whole — not herself.

“I don’t have a gavel, but there is no quid pro quo,” said Norton. “I got nothing out of this. What I got out of this was something for the community.”

That “something” was an agreement from Camegaran to forfeit their second 30-month lease option on the Kmart park-and-ride site. The agreement — formally acknowledged in a 4-3 vote by the council Monday night — sets a hard cap for the park-and-ride project at 90 months (7 ½ years).

The lease approved by the council two weeks ago still runs for five years, and Camegaran still holds the option to extend the lease for 30 months after the original five-year time period expires. 

The Situation

Mayor Norton said Camegaran reached out to her after the council’s contentious vote approving the project on February 19, looking for a way to avoid the possibility of a mayoral veto — which Norton floated at the end of that meeting’s discussion. Norton said she appreciated the developer’s gesture, after a procedural mix-up prevented her from speaking until after the council had adopted the proposal. 

“At the end of a very awkward meeting — where I wasn’t allowed to speak at all about the issue until after the vote had taken — I was very appreciative of the developer’s discomfort with what he witnessed at the meeting,” said Norton. “He didn’t have very strong support — he had a 4-3 vote — and he had a mayor who had already acknowledged she was interested in less than 10 years. I appreciated the fact that, after that meeting, I got a call saying ‘I have an offer that would make more people happy.”

Norton said she then invited the three council members who voted “no” on the 19th to the meeting, as well as the city attorney.

President Staver, who voted against the acknowledgment (he thought the added language was unnecessary), said he was “not faulting the property owner or the mayor” in taking the action, but took issue with the precedent set by the meeting. 

“It’s not this action itself that disturbs me so much, it’s the precedent that it’s setting,” said Staver. “It’s been said to me, ‘well, this is just a one-off, don’t worry about it,’ and I just don’t believe that. Precedent gets set this way. There is nothing to preclude someone who likes or dislikes a decision the council makes from marching to the mayor’s office and asking ‘what can we do to work this out so that you will or won’t veto?’"

Quid Pro Quo

“Quid pro quo” turned into a buzzword of sorts late last year during the impeachment trial of President Trump. Merriam-Webster’s definition of the term says it means “something given or received for something else.” 

However, in a political context, the term generally refers to a public figure exchanging political favors for personal gain. Given that definition, Councilor Michael Wojcik said the term was used incorrectly.

“What the mayor did here was thankless, it was selfless, and it was for the neighborhood,” said Wojcik. “It was to try and bring folks together. To say that’s a quid pro quo, that is not the case. Now, if the mayor had done that for campaign contributions, or to investigate a future opponent, that would be a quid pro quo. This absolutely is not a quid pro quo. That is absolutely not a proper use of the term at all.”

With the final terms of the lease approved, the goal is to have employees from St. Marys Hospital flooding into the lot later this year.

Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.