Mayor McDonough and Members of the Board,

We are writing as Raytown residents with a growing concern: over the last several years, this City government has repeatedly chosen to override its own residents, its own processes, and in one case its own legal requirements — and has not yet taken the chance to make any of it right. We are not asking you to agree with us on every point below. We are asking you to look at the pattern alongside us, and to act.

We also invite Missourians beyond Raytown to add their names below. Missouri state law — not just local custom — sets the rules a city like Raytown must follow when it comes to removing an elected official, disclosing public records, and holding open meetings. When a city sets those rules aside, it is a matter for the whole state, not just the city limits.

2025–2026: An alderwoman removed without a vote, and eight months of silence.

On April 8, 2025, following significant backlash against a former alderman over his support for a controversial rezoning decision, Latrice Thomas won the Ward 3 alderman seat. On June 26, 2025, Mayor McDonough personally removed her from office. No Board vote authorized it, though Missouri law (§79.240 RSMo) requires one. The Board itself was not informed until after the fact. For eight months, the City took no action to resolve the question either way — until, this year, the City's own attorney stated on the record, in response to a direct question from Alderman Morales, that Thomas "has not been removed" and has "been a member the entire time." That admission has not changed how she has been treated since: still no access to city systems, still no compensation, still recorded as merely "absent" from votes she has been present for and barred from casting.

January 2026: An attempt to approve $161,000 in legal spending without discussion.

On January 6, 2026, a resolution authorizing $161,000 in special counsel spending was placed on the consent agenda — the portion of the meeting reserved for routine items passed without debate. It was only pulled into open discussion after aldermen and residents pointed out that the resolution did not specify the name of the special counsel or the purpose for their retention.

A pattern in how discipline itself gets applied.

This Board has disciplined its own members before. In September 2022, the Board censured Alderman Greg Walters, with Mayor McDonough as the point of contact on that resolution. This Tuesday, July 21, 2026, the Board will publicly discuss a formal ethics complaint Mayor McDonough has brought against Alderman Theresa Tush. We simply note that the City's own Code of Ethics states that lower-level sanctions such as written warnings "shall be kept private to the degree allowed by law" — yet this matter is being taken up as a public agenda item rather than handled privately. We ask only that the same scrutiny be applied evenhandedly: the same Code requires members to keep an open mind on matters before the Board, yet no similar public discipline has followed clear public statements of a resident's guilt made before any hearing occurred, or a disclosed private conversation with a party to a pending matter made immediately before voting on that matter. Residents deserve to see the City's ethics rules applied the same way regardless of who is being asked to answer for them.

What the City's own rules already say.

Raytown's Code of Ethics and Conduct — the City's own standard, not ours — states that members shall "assure fair and equal treatment of all persons, claims and transactions," shall "maintain an open mind until the conclusion of the hearing" on matters requiring a decision, and shall "publicly disclose substantive information... received from sources outside the public decision-making process." We note, without characterizing it further, that one alderwoman disclosed in the official minutes of the April 14, 2026 meeting that she had spoken privately with Alderwoman Thomas before that night's vote and advised her to resign — and then made the motion to adopt the ordinance concerning her. We leave it to residents, and to the Board itself, to weigh that disclosure against the City's own written standard.

What we are asking the Mayor and Board to do:

1. Publicly and formally resolve the legal status of the June 26, 2025 removal rather than allowing it to remain unaddressed and unresolved indefinitely.
2. Commit to clear recusal practices for any Board member who has made statements showing prejudgement or had private communication with a party to a matter still pending before the Board.
3. Restore aldermen's ability to raise matters for open discussion under Communications from the Board, without requiring prior approval from the Mayor's office.
4. Publicly post the schedule for Alderwoman Thomas's impeachment hearing, including any changes to that schedule, on the City's website as it becomes available — the same way the City posts every other public meeting.
5. Apply the City's Code of Ethics the same way regardless of who is being asked to answer to it — including its requirement that lower-level sanctions be handled privately, and its requirement that members keep an open mind on pending matters.

None of this requires anyone to concede wrongdoing. It requires only that the City engage with residents as partners in its own governance, rather than as an obstacle to be managed around.

We are asking Raytown residents — and Missourians who believe state law should mean something in every city, not just the ones being watched closely — to add their names below. We are asking the Mayor and Board to respond: publicly, and soon.