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ST. LOUIS — Lawyers for the city’s personnel director sought Monday to toss out the proceedings against her following more than a month of weekly hearings and just days before an anticipated conclusion of a Civil Service Commission hearing that could lead to her firing.

Lawyers for Sonya Jenkins-Gray argue the mayor is trying to oust her before the April election in order to install a new director. The city’s lawyers say Jenkins-Gray’s team is trying to drag it out until after the election, when there’s a chance a new mayor could be in power.

Jenkins-Gray, who was hired by Mayor Tishaura O. Jones in 2022, is facing dismissal for having one of her employees use a city car to drive her to Jefferson City on July 3 for what the mayor’s office alleges was an attempt to catch her husband, the Rev. Darryl Gray, meeting with his ex-wife. Jenkins-Gray argues no one has been fired for violating the vehicle policy and she reimbursed the city for mileage after she realized she had violated the policy. The mayor’s office says when it discovered in late August that Jenkins-Gray had put one of her employees in that situation they had little choice but to pursue her firing.

But the personnel director — who oversees hiring, firing, promotions and discipline for the city’s 4,500 or so civil servants — has novel protections meant to insulate her position and the department from political influence. Unlike other department heads, the mayor can only hire a new director when there is vacancy. And the personnel director can only be fired after a public hearing, a process laid out in the city charter that until now has never been used.

For six months, the mayor’s office has sought to begin the public hearing process in order to pursue Jenkins-Gray’s ouster. The director at first took medical leave, delaying the hearings for months, then filed a lawsuit in December to try and stop them.

The Civil Service Commission has held seven all-day hearings since they finally began at the start of the year. Jenkins-Gray’s legal team began their defense last week and has said they can wrap up presenting their witnesses by the end of the day Tuesday.

But at the start of the hearing Monday, they presented a motion to toss the proceedings altogether, arguing the mayor lacked the authority to conduct the investigation or did not properly delegate her authority to her chief of staff, Jared Boyd. Jenkins-Gray’s lawyers also filed a motion to stop the hearings based on a Friday motion filed in her lawsuit, which argued that the city did not respond to some of their allegations in time and thus gave Jenkins-Gray a procedural win in court that could void the Civil Service proceedings.

After arguments took up much of the morning, the commission denied the motions.

Then, her team asked for more time to examine witnesses, primarily Boyd, who had already been called as a witness by the city and was called for a second time by Jenkins-Gray’s lawyers. They argued a few extra minutes of testimony isn’t much considering the city may fire an HR chief for the first time since the creation of the civil service system in 1941. With the April mayoral election fast approaching, the mayor’s office, Norwood said, is trying to finish the hearing while Jones “is still mayor.� The mayor can appoint a temporary director when there is a vacancy.

“Politics should not be driving this train,� he said.

But a lawyer for the city, Reggie Harris, pointed out Norwood already had the chance to ask questions during cross-examination, and his direct examination of Boyd was going over the subjects “covered when he testified the first time.� Many of the motions they filed are relitigating arguments the commission has already heard, Harris said, “keeping with their effort to drag this thing out.�

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see additional motions maybe this evening so we can spend some more time rehashing arguments we’ve gone over before,� Harris said.

The commission ultimately ruled against the extra time.

As Boyd continued his testimony Monday morning, Norwood drilled down into the city’s investigation of Jenkins-Gray. He asked the chief of staff which witness told him that Jenkins-Gray was trying to catch her husband cheating.

Boyd said the city “inferred� that was what occurred, prompting the hearing officer tapped by the commission to conduct the proceedings, retired Judge Edward Sweeney, to interject. The allegation that Jenkins-Gray went to Jefferson City to catch her husband cheating has been printed in the newspaper several times, a visibly agitated Sweeney said, and he urged Boyd to answer the question directly.

Harris jumped in, saying “the hearing officer seems to engaging in the redirect of this witness.�

Finally, Boyd offered to clarify: Jenkins-Gray has maintained that she was going to the capital city to retrieve personal papers, but has declined to say what those papers are, Boyd said. She also could not provide “a clear account� of the trip. That, combined with Anthony Byrd’s testimony about their interactions with the Rev. Gray in Jefferson City, and Jenkins-Gray’s emotional state on the drive back and that evening, led to the city’s conclusion about the nature of the trip.

“My investigation concluded that she went to Jefferson City primarily to confront her husband,� Boyd said.