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ST. LOUIS — City Hall is not taking kindly to recent allegations that officials violated the state open records law.

ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ city attorneys have unleashed a blistering response to a lawsuit by open-government advocate Elad Gross, calling his suit a “transparent publicity stunt,â€� built on frivolous legal theories and designed solely to boost Gross’ political profile. He ran unsuccessfully for Missouri attorney general in 2020.

The city says Gross’ claims that they slow-walked information about jail disturbances amount to an “illegal, improper and perverted� abuse of the legal system. The city filed a claim seeking damages in excess of $25,000. 

The city’s filing, entered just before Thanksgiving, marks a dramatic escalation of a high-profile Sunshine Law case at a time when City Hall is taking heat on the issue. 

Mayor Tishaura O. Jones campaigned on a promise to increase transparency in city government, but journalists, attorneys and advocates have complained of increasing difficulty obtaining public records. Straightforward requests have taken many months to process. Once, the city even claimed that a document — a salary study — didn’t exist as it was beginning negotiations with employee unions. The city eventually released the document after one of the unions complained to the Missouri attorney general’s office. 

In an interview over the weekend, Gross said the city’s filing was yet another disappointing turn. He called the response an attempt to deflect attention from officials’ failures to follow the law. He said the demands for damages appeared to be a cynical attempt to scare off anyone else who might challenge City Hall on open records.

“It’s despicable,� he said. “These tactics are not helpful for them or taxpayers in general.�

The city’s dispute with Gross dates back to September 2021, when Gross started filing requests for records on violent disturbances at the city’s downtown jail to help a client hurt during the incidents. 

Gross said the city took many months to fully respond to his requests and broke the law along the way, repeatedly increasing estimates of how long fulfillment would take without adequate explanation. The city didn’t provide a final response to two requests until last month, roughly a year after they were filed. And, he said, sometimes when the city did respond it tried to charge him inappropriate fees.

He said he warned officials, including City Counselor Sheena Hamilton, that the city was breaking the law and offered to help them get back into compliance but was brushed aside.

Eventually, he concluded that the mayor, Hamilton, and Joseph Sims, the city’s Sunshine Law coordinator, had established a system “by which they regularly violate Missouri’s Sunshine Law and use public funding to deny the public access to public records.�

Gross asked a judge to order the city to produce the records he asked for within 14 days, reduce or eliminate associated fees, start giving people exact estimates of when records will be available and stop delaying production without a detailed explanation.

Hamilton’s office fired back in a trio of filings Wednesday, saying officials had fully complied with the Sunshine Law.

City attorneys said officials gave sufficient estimates for how long it would take to fully respond to requests and provided adequate explanations when those estimates changed. They said officials fulfilled most of Gross’ requests within 180 days and the rest of them in a reasonable time frame. They said Gross was at fault for delays on four requests because he didn’t answer staff questions or pay roughly $130 in fees.

But city attorneys argued Gross wasn’t really concerned with those details or even helping his client. They said the true purpose of his lawsuit was to promote himself and build notoriety for a future political campaign.

They pointed out how Gross tweeted about the lawsuit to local reporters before it was filed, did a round of interviews afterward, and then promoted the coverage across social media for weeks afterward. 

Gross said Sunday he plans to file a response in court soon.