Note: hyperlinks to Board of Aldermen meeting recordings are cued to the relevant timestamp where available.

status-update.txt

Current Status — Updated September 2026

Everything below this box was written in March 2026. Since then: the Board passed the impeachment ordinance on April 14 — the same night the City's own attorney stated on the record that Thomas "has not been removed" and "has been a member the entire time." The hearing itself was held August 25, with Mayor McDonough testifying rather than presiding, and the Department of Revenue refusing to comply with the City's own subpoena. Three of the seven aldermen who voted to impeach have a documented conflict of interest — if honored, conviction becomes mathematically impossible regardless of the facts. A member of the Kansas City Star's editorial board has now independently reached much of the same conclusion in two signed opinion columns and argued for the charges to be dismissed.

The Board of Aldermen votes October 6, 2026 on whether to convict. See what you can do before then ↓

1. How We Got Here: The 2023 Rezoning and the 2025 Election

On June 20, 2023, Raytown's Board of Aldermen voted 7–3 to rezone the property at 5348 Blue Ridge Blvd. from low-density residential to neighborhood commercial — approving a convenience store in the middle of an established neighborhood over the objections of residents who packed two public hearings that lasted four hours each. Among the approving board members are the same bloc that would later enable the events described below: Aldermen Emerson, Myers, Krizek, Scott, Hayden, Mims, and Van Buskirk.

The following municipal election was April 8, 2025. Latrice Thomas ran for Ward 3 Alderman on a platform of government transparency and local revitalization. She unseated incumbent Ryan Myers by a margin of 143 to 138 — five votes. Morris Melloy, a community advocate who had spoken against the Blue Ridge rezoning, also ran to ensure that this election didn't go uncontested like before. Thomas was sworn in on April 22, 2025, and was present and voting at every Board meeting from that evening through June 17.

2. The Silent Removal: July 2025

At the July 1, 2025, Board meeting, Latrice Thomas's chair was empty. Her nameplate was gone from the dais. Her name was not called during roll and does not appear in the meeting minutes as either present or absent. No public announcement was made. No vote was taken. No legal process was initiated. The meeting proceeded as though she had never existed. Two Ward 3 constituents spoke during public comments that evening. One of them — the reporter and writer of this article — addressed the Board, noting that his elected representative was not in her seat and not available to hear urgent issues. That comment has yet to receive a response from any city official. The recording of that meeting begins in the middle of another constituent's testimony; there is no call to order, no pledge of allegiance, and no roll call audible at the start. The first public comment is clipped from the recording entirely.1

In August, Thomas's name was removed from the city's webpage of elected officials and from the official ward map. The city still made no public statement.2

If you are aware of any public statement issued by the City of Raytown explaining Alderwoman Thomas's removal prior to September 2025, please contact us. We have found none.

3. The Basis for Removal — and Its Problems

The city's justification, eventually disclosed through a reporter rather than a public announcement, rests on a letter dated June 10, 2025. That letter was mailed by the Missouri Department of Revenue to the Jackson County Election Board — not to the City of Raytown. On June 26, the Jackson County Election Board's Republican Director scanned that letter and emailed it to the Raytown mayor and city clerk. The letter was not signed by a judge. The Mayor acted on it the same day it arrived, removing Thomas without a Board vote, without a hearing, and without due process.

The letter cited Missouri statute § 115.306, which governs candidate qualification. Multiple legal authorities, including a spokesperson for the Missouri Secretary of State's office, have stated publicly that § 115.306 provides for disqualification of a candidate — not removal of an elected official. The Secretary of State's Director of Communications, Rachael Ward, told the Lincoln County Journal in May 2025 that while state law is explicit about disqualifying candidates, it "isn't as clear as to how to remove a disqualified official who has been elected." Removal of an elected official requires either a quo warranto action through the Attorney General or County Prosecutor, or a formal impeachment proceeding with evidence and a hearing. Neither occurred in June 2025.

The MO SOS statement was in response to a similar situation that occured last year. On the same day Latrice Thomas was elected — April 8, 2025 — an alderwoman in Elsberry, Missouri, Danielle Rockwell, was re-elected to a third term while owing back taxes she did not pay until April 21st, thirteen days after the election. Rockwell acknowledged the delinquency and told the Lincoln County Journal she "typically pays her taxes after the deadline." She also reported not receiving a Department of Revenue notice giving her 30 days to pay. Rockwell kept her seat.* Thomas's situation differed in a critical way: she disputed owing the taxes at all — when she first contacted the Department of Revenue, she was initially told she owed nothing; amounts were later found under her husband's name and were subject to dispute. Yet Thomas was removed from office within hours of the mayor receiving a forwarded letter, while Rockwell — with an admitted delinquency — was not.

4. Nine Months of Silence, Then $30,000 and Articles of Impeachment

Between July 2025 and January 2026, Raytown did not issue a formal press release about the Thomas removal. Raytown's City Attorney told the Board at the November 11th and November 18th meetings that the matter had been referred to the Attorney General's Office, and that the city was "at their mercy" waiting for a response. At the November 11th meeting, one alderwoman simplified the statute as "you have to have your taxes paid" and claimed this was an action by the Department of Revenue, ending her comment by saying "So our hands are clean on that".

At the January 6, 2026, Board meeting, a resolution authorizing the city to spend over $30,000 on unspecified "City Attorney Services and Special Counsel Services" was placed on the consent agenda — a procedural track reserved for routine, uncontroversial items passed without discussion. Alderman Greg Walters pulled it from consent and asked for discussion, raising the concern that the resolution did not specify what the legal services were for. The resolution passed over his objection.3 At the February 3rd meeting, a follow-up resolution, also on the consent agenda, explicitly naming Graves Garrett Greim LLC and attorney Nathan Garrett as special counsel passed 8-0-1, with Walters abstaining.

On February 17, 2026, Garrett presented the Board with articles of impeachment. Each of the eight articles charges Thomas with "malfeasance" for official votes she cast between April 22 and June 17, 2025 — the period when she was unambiguously a sitting alderwoman. His theory is that because she was allegedly tax-delinquent on election day, her election was invalid, making every vote she cast "wholly beyond her authority."

At that same February 17th meeting, Garrett requested a 30-day postponement to March 17th, stating he wanted to give Thomas "an informal allowance… to provide me with information that may suggest one way or the other, whether the correspondence on which we are relying from the Department of Revenue is accurate." He then immediately added: "We have no reason to believe it isn't."

The city's own special counsel, in a single breath, acknowledged he lacked verified evidence — and dismissed the relevance of that fact.

5. March 17: A Meeting That Never Was

The March 17, 2026, Board of Aldermen meeting was scheduled as the second reading of the impeachment ordinance — the vote that would formally authorize an impeachment hearing. When the time came, only three aldermen were present: Aldermen Morales and Aziere in person, and Alderwoman Garza by Zoom. Six aldermen were absent, leaving the Board without a quorum.

Mayor McDonough opened the meeting at 7:00 p.m., had the chaplain deliver a prayer, led the pledge of allegiance, and ordered the clerk to call roll. For the first time since June 2025 the clerk called, "Alderman Thomas". Thomas's nameplate was back on the dais, but her seat remained empty. After roll confirmed the absence of a quorum, the Mayor declared the meeting adjourned and announced the Board would reconvene on April 14th. The entire meeting lasted 3 minutes and 17 seconds.

6. What Has Actually Been Established

Latrice Thomas won the election on April 8, 2025. She was sworn in, attended every meeting, and cast votes as a duly elected alderwoman for nearly two months. She was removed without a Board vote, without a hearing, and without a public announcement — on the basis of a letter not addressed to the city, not signed by a judge, and citing a statute that the Missouri Secretary of State's own office says does not authorize removal of an elected official. The city then spent nine months offering no public explanation, before authorizing more than $30,000 of public money for legal fees to pursue impeachment charges.

The articles of impeachment charge her with conducting official business as an alderwoman. The city removed her from that office, on a presumption of guilt,4 before she had any opportunity to respond to allegations. They are now pursuing charges while demanding that she provide the evidence needed to substantiate or rebut those allegations — evidence that special counsel admitted, on the record, he does not currently have.

7. April 14: The Vote Passes — and the City's Own Lawyer Contradicts It

Enough aldermen showed up this time. On April 14, 2026, the Board passed the Articles of Impeachment on second reading, 7–2–1 — Ayes: Tush, Aziere, Emerson, Hayden, Garza, Krizek, Mims; Nays: Walters, Morales; Thomas recorded absent, as she had been for every meeting since March 17.5

The same night, something remarkable happened on the record. When Alderman Morales asked point-blank whether Thomas was currently a member of the Board, Special Counsel Garrett responded: "she has not been removed… the process has yet to be initiated." Asked the same question directly, City Attorney Baird responded: "She has not been removed." Asked whether that meant Thomas had been a member the entire time, Baird answered: "Yes." The City's own attorney and its own special counsel — representing the same city that cut off Thomas's keycard, iPad, city email, and seat within two hours of a letter arriving — told the Board, on the record, that none of it had actually happened. The Board voted to impeach her anyway, that same evening.8

8. The Hearing — August 25, 2026

Nearly fourteen months after removing Thomas, the City finally held the hearing it now says was the proper process all along. Alderwoman Diane Krizek presided as Mayor Pro Tem — not McDonough, who was called as a witness by Thomas's attorney and did not preside that night. Krizek is the same alderwoman who, months earlier, told the public Thomas "didn't" pay her taxes and, two days before the April 14 vote, publicly accused Thomas by name of committing "perjury, a felony." She gaveled in a hearing she was sworn to approach with "an open mind, free from prejudicial bias."6

The City's entire case rested on documentary exhibits and a single affidavit. It called no live witness of its own. Special Counsel Nathan Garrett stated on the record that the Missouri Department of Revenue — the agency whose letters are the sole basis for the whole proceeding — refused to comply with the City's own subpoena: it "would not testify, would not provide anything notwithstanding the subpoena." Garrett's own December 2025 letter had already identified quo warranto in circuit court, not municipal impeachment, as the proper vehicle for a case like this — the option the City never used.

McDonough testified that he never personally verified Thomas's tax delinquency with the Department of Revenue and did not recall receiving a July 2025 letter certifying it had been resolved. Garrett declined to cross-examine him. Thomas's attorney, Willis Toney, waived his closing argument in favor of a written brief — filed September 11, 2026, — arguing the entire proceeding should be dismissed as unlawfully initiated.

9. Conflicts of Interest — Does the Math Even Work?

Of the seven aldermen who voted Aye on April 14, three have a documented conflict serious enough to raise under Raytown's own Code of Ethics, which requires members to "maintain an open mind until the conclusion of the hearing" and decide based only on "the facts presented at the hearing and the law":

Run the arithmetic if all three step aside, as Raytown's own ethics code arguably requires: six aldermen remain eligible to vote at all. Two of those six — Walters and Morales — already voted No in April. Even if the other four vote Aye, that's four votes against the six needed to convict. Conviction remains mathematically impossible — not because the underlying charges were weighed and rejected on the merits, but because the body left to hear them can no longer reach the number required.

10. Independent Confirmation — Kansas City Star Opinion

On September 2 and September 4, 2026, Toriano Porter — a member of the Kansas City Star's editorial board — published two signed opinion columns reaching much of the same conclusion laid out on this page, more than a year after The Beacon's original reporting first surfaced it. Porter describes the removal as done "unfairly — and possibly illegally," reports that the Jackson County Election Board's own director has confirmed her board has no authority over qualification or removal, explains the Krizek conflict to a general audience, and argues the Board should dismiss the impeachment charges and scrutinize McDonough's own conduct instead — floating the idea of a "Raytown Compromise."7

The Beacon's reporting and Porter's columns, independently and more than a year apart, land on much of the same ground this page does.

11. What Happens Next — and What You Can Do

The Board of Aldermen reconvenes October 6, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. to vote on the Articles of Impeachment and adopt formal findings of fact and conclusions of law. This is a public meeting. Residents have the right to attend, to observe, and to deliver public comment. Ward 3 residents in particular have a direct stake — their elected representative has now been excluded from the Board for over fifteen months, and October 6 is the moment the city either makes that permanent or doesn't.

take-action.txt

Take Action Before October 6

  • Attend the vote on October 6th at 6:30pm. Raytown City Hall, 10000 E 59th Street. This is the meeting where it gets decided.
  • Sign and share the petition. Sign it here — every new signature matters more now, with the vote days away, than it did when this page first went up.
  • Contact the aldermen directly. If you are a Raytown resident, it is critical that you remind the city that your voice matters. Find contact information on Raytown's website, or click here to email the full Board asking them to dismiss the charges on October 6. If you don't live in Raytown but know someone who does, see the next item...
  • Share this page. The status box at the top is the fastest way to catch someone up on everything that's happened since March.
  • Follow the coverage. People's Infrastructure is publishing ongoing reporting on this issue. Subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates before October 6.
footnotes.txt

1 The recording of the July 1, 2025 Board of Aldermen meeting begins in the middle of a constituent's public comment — there is no call to order, no pledge of allegiance, and no roll call at the start of the available footage. The meeting minutes list two people under Public Comments; the recording shows only one. The reporter's testimony — the first speaker — is not present in the recording. ↑

2 Archived snapshots document the removal from the city's official webpage. A July 18, 2025 snapshot still lists Latrice Thomas by name, though clicking her name produces a 404 error, indicating her individual page had already been deleted. An August 11, 2025 snapshot shows her name removed from the page entirely. No public statement accompanied either change. ↑

3 At the January 6, 2026 Board meeting, Resolution R-3781-26 was placed on the consent agenda with the description: "Staff is requesting permission to spend more than $30,000.00 with a single vendor for City Attorney Services and Special Counsel Services per the purchasing policy." The background section referenced Lauber Municipal Law (the existing city attorney) and unspecified "Special Counsel services," but did not identify the vendor, the matter being litigated, or the scope of work. Alderman Walters pulled the item from the consent agenda and asked what the money was for, stating that a matter of this significance deserved open deliberation rather than routine passage. A procedural dispute followed — including a dispute over whether a seconded motion could stand after the mover withdrew — that illustrated the resistance to open discussion about city expenses. The resolution ultimately passed. The February 3rd resolution (R-3785-26) explicitly naming Graves Garrett Greim then passed 8-0-1, with Walters abstaining. ↑

4 The presumption of innocence is a foundational protection derived from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits any state from depriving a person of liberty or property without due process of law. It means that a person accused of wrongdoing is considered innocent unless and until guilt is established through a fair process — not assumed in advance and then contested after the fact. Here, Thomas was removed from office before any hearing was held, before she was formally charged through any legal channel, and before she had any opportunity to present evidence on her own behalf. The impeachment proceedings are being built around an assumption of the very fact they are supposed to establish. ↑

5 Minutes, April 14, 2026 Board of Aldermen Regular Session No. 24: peoplesinfrastructure.org/public-files/raytown/minutes/04-14-26_Minutes.pdf. ↑

6 Krizek's April 12, 2026 Facebook post states that Thomas's supporters have "effectively turned the attention away from her being caught committing perjury, a felony, on Form 5120." Her statement that Thomas "didn't" pay her taxes is from the same November 11, 2025 meeting recording cited elsewhere on this page. The presiding-officer oath language is from the August 25, 2026 hearing recording. ↑

7 Toriano Porter, Kansas City Star: "Impeachment hearing looms after Raytown alderwoman's illegal ouster," September 2, 2026; and "Raytown Mayor Mike McDonough's pattern of executive overreach demands scrutiny," September 4, 2026. ↑

8 Exchange between Alderman Morales, Special Counsel Garrett, and City Attorney Baird, April 14, 2026 Board of Aldermen meeting recording. ↑

* Gregory Orear, "Elsberry Alderman's Eligibility to Serve Questioned," Lincoln County Journal, May 7, 2025. ↑

sources.txt

Public Record Sources