St. Louis County's Board of Police Commissioners seated two new members this week without a confirmation vote from the County Council, pushing a long-simmering power struggle between County Executive Sam Page and the council into new legal territory. Beth McCarter and Johnny Wang took their seats at the board's meeting at police headquarters in downtown Clayton, replacing Brian Ashworth and retired Edward Jones executive Thomasina Wessler even though the council never formally approved their appointments.
The move relies on a 30-day non-action clause that Page's administration argues lets nominees take their seats if the council fails to act within a month, according to STLtoday.com. The council disagrees, maintaining that charter provisions require appointments to boards and commissions be subject to confirmation by a majority of its members. County Counselor Mary Elizabeth Hossey flagged the dispute in a letter to the board and the police chief on August 11, warning of the legal uncertainty hanging over the newly configured panel's votes.
Under Section 4.270 of the St. Louis County Charter, the five-member civilian board holds sole administrative charge of the police department, with commissioners appointed by the county executive subject to confirmation by a majority of the full seven-member council. That same framework requires commissioners to be Missouri citizens and county freeholders of at least three years, at least 30 years old, with no more than three members sharing a political party or holding public office.
Who Are the New Commissioners
McCarter, a partner at Clayton law firm Dunlop & McCarter specializing in estate planning and probate law, has been an attorney for 25 years and serves as a hearing officer for the Missouri Lawyer Disciplinary System. She is married to Clayton attorney Dudley McCarter and has three daughters and four grandchildren. At the meeting, she said she would do the best job she could and that she was proud to serve St. Louis County, the seed report from the Post-Dispatch notes.
Wang is a shareholder at Littler Mendelson, a national labor and employment law firm with a Clayton office, and has practiced law for over 20 years, according to his firm biography. He has been a St. Louis County resident for 37 years, has a husband and three teenage boys, and serves as president of the Board of Trustees for the St. Louis County Public Library District.
Council Pushback and an Unresolved Objection
Not everyone at the meeting accepted the seating quietly. Ashworth, whose seat McCarter took, raised concerns about the authority of the new board's actions, but the council did not address his comments, per the same account. Council member Rita Heard Days said the next county executive should be the one to make new board appointments, a pointed remark given that Page is not seeking reelection this year and his term ends in January 2027.
The dispute is not new. The council previously voted down one of Page's nominees to the police board in May 2024, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, establishing a precedent of council resistance that has now boiled over into an outright standoff over whether the newly seated commissioners can lawfully vote on board business at all.
A Fraught Political Backdrop
The friction between Page and the council is intensified by the county executive's own legal troubles. Page was indicted by a grand jury in July 2025 on two felony counts of stealing by deceit and two election law violations tied to more than $35,000 in public funds allegedly used for mailers opposing Proposition B, with trial set for January 2027, according to KSDK. Proposition B would have allowed the council to fire department heads, adding another layer of tension to the current appointment fight.
The council itself went into a closed session to discuss the legal issues surrounding the board's composition, underscoring how seriously members are treating the confirmation question. Meanwhile, the stakes attached to who sits on the police board are far from abstract: St. Louis County has approached a $900,000 legal bill defending a long-running employment discrimination lawsuit from Lt. Col. Troy Doyle, who alleged Page interfered in the board's 2020 chief selection, as Hoodline previously reported.
Business Continued as Usual
Despite the legal cloud, the board's meeting otherwise proceeded as usual. Commissioners heard reports from police department experts, deputized new officers, and approved a grant for federal funds. They also signed off on money for defensive driving and a memorandum of understanding for the police department's new drone initiative.
The board's authority over such operational decisions is significant. It appointed Colonel Juan Cox as chief of police in June, following an internal search after former chief Kenneth Gregory retired, and in March it granted final approval to a comprehensive overhaul of the department's use-of-force policy emphasizing de-escalation and supervisory review. That policy shift was the department's first major force-policy change since 2010.
The governance fight in Clayton also stands in contrast to a different approach taken elsewhere in the region. The Missouri Legislature moved earlier this year to place the neighboring St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department back under a state-controlled board of police commissioners, according to KCUR, highlighting how starkly local and state models of police oversight can diverge even within the same metro area. For now, whether McCarter and Wang's votes will hold up to legal scrutiny remains an open question the council has yet to resolve.
