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New mayor of small Missouri town locked out of City Hall, suspended

By Amy R. Connolly

KINLOCH, Mo., April 25 (UPI) -- The newly elected mayor of a tiny city of 300 was suspended on alleged voter fraud and locked out of City Hall before she started her first day.

Betty McCray went to City Hall with the intention of firing multiple city employees. Instead, she was greeted by local police and told she had been suspended following claims of voter fraud. Kinloch city attorney James Robinson informed McCray she had been impeached but refused to tell the 64-year-old the articles of impeachment. He later said she was only suspended.

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In early April, McCray was elected with 76 percent of the vote, or 63 of the 83 votes cast. She beat Mayor Darren Small's 18 votes. Since then, city leaders raised concerns to the board of elections and the Missouri Secretary of State, saying 27 people who are registered to vote in the city don't live there.

Kinloch is located just minutes from Ferguson and was St. Louis County's first well-established African-Amercian communities. At one point, the city boasted more than 10,000 residents. Beginning in the 1980s, the population dwindled and the crime rate exploded as land was purchased for the expansion of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.

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In the past five years, the city's former mayor was sent to prison on federal fraud and theft charges, the city's fire chief was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison for embezzling $140,000 and a convicted felon was hired as city manager.

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