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The records were relevant to two existing lawsuits and multiple open records requests through Missouri’s Sunshine Law, and destroying them also violated state and local rules on retaining records, alleges the suit filed by government-transparency attorney Mark Pedroli.

“This lawsuit involves the largest, illegal mass destruction of government documents in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County history,â€� the suit says.

The complaint is one of several in recent months related to Missouri’s Sunshine Law: Gov. Mike Parson and state legislators have sought to limit the law and ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ leaders have gained a reputation for delaying records requests. Civil rights attorney Elad Gross sued the city in September for allegedly developing a “schemeâ€� to withhold records from the public.

And another lawsuit alleged former Gov. Eric Greitens violated the Sunshine Law by using an app that automatically deleted text messages between the governor and staff.

In the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County case, Pedroli represents Karen Runk, the treasurer of Missouri K9 Friends, an Ellisville animal rescue nonprofit. Runk filed open records requests with the county animal control department that were not fulfilled, according to the lawsuit. The relevant records were then destroyed in early October, the suit claims.

A spokesman for the county health department declined to comment.

County public health officials have said the documents were infested with cockroaches and mice and posed a public health hazard. Health department acting Co-Director Kate Donaldson ordered the documents destroyed, without seeking approval from the County Council, as required by ordinance. Donaldson said she didn’t know about the rule, but that she and staff reviewed 250 boxes of documents before destroying them to make sure they had been retained long enough to comply with county records retention rules. About 150 boxes remain.

The lawsuit asked a judge to stop ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County from destroying any additional animal control records and to order the county to provide any copies of the destroyed records. The suit also sought to have the county pay Runk’s legal fees.

The county faces two other lawsuits from Pedroli related to its animal control department. The former animal population manager is suing the county claiming she lost her job because she was a whistleblower on flawed practices at the shelter. In another suit, a Webster Groves resident claims animal control wrongfully euthanized her family dog.

A messy storage space

Decades of animal control records were stored haphazardly in the mezzanine level of the county’s animal shelter, photos of the space show.

The county had pest control contractors spray regularly in other areas of the shelter, but not in the mezzanine level, health department spokesman Christopher Ave told the Post-Dispatch in mid-October.

But the extent of the infestation may not have been discovered if a nonprofit planning to take over the shelter hadn’t brought in a pest control inspector.

Animal control staff began going through the records in the mezzanine to prepare for the Animal Protective Association of Missouri, or APA, to take over operations on Dec. 5. The APA brought in its pest control contractor on Sept. 27, Ave said, and the APA informed health department officials about the problem the next day.

Four health department staffers spent six hours on Sept. 30 going through the records, Ave said. The sorting continued on Oct. 3, and then the county’s shredding contractor destroyed the records that same day.

The mezzanine would have been an ideal place for pests to hide, said Danielle Creech, head of preservation for Washington University’s libraries. She’s in charge of making sure the university’s rare and valuable collections stay safe from critters.

Pests are likely to find homes wherever there’s a good hiding place and a nearby food source. The animal shelter has plenty of both — stores of pet food and a disorganized storage area.

“My guess is they found a nice nesting ground where no one was disturbing them and thought, ‘Cool, this is a nice home base and we can go get food other places,’� Creech said.

The county could have bought themselves some time by freezing the records, Creech said, but that would have required a large freezer capable of holding hundreds of cardboard boxes. Freezing wouldn’t have killed cockroach eggs, but they would have gone dormant, and it would have killed any adult cockroaches or mice.

The best solution would be to store records far away from food sources, even in another building if possible, Creech said.

But it’s human nature, she said, to want to get rid of the infestation as quickly as possible.

“There’s a level of disgust if you haven’t dealt with this before,� Creech said.