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What’s certain is that Kehoe’s strange appointment choices here drive home the fact that the very existence of this police board — which will extend state control over the city’s police department — is an affront to local autonomy and to democracy itself.

It was a small-d democratic majority of Missouri voters who, just a dozen years ago, returned ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ city police to the city’s control for the first time since the Civil War era.

Yet today’s Republican-controlled Legislature, as it tends to do, decided this year to just ignore those voters and resume state control over city police. Thus ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ has now returned to its demeaning status as one of just two major cities in America in which city voters aren’t allowed to ultimately control their own police force via their choice of city leadership. (Kansas City is the other.)

The move, backed by Kehoe, was based on the baseless notion that the state will do a better job of controlling crime here than city leadership can. In fact, the worst violent crime spikes in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½â€™ history happened when the state still controlled the city police before; some of the biggest drops in such crimes have come since City Hall took over in 2013.

In essence, the resumption of state control over ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ police this year was a partisan power play by a Republican state government against a Democratic-run city — nothing more, nothing less.

Under the coercive legislation the General Assembly passed and Kehoe signed this year, the reconstituted ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Board of Police Commissioners will have five voting members: The city’s mayor and four appointees from the governor who must reside within the city. The governor also appoints a non-voting board member who doesn’t have to reside in the city.

The five choices Kehoe announced Monday include three white male ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ city residents: restaurateurs Chris Saracino and Eddie McVey and business owner Brad Arteaga; and non-voting ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County car dealer Don Brown, who is also white.

Kehoe’s sole Black (and sole female) pick is former ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ city personnel director Sonya Jenkins-Gray.

Two problems:

One, according to the census, ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½â€™ population is about 44% white and 42% Black, with the remainder being Hispanic and other races. In other words, a roughly even number of Black and white residents make up the overwhelming bulk of the city’s population.

Black ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ has, as a culture, long endured a fraught relationship with city police marred by distrust and resentment over police killings of Black residents and other issues. Whatever the varied details of those controversies (and they run the gamut of blame), seeing local police controlled by a state board that so completely fails to reflect the city’s racial demographics certainly won’t ease tensions.

Black city residents are “not going to see representation. They’re going to see the good ole boys’ system,� city Alderman Rasheen Aldridge told . “Just got one person of color? That’s problematic.�

Problem No. 2: That one person of color is … Sonya Jenkins-Gray? That choice is, in a word, weird.

Jenkins-Gray was the city’s personnel director under former Mayor Tishaura Jones, who appointed her but ended up seeking her removal earlier this year in what became a major controversy. Jenkins-Gray claims she was fired for political reasons and, this being ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, that’s certainly possible.

But Jones’ claim that Jenkins-Gray “displayed a gross lack of judgment� is hard to dispute: While she was the city’s personnel director, she had a subordinate drive her to Jefferson City in a city vehicle on work time to deal with what appeared to be a personal marital issue; had the subordinate drive her on some other personal errands lasting late into the night; subsequently promoted the subordinate with a raise in pay; and allegedly offered to lie for the subordinate to protect him from the fallout.

This is the only qualified Black person in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ that Kehoe could find to appoint to the police board?

That requires some kind of explanation from the governor — and due diligence from the state Senate before it confirms these nominees.