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ST. LOUIS — Ron Norwood wore the pejoratives coming his way like a comfortable, silky robe as he stood before the crowd in the Civil Service Commission hearing room.

“Just call me Mr. Filibuster!� exclaimed the attorney.

He works for the , and he was delivering a rambling soliloquy Tuesday morning during an unprecedented public hearing to remove his client, Sonya Jenkins-Gray, as St. Louis city’s personnel director.

It’s a position Gray was appointed to by Mayor Tishaura O. Jones two years ago. Now Jones wants to fire her. But because the city charter protects that position from political interference, the only way Jenkins-Gray can be fired is through a public hearing to show proof of “malfeasance� in office.

Much of the hearing consisted of Norwood waging verbal battle with retired St. Louis Circuit Judge Ed Sweeney, who was hired by the Civil Service Commission as a hearing officer. Sweeney accurately accused Norwood of filibustering, of speechifying, of obstruction and of delay tactics.

“Sit down and let the commission proceed,� Sweeney beseeched Norwood.

“I am not going to be constrained,� Norwood responded.

“You are out of order,� Sweeney retorted.

And so it went for several hours, as Norwood defended his client mostly by trying to make the hearing a referendum on the mayor.

“This is a power play,� he said, “a vindictive effort to destroy a civil servant.�

Norwood filed more than a dozen motions and objections, in the hearing and previously in court, trying to delay the proceedings. He lost all of them but one, and it was the one that mattered most.

Before the hearing began, there was no dispute over Jenkins-Gray’s actions. She took a city vehicle to Jefferson City for personal business in July. She assigned a staff member to drive her. Both acts were clearly outside the bounds of professional behavior. Once the issue came to light, Jenkins-Gray reimbursed the city $170.30 for the vehicle’s mileage that day. She admitted she violated city policy and apologized.

The Jones administration wanted to get into the nitty-gritty details of Jenkins-Gray’s personal business, which involved her husband, the Rev. Darryl Gray, a prominent civil rights activist who was visiting the Missouri Capitol that day. Gray, a former Jones ally, has been increasingly at odds with the mayor. Jenkins-Gray believes she’s being fired in part as retaliation. The mayor’s leverage in seeking to replace a personnel director for the first time in the city’s history was the potential to publicly air dirty laundry.

“The whole issue here is why she took this trip,� argued Reggie Harris, a contracted by Jones to prosecute the hearing against Jenkins-Gray.

Sweeney, the hearing officer, disagreed. Once Jenkins-Gray admitted she used the vehicle for personal business, the details of that personal business are “irrelevant,� he said.

Were this a court of law, and not a politically charged personnel hearing, that’s where things would have ended. The attorneys would have gone into a back room and hammered out a settlement.

Norwood had won — if not on the law, then at least in the court of public opinion. And there was plenty of opinion in the commission hearing room, from city Comptroller Darlene Green, to the city’s NAACP President Adolphus Pruitt, civil rights leader Rev. Phillip Duval, firefighter union representatives and other onlookers, some of them invited by Jenkins-Gray for a show of support.

“This is why we’re here,� Norwood said, holding up a plastic baggie with $170.30. He was playing more to the crowd than the Civil Service Commission.

The commission, appointed by Jones, may still vote to fire Jenkins-Gray after her public hearing concludes sometime next week. But the entire process — from taxpayer-funded private attorneys to the check that will likely have to be written to Jenkins-Gray for what Norwood called a “character assassination� — will amount to much more money than what Norwood held in the plastic bag, with pennies and nickels clanging together.

In a bit of serendipity, the hearing came on the same day the St. Louis Business Journal published a story outlining Jones’ propensity for travel (), most of which was paid by special interests, campaign funds or Jones’ personal money. “I’d like to ask the mayor about that,� Norwood said.

Sweeney probably won’t allow it, but Norwood’s point was made.

“I didn’t write this script, but I know how to read it,� Mr. Filibuster said.

Having succeeded in protecting his client’s privacy, he called the hearing what it was:

“This is a hostile takeover of the civil service system.�