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ST. LOUIS — A commission created to streamline city government demoted and rebuked its chairperson Monday after she accused a staffer of playing a role in a child’s death.

Commissioner Travis Sheridan said chair Jazzmine Nolan-Echols’s comments at last month’s meeting were “unacceptable,” and kicked off Monday’s meeting by moving to oust her as chair.

The decision followed months of acrimony on the Charter Commission, where the members have increasingly grown impatient with Nolan-Echols’ leadership. ������Ƶ were miffed by her tendency to give orders to commissioners and staff, irritated by her non-sequitur speeches, and alarmed by her suggestions they give contracts out without the usual review.

But her accusation against the city staffer, former Alderwoman Christine Ingrassia, prompted recriminations from the offices of Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and aldermanic President Megan Green.

Nolan-Echols, whose day job is running a consulting business, will stay on the commission. But replacing her as chair with Commissioner Brianna Bobo, critics said, would help the body refocus on its work.

“We look forward to working with Ms. Bobo and the rest of the Charter Commission as they work towards providing structural changes that will hopefully make St. Louis a better place,” said Jared Boyd, Jones’ chief of staff.

Nolan-Echols declined to comment.

The commission is in the middle of a yearlong mayoral appointment to review the fine print of the city’s charter, St. Louis’ foundational document, which spells out how the government should work. The commission, if successful, will recommend changes for voters to consider on the ballot this fall. It’s an important job: Much of the charter dates back to 1914, when St. Louis was a different place than it is now. Reforms could help bring the bureaucracy into the new century and make it easier to govern.

And commissioners are considering some weighty ideas, like installing a professional city administrator, shaking up the way the city hires its workers and even eliminating some high-ranking elected offices.

But behind the scenes, commissioners and staff have complained that Nolan-Echols hasn’t been much help.

It started with her emails to staff: In October, for instance, she sent a 10-point broadside to City Counselor Sheena Hamilton in October in which she made demands for extra meetings and reports, rebuked a fellow commissioner, and said Hamilton should refrain from interrupting commission discussion and whispering to staff during meetings.

Commissioner David Dwight IV later lamented such missives publicly as “inappropriate and disrespectful.”

Then there were the arguments about delays in taking public comment during meetings, which other commissioners felt Nolan-Echols was generally disregarding for the first few months.

By November’s meeting, leaders of good-government organizations like the League of Women Voters were openly complaining the commission hadn’t yet made time to hear from them. And with Nolan-Echols absent, Dwight — who served on the Ferguson Commission, lauded as a model for working with the public — apologized, saying the commission had stumbled and would try to do better.

But at the next meeting, Nolan-Echols took umbrage at the suggestion that anything was amiss, and said the previous meeting’s discussion had been disrespectful to her leadership.

Tensions grew when public meetings were finally held, and turnout was relatively low. Commissioners rolled their eyes at a flyer for one meeting that prominently featured Nolan-Echols’ name in the middle.

And in April she set off alarms with a suggestion that the commission hire a pollster without first putting the job out for competitive bidding, as city rules generally require.

Later in that same meeting, Nolan-Echols went after Ingrassia.

Ingrassia, now an aide to Green, had raised concerns that Darryl Gray, a prominent activist, had spoken before the commission without noting his marriage to one of the commission’s nonvoting members, city personnel director Sonya Jenkins-Gray.

Nolan-Echols replied by saying Ingrassia had a conflict of interest because she caused a 2014 crash that killed Black teenager Jada Williams.

Williams, 15, was killed while riding in the back of a car driven by Bryan Green, who police said was driving at least 60 mph through a stop sign when he struck another car and a tree. He eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter and sentenced to three years in prison.

But Williams’ father has twice sued Ingrassia and the city, alleging that Ingrassia, then the 6th Ward alderwoman, caused the wreck by chasing Williams after observing what she believed was a drug deal that included people in his son’s car.

Ingrassia has repeatedly denied the accusations. The first suit was dismissed in 2019; the second is pending.

But, last month, Nolan-Echols told Ingrassia she wanted to discuss “the conflict of interest and biases that you may have as part of this process, as it relates to your past cases in running and actively participating in the death of a Black girl in your neighborhood.”

Commissioner Anthony Riley, a pastor, quickly moved to end the meeting before much else could be said. But aides to the mayor and the aldermanic president both issued statements condemning the remarks, and said something had to be done.

On Monday, commissioners said it was time for Nolan-Echols to step aside.

At first, she refused, citing vague concerns that some commissioners have been violating the state open meetings law. Then the commission voted to remove her.

It was not immediately clear what Nolan-Echols meant, and she did not offer specifics in an interview after the meeting.

Ingrassia declined comment on Monday.

Other commissioners seemed relieved. They said they had tried to be patient with Nolan-Echols, but they couldn’t abide attacks on city staff.

“This,” said Commissioner Anna Crosslin, who used to run the refugee and immigration center called the International Institute, “is the unfortunate logical conclusion.”