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ST. LOUIS — If Tishaura Jones becomes the first St. Louis mayor to remove a city personnel director, one of the most powerful and protected jobs in city government, she may have to consider an old hand with whom she once clashed for the post.

Former Personnel Director Rick Frank, who held the job for 17 years before retiring in 2021, has reapplied for his old position. And the current director, Sonya Jenkins-Gray, on Nov. 15 granted his request to be placed on an eligible reemployment list, according to Frank and a copy of the letter he shared with the Post-Dispatch.

That, Frank said, means the mayor would have to at least interview him should the personnel director position open up. And she wouldn’t be able to pick an interim for the job while that list exists.

“If her intent were to put a provisional appointment in there, there’s a problem per the charter and the rules,� he said.

Jenkins-Gray declined to comment about Frank’s addition to the reemployment list. A spokesman for the mayor declined to comment.

Frank’s reemergence comes amid a behind-the-scenes fight for control of the department that burst into public view Thursday with the revelation that the Civil Service Commission was aware of formal charges being filed against Jenkins-Gray. And those charges, a lawyer for Jenkins-Gray said later that day, were coming from the mayor’s office as part of a “petty, political� effort to oust her from one of the most important jobs in city government, one that has major sway over the hiring, firing and promotion of some 4,000 city employees.

The city’s personnel director is meant to be a job insulated from politics, created in 1941 to lead a new civil service system replacing machine politics dependent on patronage jobs with a professional city workforce. Unlike the rest of the city’s department heads, the mayor can’t fire the director of personnel except after formal charges of “nonfeasance, malfeasance or misfeasance� and a public hearing before the Civil Service Commission.

As a result, most directors have served lengthy terms across multiple mayoral administrations, and none has ever been removed. Jenkins-Gray is only the fourth permanent director to serve more than a year.

But Jenkins-Gray, a longtime human resources official Jones hired in 2022 after a national search paid for by the Regional Business Council, now faces the prospect of becoming the first head of the department to face removal. It’s unclear what the charges against her are, but she has had some political friction with the mayor.

She publicly opposed a Jones-backed St. Louis Charter amendment giving the mayor full hiring and firing power over the director. Her husband, the Rev. Darryl Gray, has used his position as chair of the city’s Detention Oversight Board to criticize the administration’s handling of the jail. And this summer, he publicly broke with U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a close Jones ally, to back Wesley Bell, the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney who beat Bush in the Democratic primary for the seat.

Yet if Jenkins-Gray is removed, Jones may have to deal with a former director her administration clashed with, or a lawsuit challenging her appointment of someone else. Frank famously tried to keep the search for a new police chief within his department, irking the mayor who later said the process should be restarted. And some of the unions that support Frank are not allies of the mayor.

Frank in 2022 already tried to reapply for his old job. Both the police and firefighter unions backed him. But the interim director of the Personnel Department cancelled the reemployment list to keep Frank from returning, then Deputy Personnel Director Bryan Boeckelmann alleged in a 2023 whistleblower complaint.

The mayor’s office may have been trying to head off Frank’s addition to a reemployment list for director. At Thursday’s Civil Service Commission hearing, and at a meeting scheduled last month, agenda items referenced changes to rules that could have affected reemployment rights. It’s unclear what exactly the changes were, but Frank said he believed they were aimed at trying to prevent him from being rehired.

Linda Thomas, who worked for the city for 50 years, many of them as deputy director of personnel, sent an email to the Civil Service Commission alleging the same thing.

“The rumor someone wants to keep the retired Director of Personnel from getting reemployment rights ... could have some validity,� Thomas wrote in the email.

Jenkins-Gray said at the meeting Thursday that she wasn’t in support of the rule change because it could affect the ability to rehire people for other City Hall jobs.

Amid the looming prospect of a hearing to remove Jenkins-Gray, and the hiring of a new director, the Civil Service Commission’s chairman quietly resigned in recent weeks. Dean Kpere-Daibo, an employment attorney Jones appointed in 2021, was not at Thursday’s meeting, leaving the commission with just two members. Commissioner Steven Barney was voted the new chair. Kpere-Daibo did not respond to a request for comment about his resignation.

Mayor Jones has appointed a former commissioner, Bettye Battle-Turner, to the panel. Battle-Turner was chair of the commission in 2021 and early 2022 and helped push through rule changes giving the mayor the power to appoint an interim personnel director.