MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Nicholas J.C. Pistor
ST. LOUIS • The man whose voice has thundered across City Hall from Room 200 for more than a decade soon will leave his post.
Operating out of an office next to Mayor Francis Slay, Jeff Rainford has battled adversaries, cajoled business leaders, debated reporters, enforced Slay’s agenda and fundamentally changed city government. Early next month, he will officially resign the chief of staff position he has held since 2001, he said.
Rainford, a former television reporter, leaves a legacy as one of the city’s most effective staff leaders. Along the way, he became known as a fierce, unflinching defender of Slay, always ready to go to the mat to keep the administration’s policies on track. His brash personality has drawn praise and criticism. …
In 1993, Rainford drew controversy when he and another reporter worked on a story that involved using a male prostitute to secretly record a Belleville-area priest with hopes of getting him to reveal details about sexual misconduct. At the time, the Belleville Diocese was rocked by a child sex abuse scandal.
The story never aired. Rainford left KMOV later that year when his contract with the station expired.
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