Northeast Fire District lawyer Elbert Walton Jr. looms over board members Robert Edwards, left, and Joe Washington. (Post-Dispatch photo/J.B. Forbes)

A year ago, this editorial page enjoyed one of its proudest moments: One of our essays was reproduced on a door hanger and hung on doors throughout the Northeast Ambulance and Fire Protection District. We like to think it helped defeat a $10.7 million bond issue the district was seeking in last April’s municipal elections.

We’re not against fire protection. What we’re against is tax money being used to underwrite sleaze. In the Northeast (formerly Normandy) Fire District, the misuse of taxpayer dollars has become an art form. The artist in residence is former state Rep. Elbert Walton Jr., who for two years has been the district’s attorney, during which time, as we noted last year, he has turned the district’s treasury into his personal ATM machine.

Mr. Walton has racked up huge legal fees working for the district. He’s also engineered the election of at least one crony to the district board, giving him a working majority. When St. Louis County and Normandy Police would not eject irate citizens from board meetings, Mr. Walton and his pet rocks spent $509,000 in tax dollars on a new building in Beverly Hills, where cops are friendlier. He’s repeatedly stiffed efforts by local citizens and the estimable Elizabethe Holland of this newspaper to obtain records of district expenditures.

It’s a beautiful thing. When people write to the district to complain about him, he bills the district $200 an hour to tell them to go away.

At last count, there were at least four, and possibly five, public bodies investigating Mr. Walton and the district for various indiscretions. These include the Missouri Auditor’s office, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (for a dubious asbestos removal deal) and the Missouri Ethics Commission. The St. Louis County Prosecutor’s office has a file open and the U.S. attorney in St. Louis has heard complaints from residents.

But Mr. Walton, 67, is nothing if not persistent. After the bond issue failed last April, he took it to the voters again in August. It failed again, so he took it to the voters in November. That time the district passed out campaign literature that made it appear that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama was endorsing the bond issue. Alas, it failed again.

But now it’s back, for the fourth time in a year. On April 7, district voters must again decide whether to authorize $10.7 million in bonds for purposes that are unspecified. Maybe it will build a new firehouse. Maybe it will buy ambulances, fire trucks and equipment. More likely it will go down the rathole.

One would think that after being turned down three times — each election costs the district about $14,000 — the three-member board would stop wasting money. Of course, under Mr. Walton and his cronies — board members Joe Washington and Robert Edwards — the district is devoted to wasting money.

It goes without saying that voters in the Northeast Fire District — it takes in 45,000 people in about 15,000 homes and businesses around the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus — should vote No on Proposition Y on April 7. It requires a 4/7ths majority to pass.

They also should vote to re-elect Robert Lee to the fire district board. Mr. Lee, the only board member who stands up to Mr. Walton, is the only board member on the ballot this year. Mr. Walton’s pet candidate is Stacy T. Barnes. Lately district employees and equipment have been observed passing out literature on behalf of her candidacy and the bond issue.

That’s also illegal — using district resources to campaign for a bond issue — in case anyone is interested. Feel free to put this on a door hanger.