It’s ironic – and painful – to see someone with the last name “Payne” squirming in his seat after taking a blow to the ribs as an innocent bystander in a political fistfight.
At the last Board of E&A meeting, Mayor Francis G. Slay and Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed – Slay’s strongest mayoral challenger on the March 5 ballot – went head to head on who should negotiate city labor contracts with union leaders. Previously it had been the director of personnel. In 2010, Slay’s henchman Stephen Gregali (then an alderman, now a senior Slay staffer) got passed an ordinance making that negotiator a mayoral appointee (subject to E&A approval). And this year, Slay wanted his man Eddie Roth, formerly the director of public safety and now director of operations.
Reed said that it gets too political when the negotiator answers directly to the Mayor’s Office, and the past two years have been proof of that. He said it started with Gregali – formerly the alderman who led the mayor’s bill, now the mayor’s special assistant. (You need a score card to track the Slay administration, as the same names get moved around on the board a lot.)
Reed accused Gregali of introducing an illegal incentive regarding pay in a labor contract to get all parties to finally compromise and agree. All the while, Gregali knew that the contract had a severability clause would allow the contract to remain intact once the illegal, deal-making segment was discovered. Slay responded that this was an error that was corrected.
Reed argued that the board should reinstate the negotiator as Director of Personnel Richard Frank, who knows the city’s personnel issues inside and out and is the obvious choice for the job.
The Board of E&A – Slay, Reed and Comptroller Darlene Green – then voted on Slay’s motion to appoint Roth, and Green abstained, locking the vote.
Rather than join Reed in opposing Slay, Green offered a compromise. She suggested that Paul Payne, the city’s budget director, be the negotiator, since he is the one who answers to the Board of E&A directly anyway.
Payne sunk in his seat, then finally whispered something to Reed’s chief of staff, Tom Shepard, sitting next to him. Shepard relayed the message to Reed, and Reed spoke up for Payne, saying that it takes all Payne’s time to prepare the city’s budget. Negotiating contracts would take place right in the middle of his busiest part of budget season – now. Payne didn’t think he could do both things well. Then Payne spoke up for himself, saying the same thing.
Reed said that Payne spoke gracefully to two people who could vote him out of his position, and they should respect his perspective. They took a vote regardless. Both Green and Slay voted to appoint Payne as the negotiator. Reed voted against it. Payne tried not to shift his facial expression too obviously as the elbow cut in.
It’s going to be a challenging and painful budget season for Payne.
Mother Hubbard teams with birther
The woman who gave birth to state rep turned lobbyist Rodney Hubbard and Rodney’s sister turned alderman Tameka Hubbard – state Rep. Penny Hubbard – has joined forces with Missouri’s most prominent birther.
State House Speaker Tim Jones – who held onto the GOP’s xenophobic and counter-factual challenge to President Barack Obama’s citizenship as long and hard as anyone – came to mother Hubbard’s rescue after she was cast out by what is putatively her own party, the Missouri Democratic Party.
Democratic Leader Jacob Hummel dumped Hubbard from her committees – Urban Issues, Corrections and Small Business – after she did the speaker’s bidding by casting the deciding vote in favor of a Republican plan to add an “emergency clause” to a bill requiring a special election to fill a possible vacant Lieutenant Governor’s seat if Peter Kinder leaves office mid-term.
Mother Hubbard’s birther buddy responded by creating new standing committees on which Hubbard will serve and naming her chairman of the Urban Issues committee, with the pledge to push legislation through the new standing committees created for Hubbard, as is the speaker’s prerogative.
This is part of a venerable Republican ploy to co-create and/or co-opt opportunistic black legislators who defy their party and its policies in exchange for a little something something, like a better office and your own special committees. Many would say now state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed is herself a graduate of this same basic program.
Transplant challenges Hubbard
Speaking of Alderman Tameka Hubbard, she has a challenger on the March 5 primary ballot, Michelle Hutchings-Medina. Hutchings-Medina could not be more different from the incumbent if she tried. Whereas Hubbard is a local product of North City’s most entrenched political family, Hutchings-Medina is a transplant to St. Louis who lives downtown. The EYE thinks St. Louis is heading for the kind of vibrancy where fortified 20th century ward politics will not dictate the winners of every municipal primary. Are we there yet? We may find out on March 5. And we will hear more about Hutchings-Medina and her campaign soon.
Reed shows brother love
Malcolm X always told the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that King should thank him for making the reverend and his movement acceptable. In sharp contrast to the uncompromising critique of white people and their actions that Malcolm made his mantra, Dr. King looked like someone the white leadership could deal with, and they did.
Lewis Reed should thank Francis Slay for making him a more dramatically black candidate than he has been previously. Slay’s re-election campaign has been advertising in the black press and hiring black folks to knock on doors in majority-black neighborhoods, and partly as a result Reed – himself a transplant to St. Louis who lives on the near South Side – is rushing to shore up his black base. Reed set up office space with F.I.R.E. and, as the above photo makes clear, shared brotherhood with the brothers at the local Muhammad Mosque.
Reed also did a meet and greet with the Universal African Peoples Organization at Legacy Bookstore & Cafe. Zaki Baruti of UAPO – a leader of the Recall Slay campaign from the fire fight over Fire Chief Sherman George – reports that Reed “was greeted with a standing ovation with chants of Reed for Mayor – Reed for Mayor – Reed for Mayor.”
St. Louis civil rights icon Percy Green encouraged the audience to become part of his “Boo Crew” and boo Slay whenever he appears in our community. Keith Antone, the special public relations project manager for the Reed campaign, also worked the crowd. Former state Senator Robin Wright Jones introduced Reed.
“Sharing a story of personal tragedy in the loss of a brother to gun violence, Reed spoke about creating an economic revival for St. Louis to reduce crime, promote a better public school system and ending the racial divisiveness fostered by the current Slay administration,” Baruti reported
Completing the program was Akbar Muhammad, the International Representative to the Nation of Islam. Akbar reminded people of the many positive benefits to the black community when Harold Washington was elected Mayor of Chicago. He encouraged everyone to get their family and friends to the polls to vote and elect Lewis Reed for Mayor on Tuesday, March 5.
Mo Dems re-elect leadership
Following a successful campaign cycle where Democrats won five of six statewide races, the Missouri Democratic Party State Committee unanimously re-elected Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders as Chairman. The committee, which voted Jan. 26, also re-elected St. Louis City Comptroller Darlene Green to Vice-Chair and Airick West to Treasurer.
Archie resigns from board
Last week Gov. Jay Nixon accepted the resignation of State Board of Education President Stan Archie, of Kansas City, who submitted his resignation after news broke that Archie, who is a pastor, was the subject of a sexual harassment suit filed by his former assistant at Christian Fellowship Baptist Church. Archie, who denied the allegations, was appointed to the State Board of Education in 2006.
