The East St. Louis Housing Authority (ESLHA), due to historical incompetence and ineptitude, has been under federal receivership since 1985.
Recently, ESL Mayor Alvin Parks Jr. made an appeal to city residents to begin a petition drive asking President Barack Obama to prevent HUD from placing the Housing Authority under the control of St. Clair County, IL.
The framework of Parks’ appeal comes, largely, from an emotional and paranoid perspective in which he has stated, “We do not need our city picked apart agency by agency … Stop the attempts to create the image of inferiority and a no-confidence attitude in East St. Louis appointed and elected officials.”
Really, Mayor Parks? OK, let’s assume for a moment that “The Man” (HUD, St. Clair County, etc.) really does want control of ESL, its valuable riverfront, infrastructure, government, etc.
But the question, then, becomes what has ESL (including you as mayor) done to eliminate the so-called perception of “inferiority and a no-confidence attitude in East St. Louis appointed and elected officials”?
ESL School District 189 only recently emerged from oversight, as did the City of ESL. Why? Because of mismanagement, nepotism, cronyism, etc.
We don’t even want to mention the likes of former ESL political boss Charlie Powell and city officials such as Kelvin Ellis who have served federal time for such crimes as vote fraud, extortion, tax evasion, etc., embarrassing the city on a national level.
Even your our own brother-in law, Rocco Goins (whom you hired upon becoming mayor), made a disaster of the city’s Emergency Management Department and was forced to leave in disgrace.
Now comes this appeal to President Obama to allow ESL to continue to mismanage the ESLHA when only recently we find that a $1.4 million development, consisting of six homes (valued at $247,000 each), was left vacant because neither the “inspectors” from ESL or the ESLHA realized that there were no sewer connections for the properties. As a result, the homes sat vacant for two years and were repeatedly vandalized, costing taxpayers even more money.
When KTVI’s Elliot Davis interviewed you, Mayor Parks and ESLHA Executive Director Elizabeth Tolliver on his “You Paid for It” segment, neither of you had plausible explanations and summarily had to acknowledge that a monumental blunder was made by ESL and the Housing Authority.
Now the ESLHA may be forced to rent these properties, since no one in their right mind is going to pay a quarter of a million dollars for a home in East Boogie in addition to ridiculous property taxes (and receive poor public services) to boot.
Yet you, Mayor Parks, have the audacity to petition President Obama to allow you to continue with more of the same embarrassing mismanagement of city and government dollars?
You had better hope that President Obama doesn’t get a copy of this column (which he will) or view Elliot Davis’ expose from “You Paid for It” (which I might be inclined to send to the White House).
Mayor Parks, the best petition that you, the ESLHA and ESL elected and appointed officials can send to President Obama is competent and responsible management of what little you still have control of.
Save the conspiracy theories for someone who actually believes the hype and drinks your particular brand of political Kool-Aid.
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com; Twitter@JamesTIngram.
