Mayor Vince Schoemehl and his supporters’ decision to challenge Congressman Bill Clay and his supporters stemmed from a public dispute surrounding the closing of Max Starkloff Hospital, or City Hospital No. 1, a city-owned and -operated hospital.
At one time there were two city hospitals, Starkloff and Homer G. Phillips (City Hospital No. 2). Until it was closed in 1978, Homer G. Phillips served the predominately black residents of North St. Louis and Starkloff served the predominately white city residents of South St. Louis. Because of budgetary constraints, the city decided to close Homer G. Phillips and consolidate all ambulatory health care operations at Starkloff.
When Homer G. Phillips was closed, Jim Conway was the mayor and Schoemehl was the 28th Ward alderman. The black political community and some white elected officials were irate at Conway for closing Homer G. Phillips. When Conway came up for reelection in 1981, Schoemehl put together a coalition of labor, black elected officials and public employees who were angry at Conway for a number of reasons – and defeated him.
Schoemehl scored a surprising landslide victory, due in part to a promise he made to black voters to reopen Homer G. Phillips. After he was elected, Schoemehl floated several plans for reopening the hospital. His most ambitious plan was a $63 million bond issue, which failed. Support for the bond issue among black elected officials and community groups was splintered, which made it difficult for the bond issue to pass by the 2/3rds voter approval required. Some accused Schoemehl of using the controversial bond proposal to give him the out he needed to renege on his promise to reopen Homer G. Phillips.
In 1985, Schoemehl was reelected mayor by a huge margin over his Democratic opponent, 3rd Ward Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr. Bosley’s major complaint against Schoemehl was his failure to keep his promise to reopen Homer G. Phillips.
Upon being sworn in for his second term, one the first things that Schoemehl did was announce his plans to close the Max Starkloff Hospital. Schoemehl’s plan was to partner with St. Louis County government to buy the old St. Luke’s Hospital on Delmar. The new hospital would be named St. Louis Regional Hospital and would be a private, not-for-profit corporation whose board members would be appointed by the mayor and the county executive.
The closing of Starkloff created some real serious political problems for Congressman Clay, who had endorsed Schoemehl in ‘81 and ‘85 based on his commitment to reopening Homer G. Phillips and/or keeping a city-owned public hospital open. The closing also caused Clay some problems among a group of black doctors who wanted to have control of the patient flow in the black community.
Clay staged a public fight, but in the end Schoemehl was able to get a majority on the Board of Aldermen to support a city budget that eliminated funding for the hospital and created an appropriation for contracting out ambulatory hospital services for the city’s indigent to Regional Hospital.
This series of events was the backdrop for the Clay/Schoemehl meeting at Kim Tucci’s house in January 1988. Up to that point, Clay and Schoemehl had only seen each other casually and had not met since the August 1986 election. Schoemehl told me how in the process of a debate between him and Clay over how inclusive his cabinet was, Clay dismissed Schoemehl’s black cabinet members as having no political or social standing in the black community, with the exception of one. The one person that Clay excluded was me.
Schoemehl told me that Clay said that I was a friend to the black community and someone he had a lot of respect for. Suddenly, the meaning for this sudden meeting in the mayor’s office was becoming clear to me. Schoemehl was going to use the friendship between Congressman Clay and myself as an olive branch to patch up his rift with Clay.
After describing the meeting he had with Clay, Schoemehl asked me if I had heard the rumors that Comptroller Paul Berra was not going to seek reelection. I told him no, I had not heard that. Nancy Rice, Schoemehl’s political staff person, then followed up by asking me what I thought about being comptroller. I told her that I had not given it much thought. Schoemehl immediately started telling me about a possible scenario where Berra would resign his position as comptroller, I would be appointed by Schoemehl to complete Berra’s term, and Schoemehl would appoint Berra to the assessor position.
As I sat there stunned, Schoemehl quickly injected as a disclaimer that he had not talked to Berra about this scenario and did not know what Berra planned to do. The disclaimer was so disingenuous, it was hard for me to keep a straight face.
Nancy then started asking me questions about my relationship with the congressman. I told her that I thought the congressman and I were on good terms. “Good enough terms to get him to endorse you for comptroller against Paul Berra?” Nancy asked. I nodded yes.
Schoemehl told me that he wanted me to visit with Clay and ask for his support face to face. Nancy suggested that I also tell Berra that I was going to run in order to get his reaction. It was clear to me that they had convinced themselves that I was their choice.
I told them there were some skeletons in my closet that could be an embarrassment to Schoemehl if I was appointed comptroller. Nancy responded by saying if it is not about a dead girl or a live boy, then it was not important.
I told them that debts from my losing campaign for sheriff and a failed real estate project had resulted in the garnishment of my salary and several lawsuits. Nancy said she already knew about those things and they could be taken care of. I told her I thought the press would have a field day with news of the fiscal manager of the city of St. Louis not being able to manage his personal finances. She insisted that it could be resolved. I shook my head in disagreement, but decided not to pursue the discussion at that time.
The meeting ended with Vince walking me to the door, telling me to call Clay in Washington, D.C. to set up a time to visit him and to call Berra to set up a meeting with him.
To be continued in next week’s Black History Month section.
This article is excerpted from Virvus Jones’ forthcoming memoir, “The Swap.” This version of events reflects the author’s personal memories of events in which he was a direct participant.
