The mayoral campaign for the March 5 municipal primary has been especially enlightening because, for the first time, three-term incumbent Mayor Francis G. Slay has faced an opponent, aldermanic President Lewis Reed, who has intimate knowledge about city business as it is actually conducted. In recent campaigns, Slay has faced former alderman Irene J. Smith and former state Senator Maida Coleman. Smith was never close to the seat of real power in city government, and Coleman’s playmaking was all done in Jefferson City. Reed, on the other hand, has dealt closely with Slay on the city’s all-powerful Board of Estimate and Apportionment for five years. As many will tell you, Reed has not always been antagonistic to Slay. To the contrary, he knows Slay only as one knows a former ally and deal partner. The deals are all off now, and the gloves are off too. Reed is running hard for Mayor, and he knows and is sharing publicly facts about how Slay has handled city business that seldom see media daylight in St. Louis.
As our political column this week reports in detail, Reed has studied and understands how Slay exploits some grey areas in how the city awards contracts to fatten his campaign coffers without quite breaking the law. Slay and his attorneys know that “honest service” fraud has been all but gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court, so “pay to play” corruption now requires evidence about as blatant as former state Rep. T.D. El-Amin actually physically grasping money he had extorted to perform a political service. Reed does not have video of Slay or a staffer asking for and accepting a direct bribe, and we are not going to see Slay or one of his appointees marched down City Hall steps by a federal investigator on the strength of the documents Reed released on Friday. But people like Irene J. Smith and others, who always knew something suspicious was going on in Room 200, now see in some detail how some of those shady deals were cut.
The same goes with the nasty addendum that the Slay administration quietly added to an agreement that new city hires sign regarding pensions and benefits. Before Reed’s campaign brought this change to light, new hires in the city were being asked to sign a waiver that clearly limits their future bargaining rights for benefits. Slay’s denial that he knew about this change – particularly given that the new clause initially was targeted only at Slay’s newest enemies, union firefighters – is laughable and shown to be false by email threads that include senior Slay staffers. We do not deny that St. Louis city government – like city and state governments all over this country – faces a real crisis in pension commitments. Whatever Lewis Reed is telling his union supporters now, if he is elected Mayor he will face the same crisis and, we predict, he will not be able to honor all of the promises he is making on the campaign trail, as Slay himself has broken similar promises in the past.
The point is that Slay’s administration was caught trying to make a significant change in policy by rewriting an intake form, rather than honestly negotiating in the light of day – and that their target were new political enemies who are working against him in this campaign. Again, no one who has been paying attention for the past 11 years is surprised to see the Slay administration handle its business in this way. What is surprising, particularly given how compliant our local media (and in particular the daily paper) are with this mayor and his campaign, is to see their devious dealings plainly documented. Whether or not Lewis Reed beats Slay on March 5, we commend him for running a serious campaign that has put Slay on the defensive about issues of real importance to this city and how it is governed. Whoever our next Mayor may be, the public deserves this degree of informed scrutiny and transparency about how the people’s business is being conducted in Room 200.
