The EYE asked two sets of questions this week for all four of the major mayoral candidates – Antonio French, Tishaura O. Jones, Lyda Krewson and Lewis Reed. They were also asked at the same time in the same email and given the same deadline; only French and Jones responded by deadline.
The first set of questions concerned a poll on the March 7 Democratic primary for St. Louis mayor released by MoScout, a political junkie newsletter published by Dave Drebes. It was announced as an “independent” poll, though Drebes did not respond when asked who paid for the poll, so its independence has not been established.
The poll was based on a survey of 1,373 likely St. Louis Municipal Democratic Primary voters “weighted to match expected turnout demographics” for the primary, conducted January 6-7. The poll revealed: Undecided 32 percent, Lyda Krewson 24 percent, Lewis Reed 18 percent, Antonio French 11 percent and Tishaura Jones 8 percent, with three perennial candidates splitting 6 percent of the vote between them.
Our questions: “What confidence do you place in this polling, if any? What implications for your campaign does it have, if any? A plurality of voters, according to the poll, are undecided. What kinds of voters do you think remain undecided and how can you get them?”
Tishaura O. Jones answered first.
“I’d rather be leading in an early poll than be in the middle of the pack, but there’s more than enough good news for African Americans, progressives and me in this poll,” Jones responded.
“First, the status quo’s candidate is only getting 24 percent of the vote. If you clear the field, you ought to be doing better than that. Undecided is running nearly 10 points ahead of that. Second, African-American candidates, combined, trounce the candidate currently leading. As we get closer to the election, and the forums and debates begin, I expect young, white voters who strongly favor a change and most African-American voters to trend towards a consensus candidate. With this platform (http://tishaura4mayor.com/policies/) and a robust campaign effort, I expect that to be me.”
Ryan Hawkins, campaign manager for Antonio French, answered next.
“President-elect Hillary Clinton put a lot of stock in pre-election polling and fundraising as a show of strength, oh, wait, that wasn’t what happened. This race has barely begun and Antonio looks forward to the debates, as he has a positive message for change that is based in reality.”
Both Reed and Krewson responded nearly an hour after deadline when this column was completed.
Note that these voters were polled before it was clear that Jamilah Nasheed was not filing for mayor and before Nasheed endorsed Tishaura O. Jones. Given that Nasheed had been widely discussed as a possible candidate, it is likely that some of those 32 percent of undecided voters – a plurality of voters polled – were waiting to see what Nasheed would do, and that many of those will join her in rallying around her candidate, Jones.
TIF and equity
Our second set of questions: “The TIF Commission just approved $42M in incentives, all for projects in the Central Corridor of the city. What can the mayor actually do to bring more equity to the TIF allocation process? What would you do? What have you done up until now in your current position?”
Tishaura O. Jones responded first.
“Most of the city’s current development incentives and tax breaks take away money from city schools, and all of them make it harder to provide day-to-day neighborhoods services like policing and trash pick-up. As Comptroller Darlene Green has warned, the city already has limited financial flexibility. Diverting revenue to developers, while sometimes necessary, should be done rationally and rarely,” Jones responded.
“And it should be done fairly. Approximately 85 percent of all the development incentives in the city are provided to projects in the Central Corridor, much of it in the fashionable 28th Ward, and the 17th and 7th wards. North St. Louis and struggling parts of South St. Louis are consistently overlooked. It will not be easy to change the city’s habits – and impossible without a change of attitude in City Hall,” she continued.
“As mayor, I will push development North and South, where it is needed most, and not solely focus on the Central West End, high-end homes, luxury apartments, and sports stadiums. St. Louis must stop handing out public subsidies to large developments until their developers and lawyers show their projects will help the community by creating new jobs with living wages right now.”
Jones said this is what she would do differently:
- Require the developer to agree to a Community Benefits Agreement
- Require neighborhood investment surrounding large projects
- Require publicly subsidized projects include onsite SLATE Job Centers
- Promote inclusionary zoning
- Implement models like Denver’s that uses a mix of property tax and one-time costs to developers to increase the size of the city’s affordable housing trust fund.
Antonio French responded next.
“TIF and other incentive laws were designed to assist blighted and low-income areas. They are very often manipulated to increase the profits of projects in the richest parts of our city. It’s time we used these tools in the areas they were designed to be used. Blighted neighborhoods where vacant schools, warehouses, and other buildings make it impossible to attract the kind of businesses and jobs communities need to grow,” French responded.
Both Reed and Krewson responded nearly an hour after deadline when this column was completed.
BJ publishes hits on French, Jones
French and Jones have something else in common, besides taking advantage of a chance to address our readers in this space this week. Both were targets of opposition research against them that was successfully placed in the St. Louis Business Journal.
The piece on French targeted the North Campus Partnership that he founded in 2012 serving kids and families in the 63115 and 63107 zip codes of North St. Louis with an all-volunteer staff. French continues to serve in a volunteer capacity. North Campus is an ambitious effort to nurture North St. Louis students. How and why was it used against French? Because it had, then lost, non-profit status.
“As North Campus began to grow, we eventually applied for and received an IRS determination letter recognizing its status as a Section 501(c)(3) charity in April 2015. But in May 2015, the IRS issued an ‘automatic revocation of exemption’ due to our failure to file Form 990s the previous three years,” reads a statement on its site.
“As soon as North Campus became aware of the need to file Form 990s for the years prior to receiving 501(c)(3) status, we hired staff to file the required paperwork. That has been done and all paperwork has been submitted to the IRS along with our application for retroactive reinstatement. In the meantime, we continue to serve hundreds of kids and their families. We look forward to reinstatement of our 501(c)(3) status, but not having the status has not in any way interfered with our abilities to serve our students, their families, and our community.”
To impugn the work of an educational non-profit in North St. Louis over a technicality of paperwork like this, just to hurt a mayoral candidate, is shameful strategic communications (it’s hard to call it “journalism”).
As for Jones, she was the subject of not one, but two Business Journal stories about her bankruptcy filing in 1999. You read that date right: 1999, in the previous century, when Jones was in her mid-20s. Mind you, Jones has publicly discussed losing control of her finances in her 20s. In fact, it’s one reason why, as St. Louis treasurer, she founded the city’s Office of Financial Empowerment. She has worked hard to educate citizens on matters of finance so they don’t repeat mistakes she made long ago and long ago corrected.
The most amusing thing about this shameful strategic communication, published only to damage a black political candidate, is it was penned by a man-child named Jacob Kirn, who doesn’t even look like he was alive in 1999. In fact, Jones said she asked him how old he was in 1999, and she said he responded “about 8 years old.” Who knows what childish habits Kirn still exhibited in 1999 – maybe he still wet his bed, or slept with his night light on, or picked his boogers and left them under his chair at his elementary school – but it’s certain no one would hold those far-distant misdeeds against his professional work as a journalist in 2017.
Well, then again, maybe his editors and publisher at the Business Journal would, if he were a darker shade of pale.
This follows on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s egregious front-page strategic communication about the treasurer’s office under Jones’ leadership doing open and transparent public bond business with a reputable company (with other public clients) that employs an ex-felon with past ties to her father, former St. Louis Comptroller Virvus Jones. Both the Business Journal and the Post-Dispatch are devoid of African-American leadership in any senior editorial position. The race-baiting journalistic malpractice of these two newspapers, at a time when St. Louis is poised to make a pivot in the direction of racial equity, is dismaying.
