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The main customer for the
proposed cargo hub at Lambert airport is China, the nation with the
world’s fastest-growing economy. The Chinese plan to dedicate over
$232 billion in the next five years towards the same aviation- and
distribution-related activities that are dealt with in the proposed
Aerotropolis legislation in Missouri. Chinese officials say their
government will aid in opening new international passenger and
cargo routes for an enhanced number of Chinese airplanes. The time
to act is now.
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We are
mindful of the destructive impact wrought by the decline of the
auto assembly industry once crucial to this area. It resulted in
the loss of jobs for thousands of our people, with crushing
consequences to families and neighborhoods. Closing the deal on
both the China cargo hub and Aerotropolis could be transformational
for this region’s under-performing economy and its obsolete
airport. It could offer sustainable relief for the region’s
unemployed who are disproportionately African-American. The final
version of the Aerotropolis bill had impacts, conservatively
estimated by respected industry experts, of 18,468 construction
jobs and 10,941 permanent jobs, with a combined economic impact of
$17.6 billion over 15 years and $26.8 billion over 20
years.
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Although the
Republican-dominated Legislature failed to pass an economic
development bill in the past session, Gov. Jay Nixon has the power
to call them back for a special session and provide an opportunity
for legislators to continue working out their differences over the
state’s tax credit programs. This haggling obstructed passage of
the Aerotropolis incentives. Among many other voices, we have
called on the governor repeatedly to convene this special session.
Whether reluctant to give Republicans a chance to make good on
their promises, ambivalent about Aerotropolis or both, Nixon has
done nothing. It is time for the St. Louis region to come together
and demand emphatically that Nixon do everything in his power to
get this bill passed in a form that retains the Aerotropolis
incentives as agreed upon in the previous session, giving regional
leaders discretion over the zoning that governs the $360 million in
new incentives.
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There needs
to be a special, determined effort from African-American leaders in
St. Louis in support of this legislation. We call on U.S. Rep. Wm.
Lacy Clay, County Executive Charlie A. Dooley, state Sen. Robin
Wright Jones, state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, Aldermanic
President Lewis Reed and Comptroller Darlene Green and other
elected officials to tell the governor in no uncertain terms that
you expect him to call for this special session and to do
everything in his power to deliver Aerotropolis intact. Not only
elected officials – we expect business leaders, nonprofit
executives and leaders in the clergy who worked so hard to pass the
transit tax to enter the conversation: they have the collective
power to make this governor listen to St. Louis and urge him to
take the lead in the fight to pass a bill that could bring many
much-needed jobs to our community, which is suffering devastating
unemployment numbers.
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If we assume
an assertive position – which it is well within our power to do, as
the Democratic Party’s most reliable voting bloc – then we can
insist on commitments to minority inclusion in this new business
activity and workforce development. We are urging a call to action
for our political, civic and religious leaders to press the
governor and the Republican leaders in the House and Senate to act
on this matter now. The Chinese will not wait indefinitely to close
the deal. We must not squander this unique, time-sensitive
opportunity to offer incentives to attract a large new business
enterprise that has the potential to bring huge economic benefits
to this region and its people.
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Since our
community’s unemployment situation is so devastating and corrosive
to our families and neighborhoods, and our airport is obsolete, we
can not afford to allow parochial concerns to derail this
initative. The Chinese will not wait long. The economic development
bill that includes Aerotropolis is not perfect, but it does aid
other areas of the state and most of its incentives are
performance-driven. The governor must call a special session and he
must sign any bill with the Aerotropolic incentives that gets to
his desk.
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