Mayor Francis G. Slay’s administration has caused an uproar among city aldermen and environmental activists by claiming that the board approved a $250,000 consulting contract for controversial Veolia Water North America when it passed the city budget in May.
Several aldermen on the Ways and Means committee called this claim of Slay’s “insane” and “sneaky” at a public hearing on Tuesday.
The contract has been criticized by aldermanic President Lewis Reed and the St. Louis Dump Veolia Coalition, among others.
Opponents say Veolia Water, a French firm and the largest private water services provider in the world, operates under questionable environmental standards.
“In certain cities, they have been called out for pumping raw sewage back into the water system,” Reed said. “They have been thrown out of cities all across the United States. With other competent, qualified vendors readily available, why not choose someone else?”
Alderman Terry Kennedy, chair of the committee, said he decided to hold public hearings to investigate a legal opinion that the Slay administration recently sent to Comptroller Darlene Green.
In an Oct. 4 letter to Green, City Counselor Patricia Hageman, who is appointed by the mayor, said Green must sign the contract out of “ministerial duty.”
Green has not signed the contract. Kennedy has asked Green to wait until after the aldermanic committee has held its investigative hearings.
Several times earlier this year, Slay encouraged members of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment – the city’s chief fiscal body that includes Slay, Green and Reed – to approve the contract, but failed to gain their support.
However, Hageman said the Board of Aldermen approved the Veolia contract when it approved the city budget. She said the Board of E&A gave its recommended 2014 fiscal budget to the Board of Aldermen, which “contained, among other things, appropriations for the water department.” The board approved those recommendations, and that was enough to move forward with the contract, Hageman argued.
At the hearing on Tuesday, aldermen said that’s not how things work.
“The typical process is for these things to go back before E&A,” Kennedy said.
When the board approves a “general category of expenditures,” Kennedy said, that doesn’t mean the board members are approving a specific contract, as Hageman stated in the letter.
“That’s ridiculous,” Kennedy said. “And that’s what they are trying to hang their hats on – that by appropriating this general fund, we were also agreeing to this contract. That’s why we had this hearing. We had no intentions of that.”
Kennedy said all the committee members were surprised to hear Slay’s argument, as delivered by Hageman.
Alderman Craig Schmidt said he didn’t know whether to call it a “comedy or a tragedy.”
Alderwoman Dionne Flowers said, “We were told that the Board of Aldermen had nothing to do with the contracts. Contracts such as this are made and decided upon by the Board of E&A.”
Several aldermen said that if Slay pushes forward with this argument and tries to legally force the comptroller to sign the contract, then he will have broken both the aldermen’s and the public’s trust.
Alderman Scott Ogilvie said if the alderman start acting under the city counselor’s legal assumptions, then it will have “unintentional consequences” in how they review next year’s budget. They could potentially cut departments’ professional services out of fear that they would be passing a contract unintentionally, he said.
Kennedy agreed.
“If that is the case, then we would have to require every department to line item each and every budget item, which means there’s no way a budget could get passed within the time period that’s set out in the charter,” Kennedy said. “It would halt city government a great deal. I disagree with the city counselor’s interpretation.”
Kennedy said the aldermen may introduce a board bill next week that would take away the funds appropriated for the Veolia contract. City Counselor Michael Garvin testified that such a board bill would halt the contract because there would be no funds appropriated for it.
In an interview, Kennedy said he wanted the public to know, “It’s not over.”
For analysis, see Political EYE.
