While North St. Louis residents threw softball questions to developer Paul McKee Jr. about the Northside redevelopment project, they sweated Police Chief Sam Dotson on racial profiling and aggressive police action at a 5th Ward community meeting held Tuesday night.
It was one of the first times McKee had updated residents at a public meeting since April when the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in favor of the project’s $390 million in tax increment financing (TIF), which he plans to use to transform 1,500 acres of North St. Louis.
“Our team and the team at City Hall are literally meeting every 10 days now,” McKee said to residents at the Carr Square Community Center, 1629 Biddle.
By Oct. 1, McKee said he expects to go before the TIF Commission and then back to the Board of Alderman to pass the enabling TIF legislation. The mayor would then have 30 days to sign the bill, and McKee hopes to move forward with TIF-funded construction projects by Nov. 1.
The transparency of the community meeting was an area of contention. Committeeman Rodney Hubbard Sr. prohibited The St. Louis American and others from videotaping the public meeting with Dotson speaking. Hubbard also asked police officers to escort out anyone who was not a 5th Ward resident. People at the door were asking some attendees for identification. The St. Louis American photographer was not allowed in the building.
McKee, who was accompanied by his wife Midge, focused most of his 20-minute talk on jobs. He said one in every four jobs on the project will go to people who live inside the 1,500-acre redevelopment area. To inquire about jobs on the project, residents can go to any of these agencies: Better Family Life, St. Patrick’s Center, Ranken Tech, Construction Careers Center, Jobs Corps and the city agency SLATE.
McKee said he also plans to mentor and grow minority- and women-owned businesses to meet the project’s 25/5 percent goals on minority- and women-owned business participation specified in the Mayor’s Executive Order. He said his team is currently working on transforming Carr School, at 1421 Carr St., into an incubator for start-up businesses.
He was asked whether or not he plans to use eminent domain to obtain additional property.
“No, and that’s stated in the plan,” McKee said.
He said he has 75 percent of the land he needs, but if people who own their homes want to stay, he encourages it.
“We want you to stay,” he said.
Police chief questioned
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson spoke on new crime prevention initiatives. He said he plans to redistrict the police department by January 1 so police officers are more equally spread throughout the city. This idea received applause.
He said with the new pilot program of “enhanced overlay” policing, crime in the city has decreased by 10 percent in the last six months.
After he spoke, residents asked about his plans to decrease racial profiling. African-American drivers are almost twice as likely to be pulled over by St. Louis City police as white drivers, according to the 2012 Vehicle Stops report released this week by the Attorney General’s office.
“We are trying to change the culture of the police department,” Dotson said. “Racial profiling has no place in the police department.”
A woman asked about the case of 25-year-old St. Louis Community College honor student Cary Ball Jr., who on April 24 was shot and killed by two police officers after a high-speed chase. He was shot 25 times, according to the hospital’s report obtained by the family. Several neighbors witnessed the event and said they saw Ball throw down his gun and put his hands in the air before police shot him from a short distance.
Dotson said Ball’s case is under investigation and it could take months before it is completed. “We are still gathering all the facts,” Dotson said.
Dotson also talked about the importance of transparency. Local resident James Meiner said in his experience, police officers get angry and aggressive when he tries to observe or videotape police proceedings in his neighborhood.
“I preach this to the police officers,” Dotson said. “You have the right to be in a public space and film anything that you want to anytime. I tell them to expect that we are being filmed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”