2022 Recap
The year 2022 ended this weekend, and the EYE is looking to the future. Last year was marked by a sad chapter in the history of St. Louis politics: white-collar corruption scandals, political overreach by the attorney general to score political points, aldermanic debates regarding basic human rights. If a discussion involved landlord-tenant dynamics, Alderwoman Sharon Tyus (Ward 1) and former aldermen Jeffrey Boyd were reliable bullies at the Board of Aldermen. Even after the sudden departures of Lewis Reed & Co. from the Board in June, the “Ladies for Lewis” caucus (Alderwomen Lisa Middlebrook, Ward 2; Marlene Davis, Ward 19; and Pamela Boyd, Ward 27) continued to support Reed’s policies.
City politics were particularly harrowing this past year, especially around conversations involving the unhoused, access to reproductive healthcare, and protecting citizens from police misconduct.
But as layer after layer of government grime was revealed to the public, political currents began to shift across the region.
In September and November, Alderwoman Megan Green (Ward 15) trounced colleague and fellow Alderman Jack Coatar (Ward 7) – both times, by double digits – to become Board President. Green’s election, a year and a half after the City elected Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, best demonstrated that those changing currents have become established and are pushing forward in another direction.
We have a new police chief. We have a new personnel director. We have a record number of Black women and women of color in leadership roles in the city. These qualified folks bring their talents to our city right as we are receiving, fortuitously, the remainder of nearly half a billion dollars in federal COVID relief funding.
Things are looking up for St. Louis, and some pieces continue to fall into the right places for our city’s collective future prosperity. We have more of everything we need, which brings us to our single one resolution/request/plea/hope for the new year:
Accountability
We want answers. We want more contrition. We want commitments.
We want statesmen, like federal judge Stephen R. Clark so eloquently described earlier this month, who feel the “stress of soul” – the weight of their decisions felt and the impact on the greater public considered. We want our political leaders to make the best deals for St. Louisans and our future. Residents’ needs should outweigh those of political donors and benefactors.
St. Louisans did not celebrate the criminalization and incarceration of Reed and former aldermen Boyd and John Collins Muhammad. We acknowledged the removal of corruption from these positions of power and the quest for accountability for the wrongs committed by the disgraced elected officials. And we recognize that accountability – especially for holders of power – is always needed and must be pursued.
We’ll give you a tangible example of where greater accountability and some contrition is needed. After months and months of stalling before calling one bill for a vote, the cost of St. Louis County Council Chairwoman Rita Heard Days’ delay on the St. Louis Convention Center bonds legislation has finally been quantified – $105 million. This whopping number means that the agreed-upon Convention Center renovations, completed across two phases, will be $105 million of public dollars short of what originally was budgeted.
How did this project, so necessary for St. Louis to remain competitive against its peers for worker-heavy convention business, manage to fall so short you may be wondering. Allow us to help you understand.
EYE-colytes will recall that in February, our column was the lone regional voice demanding that Days call for a vote on the bond legislation issue. Despite failing to give a reason for her delay, Days held out. She continued to refuse to call the bill for a vote.
Flash forward two months to April, the EYE connected some missing dots for our readers, reporting that Days’ then-11-month delay was the result of behind-the-scenes interference by regional mega-developer Clayco, a persistent opponent of the necessary upgrades for the Convention Center. A throwaway quote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch revealed that Clayco lobbyist and former mayoral chief of staff Jeff Rainford had been pulling some strings, and of course – there’s an MEC record to connect Rainford’s meddling with the timing of Days’ introduction-then-tabling of the bond legislation.
The nearly-year long delay in bringing the bond issue to a vote on the project that originally was expected to cost taxpayers between $30 and $50 million dollars, led to rising construction costs and increasing inflation that more than doubled the highest estimate.
Days’ delay, as it turns out, was a very costly political maneuver.
In total, the Convention Center project lacks half of the budgeted funding for Phase 2 of the planned renovations – Phase 2 must continue, so those missing funds have to come from somewhere St. Louis County should make up for the loss caused by one of its leaders.
The failure of St. Louis County to act expeditiously led to the $105 million deficit. To put any of the cost of Days’ delay onto City taxpayers and elected officials would not only be unfair but would likely violate some MOUs and contracts related to funding obligations for this project.
McKee sued
Legal Services of Eastern Missouri certainly has been pulling its weight in pursuing accountability for the notorious obstructionist developer, Paul McKee. The legal aid organization filed a “citizen’s eminent domain” lawsuit against McKee, alleging that the developer and his NorthSide Regeneration project were “insolvent and too undercapitalized to maintain the Property,” the ABC Auto Sales building on Page, and asking for control of the vacant building to bring it up to code.
The lawsuit is aggressive – and historic. For the first time, a neighborhood organization is using the legal system to hold McKee accountable for the devastating neglect and dereliction left in the wake of his failed NorthSide project. Like most of McKee’s other properties, the building targeted in the Legal Services’ lawsuit has a storied history of code violations, like missing windows and collapsed walls since coming into McKee’s possession. Lawyers have declined to comment, stating that negotiations between the neighborhood association and McKee are ongoing.
And, finally…
Finally, what good would our New Year resolution be without including the Post-Dispatch? Its editorial page, in particular, is compulsive and divisive and should demonstrate some accountability of its own. They shun any objectivity in the appraisal of the current mayoral administration. They seem to eschew increased understanding and trust in favor of an obsession with someone with whom they have a personal grudge. Let it go! This does not serve the greater public good.
Apparently, it wasn’t enough to falsely allege “suspicious circumstances” at the time of Cora Faith Walker’s untimely death earlier this spring. The Editorial Board was not content with letting this young woman rest in peace. No, what the seven grown adults who make up the Editorial Board have chosen to do is slander Walker’s name as part of their year-end recap, continuing the debunked narrative that there were any mysterious circumstances around her death.
We can’t imagine life must be easy for some of them – Antonio French is a pariah in city politics now after cavorting with Rex Sinquefield for a little too long, and Todd Roberson (Inspector Javert in Les Miserables) has long checked out – no longer living in St. Louis, but he still insists on continuing his prolonged destructive vendetta from afar in his Connecticut cottage.
In conclusion, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board is not entitled to throw mud at a dead woman or smear her legacy in any way. We call out this wholly inappropriate behavior and we would like to see more reason and accountability in 2023. Perhaps that looks like an apology, or simply keeping their mean spirited attacks of a peacefully resting political icon, a close friend of the mayor, off of their pages.
Cheers to 2023. There is much to celebrate for our future in the new year.