The City of St. Louis was sued on Friday, August 11 in an attempt to stop the city from using public money to fund $62 million in improvements for the Scottrade Center, where the St. Louis Blues play home games.
The suit was brought by 20th Ward Alderwoman Cara Spencer; state Rep. Jeanette Mott Oxford, executive director of Empower Missouri; and James Wilson, a former city counselor.
Spencer said the legislation (Ordinance 70473) to authorize this funding is unconstitutional and was passed in February under false pretense. Spencer and Wilson are being represented by attorney Erich Vieth, and attorney John Ammann of Saint Louis University Legal Clinics is representing Mott Oxford.
Spencer claimed that hockey leadership repeatedly testified that the city owned the building and so was obligated to pay for improvements. She said that two of the bill co-sponsors, President of the Board of Aldermen Lewis Reed and Alderman Jack Coatar, repeated those claims when debating the bill.
However, Spencer said that the aldermen were never given a copy of the actual lease during deliberation, although she repeatedly requested it.
“When I finally got my hands on the lease (about six weeks ago) and found out that we never had to do this, I was appalled,” Spencer said.
The lease shows that Blues have the responsibility to make their own improvements to Scottrade, the lawsuit states.
“If it was our intention to take that burden currently held by the Blues and move it to be held by the city, that should have been clear,” Spencer said. “We passed an ordinance that is against the lease in place.”
She also claimed the ordinance is illegal.
“It is against the state constitution to put public money into a private corporation to further its profits,” Spencer said.
Comptroller Darlene Green issued a statement on Friday, stating that she has not approved issuing the bonds for the renovation of Scottrade Center, “as it would incur debt to the city’s general fund for nonessential services and negatively impact the city’s credit.”
The city faces a credit crisis, having been downgraded twice in less than six months by Moody’s Credit Rating Agency, Green stated.
In January, Green issued a letter that read, “The city’s current budget revenues should not be considered for use as part of any economic incentive package when planning financing for the project. The economic incentive package should not include adding any new city debt or using the city’s credit or current revenues as a backdrop.”
And Green is holding her ground today. In her statement, Green said that if the city wants to upgrade Scottrade Center, it needs to work “within a framework that protects the City of St. Louis’ credit and does not reduce current revenues meant for delivering essential city services, such as public safety, to our taxpayers.”
Deputy City Counselor Michael Garvin said in a statement that the city “will vigorously defend the city, its ordinances and agreements.”
He added that ordinance “was approved by the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority, the Board of Aldermen, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment and signed by then-Mayor Francis Slay.”
Among the defendants named in the lawsuit are the city, the St. Louis Blues Hockey Club and the Kiel Center Partners – who is responsible for completing the renovation project under the financing agreement that passed in February.
In a statement, Kiel Center Partners called the lawsuit “frivolous, disappointing and embarrassing to our city,” and added that it could be extremely costly to both taxpayers and St. Louis’ reputation.
Then on August 15, Kiel Center Partners filed a writ of mandamus to demand that Green “execute and deliver the financing agreement,” by authorizing the issuance of bonds to finance the Scottrade Center’s renovations.
“The delay has now reached the point where we have no alternative but to seek a legal remedy,” according to an Aug. 15 statement from Kiel Center Partners.
Green said she was being sued for doing her job, citing the City Charter provision that empowers her to defend the city’s credit rating.
The owners of the St. Louis Blues and Scottrade Center signed a 50-year lease with the city in 1992, which requires them to pay rent of only $1 per year, the lawsuit states. In return, they have sole and exclusive control of Scottrade Center, authority to build upon the land, and the right to keep all the profits. However, the lease states that they must make their own repairs and improvements to Scottrade Center, according to the lawsuit.
In January, the Blues owners said at a press conference that, “We’re going to need the city to invest alongside the Blues ownership.”
“What the ordinance requires, however, is not an investment or even a loan,” the lawsuit states. “The ordinance requires the city to give an immense gift of money to hockey ownership. The ordinance requires the city to hand over $105.9 million to hockey ownership over a period of 30 years.”
Spencer said that the city agreed to maintain ownership of the land for the sole purpose of granting extended property tax abatement.
“It was never the intention of the parties involved that the city maintain the facility, a fact which the lease makes perfectly clear,” Spencer said.
The primary purpose of the ordinance is to promote the private business interests of a for-profit corporation, the lawsuit argues. This violates Article VI, Section 25 of the Missouri Constitution, because “it permanently grants substantial public money to a for-profit corporation for the purpose of assisting that corporation to make further profits for itself,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the 22nd Circuit Court, asks the court to declare the ordinance unenforceable. The suit has been assigned to Judge Robert Dierker Jr.
“We don’t have this kind of cash,” Spencer said. “We had a difficult time balancing the budget this time.” The city faced a $17 million projected shortfall in the current budget year.
Spencer argued that the city is never going to “get anywhere” without establishing some kind of regional taxing agency if they want to attract and retain professional sports teams.
She said, “We can’t do these things alone.”
NAACP alleges discrimination at Southwest Airlines
During the Ferguson unrest of 2014, several white Southwest Airlines employees in St. Louis posted on social media, “We have to tolerate the niggas here at work, but if they come into our neighborhoods, we will shoot them,” according to a NAACP report released on August 10.
The St. Louis station manager reported the incident to senior leaders at the airline’s Dallas headquarters, the report stated, but no formal investigation was done.
These employees were not fired, according to the NAACP.
This is among more than 45 complaints that the St. Louis city NAACP branch documents in their August 10 report about the racial environment at the Southwest Airlines St. Louis Station. The airline controls 52.5 percent of the scheduled service at Lambert.
“The issue of workplace discrimination is one we take extremely seriously,” according to the NAACP.
The NAACP’s report details events where the N-word allegedly was written on walls in employee spaces and “yelled out” on the internal company radio. The report also includes of disparate work requirements and discipline for African Americans.
Jeff Hart, who is black, is currently the station manager in St. Louis and is in charge of all the airline’s local operations. However, all discipline has to go through the Texas headquarters’ human resources department, said Adolphus Pruitt, president of the St. Louis City NAACP. The NAACP found that a big part of the problem lies in the station’s supervisors and middle managers willingness to report the complaints to upper management, Pruitt said.
The NAACP is demanding that Southwest release information about its hiring and firing practices numbers by race, as well as the number of complaints against supervisors and managers that have been investigated.
Pruitt said the NAACP will launch a campaign called “We fly Southwest and we want to know,” which will include a petition among Southwest customers to demand the information.
“We are going to keep fighting,” Pruitt said.
A spokesman for Southwest Airlines shared with The American a letter from CEO Gary Kelley where Kelley expresses disappointment that Pruitt decided to “sensationalize these alleged incidents through media outlets” rather than give the airline more details as requested.
“Southwest neither condones nor tolerates discrimination of any kind,” a spokesperson told The American, saying the company is investigating these claims.
“We continue to remain open and willing to meet and speak directly with the St. Louis city chapter of the NAACP,” the spokesperson said, “but we will not release information about our internal investigations.”
