More sunlight continues to expose the blatant dark deeds of current 7th Ward Alderman and aldermanic president candidate Jack Coatar. We don’t understand how he continues with his campaign.
Since our column last week, we have received more evidence of unethical behavior by the young alderman, especially the facts related to corrupt deals with developers.
Remember Coatar’s public admonition of his donors, Lux Living, when he returned $15,000 to the controversial developers last month? He told the Post-Dispatch, “I returned their money and told them to clean up their act,” but Coatar never commented on the years-long media coverage of tenants complaining about maintenance, repairs, and working utilities.
Because the young alderman never bothered to speak up about the damage Lux Living inflicted upon its renters, we can only assume that he condoned the developer’s nefarious actions. Actually – we don’t have to assume. We know. Coatar wrote so himself.
A letter earlier this year has surfaced, dated March 28, 2022, and seemingly submitted in support of Lux Living’s application for a 25-year tax break from the Port Authority of Kansas City. But where St. Louis has failed to do its due diligence when it comes to big-money developers, Kansas City vets these developers – and consequently Lux Living’s bid for a $55 million development was rejected. Public records show that Lux Living’s partners failed to disclose SEC charges and a history of litigation involving other real estate projects.
In contrast, Coatar irresponsibly touted Lux Living on his aldermanic letterhead to the Kansas City Port Authority, claiming that Lux’s “redevelopments and new construction have helped to fill a void in St. Louis’ residential rental market” and that their apartments “are in high demand from residents.” Of course, this is not a true statement, because Lux Living’s developments in St. Louis are widely understood to have relatively low occupancy rates. Moreover, St. Louis’ greatest need is affordable housing – not unaffordable, so-called “luxury” apartments that come at the expense of St. Louis Public Schools.
The alderman makes an interesting admission to Port KC in his letter: “as Alderman, I have supported Lux Living through legislation for incentive requests, zoning changes, and, most recently, redesigning an interaction to support the SoHo Apartments.” There, Coatar lays bare how he has used his aldermanic power – but he neglects to inform the Kansas City Port Authority of his actual relationship with Lux Living and how much money he has taken from the developer since taking office in 2015.
But Lux Living is not the only campaign donor who has – on paper – engaged in pay-to-play schemes with Coatar.
Take, for example, a $20,000 donation earlier this week to “Jack PAC,” Coatar’s political action committee, by the Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council, formerly known as the St. Louis-Kansas City Carpenters Regional Council before federal criminal inquiries and civil litigation shut down local operations and relocated the former power player to Chicago.
Coatar’s close relationships with multi-million-dollar developers have seemingly been mostly beneficial to everyone but residents and business owners in his ward.
Why is a sitting alderman taking PAC money from a political organization under federal investigation, anyway?
But perhaps more concerning – and in-line with the confirmed corrupt actions by former aldermanic board president Lewis Reed – was Coatar’s acceptance of a $50,000 campaign contribution by the “Leadership Counts,” deposited last week upon the quarterly filing deadline closed. Practically speaking, this means that “Leadership Counts” won’t have to report any of its donors until January 15, 2023. Only a week before its $50,000 donation to Coatar, the “Leadership Counts” PAC had cash on hand of only $981.63.
Luckily for our readers, we don’t need to speculate about the source of the $50,000 donation to Coatar. A day before Jack PAC received those funds, an entity called “SLC Holdings, LLC,” which has a registered address that is the same as Busch Stadium, made a $50,000 contribution to the “Leadership Counts” PAC. S-L-C — we’ll let our readers connect the dots on these three letters and the registered address.
The day before he reported Carpenter’s donation, Coatar also received $50,000 from the Lodging Hospitality Management, represented by its lobbyist Dave Sweeney. Lodging Hospitality Management currently is in a labor dispute with its employees at Union Station who are trying to unionize.
This is a perfect example of what political pundits mean by the term “dark money” – a voter has to dig into the weeds to connect the dots. It’s when a politician is not being forthright or transparent about who is supporting him. If we had to guess, the EYE would posit that Coatar knows the consequences of being honest and forthcoming with voters about taking money from union-busting corporations and developers with poor relationships with workers.
Ehlmann’s retrograde and condescending manner hinder regional cooperation
The same lack of accountability has seemingly spilled into our regional neighbor-to-the-north. Although, somehow, St. Charles County’s leader has had far worse problems than corrupt Coatar, St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann has been struggling to recover from a self-inflicted public knock-out. In a paywalled opinion piece in the St. Louis Business Journal, Ehlmann called for something that neither St. Louis City nor County residents have asked for: a new state law that would remove the powers of the St. Louis City Circuit Attorney to prosecute police officers within their jurisdiction. Ehlmann’s retrograde and condescending manner is a hindrance to regional cooperation.
No other county’s democratically-elected prosecutor in the state would be subject to the same removal of power. Of course, Ehlmann had other ideas for damaging policies to cram into this proposed legislation, like merging of the City and County judicial circuits, and he based his authority to speak on these issues on occasional visits to cultural amenities, or to shop or go to a Cardinals or Blues game.
St. Louis City Mayor Tishaura O. Jones responded to Ehlmann’s out-of-line comments in a KMOX interview on Thursday, October 6. Jones reminded the St. Charles County politician that he first and foremost was not elected by St. Louis City voters and that residents were sick of “being talked down to” by a person who doesn’t live here and who isn’t invested in our community. Jones called out Ehlmann for refusing to join the City and County’s lawsuit against the State to strike down the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which has impeded local and state law enforcement’s efforts to investigate and prosecute gun crimes. She also called on the St. Charles County Executive to put money where his mouth is, by contributing some of his county’s resources to regional amenities, including the Zoo-Museum District, Lambert International Airport, and MetroLink system.
Jones also made clear St. Louis City’s relationship with the state’s top elected officials. “I value the relationships that I have with our governor and lieutenant governor,” the Mayor said, recalling her previous service in the state legislature. “Absolutely we do not agree on everything, but we work on the things we do agree on and stay away from the things that we don’t. And that’s leadership.”
Ehlmann appeared on Donnybrook after Mayor Jones’ comments, where he tried to defend an opinion that no one wanted to hear. Rather than showing some respect for St. Louis City and County voters, Ehlmann pushed aggressively the idea of Jefferson City going over voters’ heads and legislating away our democratic rights. Even the Post-Dispatch’s world-weary Bill McClellan cast doubt on Ehlmann’s ideas for a city 45 minutes away, saying, “I just think the problem, Steve, is the idea that we’re going to let the rest of the state make these decisions and, suddenly, we won’t have such a crime problem.”
The timing of Ehlmann’s newfound concern for “crime” in St. Louis City and its alleged impact on St. Charles County could not be more noteworthy, as the suburban politician’s entire career has been focused on clouding up his own government’s lack of transparency and differentiating his jurisdiction from St. Louis.
For example, Ehlmann’s role in January 1991, helping the St. Charles County Commission draft a policy to undermine its obligations under the Missouri Sunshine Law, believing it to be a “hindrance” to “efficient operations of county business.” Although he was a state representative at the time, Ehlmann is credited in the Post-Dispatch as authoring the County Commission’s anti-transparency policy. Flash forward a few years to Ehlmann’s time in the Missouri Senate, where he supported a 1995 bill that would have sealed police investigation reports and blocked them from public view. The bill failed only because Ehlmann and another senator were returning to the senate chambers from another meeting and missed the vote. Inexplicably, then-state Sen. Lacy Clay told the Post-Dispatch that he, too, supported preventing the public from obtaining police reports.
Ehlmann’s own record of supporting anti-transparency laws as well as intentional efforts to undermine his constituents disqualify him from representing his own county, let alone speaking about someone else’s.
There have been numerous opportutnities during his 30-plus-year political career to show some commitment to support regionalism. But within a week of taking office as St. Charles County Executive, Ehlmann introduced legislation that undermined St. Charles County by effectively defunding their public schools. The measure passed, ultimately establishing the St. Charles County Municipal Court. When a municipal-type court is created, the fines for municipal violations go to the county (or municipal) government. Otherwise, under state law, fines from traffic cases prosecuted in the circuit court go to public school districts across the county. The creation of municipal courts, especially in St. Louis County, was one of the ways angry white parents fought back against desegregation. By removing potential revenue from the public schools and redirecting those intercepted funds to municipal police and courts, our region gradually evolved into the 90-something municipalities hellscape that have physically and financially burdened residents and families, and helped perpetuate cycles of poverty across entire other swaths of St. Louis County.
Ehlmann advocated for – and won – this additional layer of policing for his constituents. By further militarizing St. Charles County and adding more police – in 2007, mind you – Ehlmann hurt St. Charles County schoolchildren. In 2009, Ehlmann made no efforts to hide his opposition to a state law that would have expanded the St. Louis Zoo-Museum District and its tax base to counties beyond St. Louis.
It is unquestionable that our region’s prominence and the core of its economic vitality is built around St. Louis City and County. We are the center. No one visits this area to go to St. Charles. They come to the City or County for sporting events, concerts, dining, shopping, and entertainment. As regional non-tax-payers, St. Charles residents are no different from out-of-state tourists who come to the City to enjoy amenities that even Ehlmann admits he enjoys.
If St. Charles County wants to be regarded in our region to be anything other than a largely suburban bedroom community with few attributes as a major economic driver, its leadership should have some interest in being more collaborative in fostering forward looking strategies for regional growth and prosperity. They should contribute funds to improve the airport, and pay for an expansion of MetroLink service that connects St. Charles to that regional asset. And as a start, no more excuses – stop waiting for the rural-dominated state legislature to remove obstacles to joining the Zoo-Museum District and find a way to make it happen.
The assets needed to be a more competitive region for inclusive growth come at a cost and all parties across our bi-state region need to contribute their share in a more collegial and respectful way.