Tuesday marked the dawn of a new day at the St. Louis City Board of Aldermen, where a reconstituted board and the recently-declared “People-first agenda” will help reshape the direction of the city’s development. For the first time in decades, the Mayor, the Board President, the Board, and the Comptroller are aligned in their policy priorities and fulfilling their campaign promises.
Tuesday morning at City Hall began with an inspiring inauguration ceremony, including an opening song by Kennedy Moore and stirring words by Mayor Tishaura Jones and Comptroller Darlene Green. Former Missouri Supreme Court chief justice Michael Wolff led the oath of office for the new alderpersons, then after some photos, everyone reconvened in the second-floor chambers for the new Board’s first meeting. Typically, the first meeting is ceremonial, with mostly uneventful adoptions of rule changes and brief “thank you” speeches by all of the alderpersons. This week’s first meeting, however, was anything but typical.
For 31 minutes – instead of the two that everyone else got – Alderwoman Sharon Tyus (Ward 12) rambled incoherently, name-dropping through confusing stories. She then rattled off the support she had from ousted political families, like the Clays, the Bosleys, and the Hubbards, all of whom recently lost their remaining political seats to a new generation of challengers like Congresswoman Cori Bush, former state representatives Bruce Franks and new Alderman Rasheen Aldridge (Ward 14). Tyus also cited her opponent’s prior campaign manager, State Representative Kimberly-Ann Collins, for literally backstabbing her client, aldermanic candidate Tashara Earl, by switching sides to support Tyus’ campaign. Something still doesn’t feel right about that.
After ignoring the time limit for “thank yous,” Tyus sought to commandeer and filibuster the new Board’s first meeting while personally offending her colleagues and publicly displaying a lack of preparation. Between insulting the young alderpersons, the LGBTQ alderpersons and then President Green directly, Tyus hurled bizarre accusations and recited irrelevant political history. The crux of Tyus’ anger seemed to be rooted in what she termed a “lack of transparency” – feigning ignorance about what was going on. But, as it turns out, Tyus didn’t check her emails, didn’t return President Green’s calls, and didn’t try to meet with anyone prior to Tuesday.
Tyus has isolated herself and then sought to use that self-imposed isolation to claim that the rest of the Board was conspiring against her.
But what was most memorable about Tyus’ performance on Tuesday was her apparent lack of awareness that she no longer holds power on the Board of Aldermen. This was most manifest when Alderman Shane Cohn (Ward 3) introduced the first resolution to change the seniority rules in committee assignments to not only make the process more democratic but to place alderpersons onto committees where they have experience and interest. Tyus’ reaction was what you might expect – inappropriate, factually inaccurate, and immature.
We offer special accolades to the freshman alderpersons – the “Fab Four” – for surviving their first interrogations and standing their ground against Tyus’ intimidating tactics and misinformation.
We won’t give her mean-spirited homophobic remarks a platform and won’t discuss her gloating about winning without knocking on voters’ doors or the lack of courtesy she displayed by being disrespectful of Ald. Aldridge. At one point, Tyus declared that “nobody is Blacker than” she and made an unforgivable remark about Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier’s (Ward 7). Frankly, we feel sorry for Tyus because apparently no one around her seems willing to be honest with her about how she is perceived by her colleagues and constituents.
Some folks view Tyus as simply a bully; but the EYE sees her clangorous irrelevance. Tyus likely understood that the resolutions could not be stopped so she did the only thing she could do: talk, talk, talk. Tyus became so disrespectful that she got a stern warning from President Green that the city marshals were prepared to remove her from the chambers. But Tyus words and reckless disregard for the truth were nothing more than a swan song for a long-time public official, rendered feckless by her own outdated politics and inability to make new friends at the new Board. The truth is that this is an abrupt finale to her relevance and to quote Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
After the first rule change, effectively nullifying Tyus’ seniority privilege, there were a few less “controversial” rule changes: new support staff positions will be added and alderpersons’ expense accounts will increase from $4,200 to $5,000 to address a long-standing funding shortage for postage. Another rule change relating to printing of the aldermanic journal was also passed. (Didn’t last week’s Donnybrook cast suggest that the “progressive caucus” didn’t have enough members to change things at the Board?)
The meeting ended with the following results of voting on three new leadership positions: a Vice President, a Floor Leader, and an Assistant Floor Leader. The remaining “Ladies for Lewis” caucus – Alderwomen Tyus, Laura Keys (Ward 11), and Pamela Boyd (Ward 13) – insisted that they didn’t know there were leadership roles to fill (again, the unopened emails). Instead of preparing for the day’s agenda, the three veteran alderwomen lobbed accusation after accusation of cheating, “set-ups,” and embarrassment. Ultimately, Alderman Cohn was elected as Vice President, Alderwoman Shameem Clark Hubbard (Ward 10) was elected as Floor Leader, and Alderman Aldridge was elected as Assistant Floor Leader. Political reality is not done with Ald. Tyus and her alternative reality.
The first day is typically uneventful: the Board is supposed to resolve basic procedural and administrative issues. But inauguration day, in real-time, the public got to watch a major shift in power at City Hall.
Elections have consequences.
The Kim Gardner saga
Community trust in Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner continued to erode in the last week, as the “embattled prosecutor” experienced one political setback after another.
The first setback came when, last Thursday, yet another young assistant prosecutor left the office and publicly shared her resignation letter. The prosecutor cited a toxic work environment and Gardner throwing staff under the metaphorical bus as reasons for her departure. She also referenced politics as influencing the operations of the office.
At the time this column was written, Gardner’s office has only three trial attorneys handling hundreds of criminal felonies. For context, the office is budgeted for around 55 attorneys. We can’t think of another word to describe the Circuit Attorney’s office other than “mismanaged.”
The chaos in the city prosecutor’s office means that there have been very few opportunities for bond hearings, keeping innocent people who have not been convicted of a crime behind bars in the city jail. Those who can afford to hire a defense attorney have filed overwhelming numbers of motions for speedy trials, compelling jury trials in shortened periods of time and oftentimes forcing prosecutors to dismiss violent felonies like murders and shootings. The impact of Gardner’s critically short-staffed office cannot be understated.
Shortly after the public resignation of the assistant prosecutor, Gardner received an “order to show cause” in a murder case, after no one from her office appeared at a scheduled murder trial. This means that the judge has ordered the Circuit Attorney to appear this coming Monday to explain this lapse. The staffing crisis at the Circuit Attorney’s office is no longer a secret, and this is the first public setting where Gardner has been ordered to account for it. This is the initial step to holding Gardner in contempt of court, with a range of punishments from possible fines to incarceration.
You read that right: a St. Louis City judge (a former SLPOA lawyer appointed by Gov. Eric Greitens) is trying to put the St. Louis City Circuit Attorney in jail.
This was all on top of a scheduled hearing in the Attorney General’s quest to remove Gardner from office. Lasting several hours and addressing the highlights of the Attorney General’s lawsuit, Judge John Torbitzky decided to schedule this highly-contentious case for trial in September.
We earnestly want to see Gardner prevail because we know about the nefarious political motives of some of her opponents. The dubious “quo warranto” lawsuit filed by unelected Attorney General Andrew Bailey in mid-February should have been summarily dismissed because it doesn’t meet the requirements of these “quo warranto” cases.
Sadly, no matter the outcome of Gardner’s myriad problems, nothing good is likely to come out of these unfortunate situations for her and her tenure in office.