This week’s column is dedicated to the person least able to see the obvious changes at the Board of Aldermen: Alderwoman Sharon Tyus.
Between making threats to The American for its accurate reporting and throwing temper tantrums during weekly aldermanic meeting, we’re not sure if Tyus has enough time and stamina required to knock on doors and engage relentlessly with constituents in the expanded ward that she wants to represent. Even though she likes to remind members of the Board that she’s been there for decades, she certainly hasn’t been able to capitalize on those years to gain the political capital needed to cover the checks she’s writing that she can’t cash.
Tyus’ foolish and audacious behavior reached an unprecedented level during last Friday’s session, when the veteran alderwoman took every opportunity to accost each of her colleagues who stepped up to the microphone to introduce a new board bill. Friday was the agreed-upon final day to introduce new legislation, and despite every other alderman meeting that deadline, Tyus had some complaint about every bill.
To be clear – this deadline to introduce legislation was not new or unexpected. It was filed and passed unanimously last September. Of course, Tyus was nowhere to be found when the Board took the vote to set the final day to introduce bills, but the alderwoman still managed to vote on other board bills introduced during that same session. For example, Tyus logged a “present” vote for Board Bill 47 (establishing independent investigations for police misconduct and use-of-force incidents) and a “no” vote for Board Bill 61, which created an equity fund to support pregnant persons with childcare, accessing doulas and midwives, and other prenatal care typically not covered by health insurance. Tyus, an undependable vote for reproductive justice, opposed the fund providing gas money and daycare support for abortion-seekers crossing into Illinois.
Maybe she was still upset, three months later, about missing the vote to schedule the last day to introduce legislation, but it doesn’t matter – the date was set long before the alderwoman decided she had a problem with it. Tyus was like a metaphorical bull in an antique shop: loud, bothersome, and indiscriminately causing a lot of needless damage.
Perhaps Tyus threw her tantrum because she wasn’t able to collect enough signatures to challenge President Megan Green for president of the Board of Aldermen post, and this was how she responded to her own political shortcomings. Whatever it is – the unprofessional behavior which Tyus showed with her colleagues was Trump-like at best, and, even if the Alderwoman somehow manages to survive in the five-way race to keep her seat, she won’t find many allies.
We can’t help but wonder if bringing back the Board Parliamentarian would restore a bit more aldermanic order. Previously, the Board of Alderman had its own rule master, the Board Parliamentarian, who refereed the rules and served as final decision maker for interpreting the rules. Of course, that meant interference sometimes with former president Lewis Reed’s agenda and power, so when Reed gained power over the Board, he declined to fill the position of parliamentarian so he could assume power as aldermanic rule master. Rather, the board’s ajudicating “chief counsel,” who represents the President, is the de facto “expert” on parliamentary procedure and Roberts Rules of Order – even if that person has no experience with those rules.
You can see where this is going, right?
President Green now has that discretion, but imagine if a non partisan person trained in Roberts Rules of Order could argue with Tyus, instead of Green. Someone who has no stake in the outcome of a rule interpretation. Someone who knows the procedures, inside and outside. Someone who cannot be swayed – or challenged – by Tyus, and who isn’t afraid to tell her when her interpretation is undisputably wrong.
Last Friday’s aldermanic session outlined a lot of exciting initiatives coming to our city, but Board leadership has to find a way to restore order from the disruption created by the power vacuum created after Reed’s departure. Although Tyus doesn’t have the authority of President of the Board doesn’t mean she won’t try to usurp control and hijack progress. She was able to operate during the entirety of Reed’s tenure as if she was the board president, shouting overbearingly about incorrect interpretations of rules and the city charter and serving as a reliable disrupter.
If there’s one thing Sharon Tyus’ decades-long career in local politics has shown us, it is that she is reckless about undermining the very ship she’s standing on, just to make her point.
Some Illinois sheriffs seem to be going rogue
Calling all regionalists: what are we going to do about the three (of four) county sheriffs who have defiantly declared their intention to refuse to enforce Illinois’ new assault weapons ban?
We want to call out specifically Sheriffs Neal Rohfling of Monroe County, Jeff Connor of Madison County, and Nicholas Manns of Jersey County, for publicly announcing their refusal to abide by the laws passed by the Illinois State Legislature and signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker. St. Clair County Sheriff Richard Watson declined to say whether his department would enforce the new law, as he swore to do, but he did express his political opinion about the law and his support for the upcoming lawsuits to challenging it. These individuals all ran with a commitment to uphold the law, but here they are, telling the entire country that they will not do so.
The EYE sees no other way to address this insurrectionist-like behavior than to call for the resignation or removal of each of these sheriffs for their illegal behavior and violation of duty. How is everyone expected to respect the law, when the police clearly don’t? And where does the picking-and-choosing of which rules to enforce end? Will law enforcement one day decide, for instance, that they will no longer respond to domestic violence calls?
Oh, wait. They already don’t do that.
Somehow, someway, the responsibility to “fix” the region’s gun violence problem always seems to fall onto St. Louis City leaders, but the EYE wants to see some leadership in the Metro East on this urgent issue. In every county, city, and municipality impacted by gun-related crime, we want to know: where is law enforcement in standing up to the blatant lawlessness of sheriffs who refuse to do their jobs? What happened to the “good apples” in the departments?
Gun laws in Missouri
We are reminded of the recent statements by St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann, where the free loading elected official tried to suggest that St. Louis City should lose local control of its police department because of what he described as “increasingly frequent” crime. But in a state where untraceable handguns can be purchased for less than $200 and where current background checks clearly don’t include Red Flag laws that prevent individuals who show signs of being a threat to themselves or from buying or possessing any kind of firearm, we are unclear as to how gun violence is solely St. Louis’ problem to manage.
Has Ehlmann, and similarly-minded folks, considered the tangible impact of the so-called “Second Amendment Preservation Act,” which is currently being challenged by St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Kansas City, and Jackson County specifically because of the regional consequences of looser gun laws? Or maybe he’s forgotten that right now, no training or criminal background checks are required before a person can obtain a firearm in this state. For more than a decade, Republicans in Jefferson City have been easing access to guns while impeding police departments’ ability to enforce laws. With a parent or guardian’s permission, a child in Missouri can own a gun. Missouri police are expressly banned from helping federal law enforcement track and recover stolen guns, and could be punished with an individual fine of up to $50,000.00.
In any case, we applaud the Illinois State Legislature for making the difficult choice to ban assault-style rifles across the state. We support action to remove misguided, lawless police officers who refuse to uphold their oaths to protect and, most importantly, to serve. And if we’re going to be regionalists, let’s be serious about it. The Missouri legislature has been itching for the opportunity to use state force to take control of cities – the governor’s office has been trying to sack St. Louis since the Civil War. At this point, local leadership has few choices but to join forces to lobby the state capital for reasonable gun laws so that we have a better chance to curb violence.
The state cannot be depended upon to alleviate this weight from our community’s shoulders. If anything, the legislature and governor want to add to it, to crush us, to dominate and control us.
Yes, there are already more guns than people in this country. In fact there are also more than twice as many guns in our country than the country with the second most. And Missouri, who used to have some of the strictest gun laws in the U.S., has seen our gun deaths soar as the Republican-dominated MO legislature continues its rush to loosen them even more.
If Ehlmann can get beyond his political talking points, the St. Louis mayor and the Board of Alderman are waiting for your call.
