The political community in North St. Louis had higher priorities than knocking Brian Wahby out in the August 7 primary, but when his name came up during the campaign it was mostly with the sentiment of “anybody but Wahby” in the city Treasurer’s race. The voting public citywide seemed to agree, as Wahby brought up the rear in a four-candidate race.
Over the last decade, Wahby earned the distrust and in many cases loathing of North Side politicos through his handling of the city’s Democratic Central Committee as chair. While Wahby didn’t add any new depths to the historically low standards of a political operative in the city’s racially fractured and deviously manipulative political environment, he maintained those very low standards in his service to the South Side status quo epitomized by Mayor Francis G. Slay – who not coincidentally pays Wahby’s wife Robbyn Wahby a handsome taxpayer-funded salary to manage his educational initiatives and misadventures promoting charter schools at the expense of the St. Louis Public School District.
To name a few highlights on Wahby’s resume, his unilateral laundering of money for Slay during the last mayoral election, while many on the committee did not support the incumbent, angered many members. His hiring of Jack Coatar as executive director without input or approval or even a personnel committee angered many as well. His brash decision to keep his seat as Central Committee chair – with all its presumed perks approaching a general election where outside money will be flowing in – throughout his campaign for Treasurer was further evidence of Wahby’s unapologetically self-serving politics.
This rendered Wahby the candidate for Treasurer with the fewest endorsements from the Central Committee he purportedly led, no aldermanic endorsements and no citywide endorsements. After serving the interests of his wife’s boss, Mayor Slay, he was ultimately abandoned even by his patron. Slay endorsed Fred Wessels towards the end of the campaign (in response to Wessels’ threat to run for mayor, the EYE was told). This betrayal by Slay should have come as no surprise to Wahby after Slay got rid of his old friend Jim Sondermann and transferred Charles Bryson back to his old certificate-toting job, at a huge cut in pay, after Bryson accomplished his objective of forcing Fire Chief Sherman George out of the fire service with a black face.
Wahby went down hard as a candidate on August 7. Martin Casas, perceived by many as Wahby’s Young Democrat shadow (he too has a school choice wife and a friend in the Mayor’s Office), also bit the dust on August 7, outhustled by young Michael Butler. Mike Owens – notorious in black political circles as a South Side hatchet man on the local news for many years, now out of the media business and pursuing politics – also was stomped down by black competition in his state rep race.
If Brian Wahby is the grinning, bow-tied face of white Democrats getting over on black Democrats in the city of St. Louis, which he has been for a decade, then black operatives and the voters they mobilized with an embattled Wm. Lacy Clay at the top of their ticket drove a stake in the heart of this exploitation on August 7.
Wahby out, Mattie in
The only last piece of old buusiness to dispose of was for Wahby to be eliminated as Central Committee chair, and this was done last week.
It went all but unnoticed with city politicos dwelling on the Post-Dispatch overplaying an unconfirmed rumor connecting Rodney Hubbard to someone else’s bust on a public contract fraud rap – and the nation fascinated by the medieval fantasy of Todd Akin, Missouri Republican candidate for U.S. Senate who thinks rape victims should be forced to have their rapist’s babies (if their bodies don’t first magically “shut that whole thing down,” as Akin said women’s bodies can do when assaulted with a “legitimate rape”).
Wahby knew his days were numbered, so he publicly stepped down before he could be voted out by his own members. The consensus for his replacement disappointed those of us looking for a more forceful, clean sweep, but Mattie Moore was the only person who would take the position and had the votes.
Moore’s advocates are parading her election asHubbaHu historic because she is the first African-American female to hold the Central Committee chair and only the third black chairman ever, following Freeman Bosley Jr. and O.L. Shelton. More to the point, her political pork chop is fried by U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, her employer, rather than Mayor Slay, who feeds Wahby’s family, so there is no way she can play dirty like Wahby did. She is expected to be a strong advocate for equality and transparency in the acquisition and distribution of resources from the Democratic Party, when “equality and transparency” are not phrases in the playbook thumbed dirty by Wahby and his patrons.
Though a swifter sword would have been welcome, Moore’s election serves as a continuation of a revived and organized black community following the August 7 primary election. All but three of the African-American members of the Democratic Central Committee were united behind her and provided the core of her support. After the black community was aligned behind her, she and other members reached out to South Side and Central Corridor committee people to build a solid voting bloc.
Near double-cross
Pat Ortmann of the 9th Ward, a strong Slay ally, nominated Sharon Carpenter for the chair. This was an interesting development because Carpenter had already committed to Moore. The near double-cross ended when Carpenter was asked if she accepted or declined the nomination and she declined.
Moore was elected chair and Bob Hilgemann was elected vice chair, along with Jesse Todd as treasurer, Kathy Gamache as secretary and Joe Palm as sergeant at arms.
Carpenter’s committeeman Dan Haggerty was loud, belligerent and very angry during the voting process. He happens to be from Slay’s home ward. The 23rd Ward’s lackluster support of any black people might explain why the thought of a black woman running the committee angered him so much. The EYE knows what its like to be a ranting loser who simply does not have the votes to win and raises his voice instead – that’s what it was like on the South Side this go-around.
The black committee members continued in the winning spirit of the August 7 campaigns – they organized, stayed focused, built a coalition to win, recruited a decent candidate and in the end won enhanced political power for North City. Whether or not Missouri Democrats will get this – and they were happy enough to booze at Wahby’s open bars in hotel rooms for eight years and forget about it – power-sharing with black people is a good thing. A city that is half-black should not have the most loyal voting bloc of any group to any political party shut out of its leadership for 10 years.
The EYE will be watching to see how the new Central Committee leadership performs. You all know how to throw rocks at the tank. Now it’s up to you to get in the tank and get it to go in the right direction.
Hubbard drubbed anonymously
The Post acted on a street rumor that no one in a position to confirm would confirm – the EYE knows, for the EYE made the same calls – and identified Rodney Hubbard as one of two “John Does” identified in the plea agreement of a minority parking subcontractor who defrauded the city and its parking contractor.
The U.S. Attorney is not saying who “John Doe” the ghost lobbyist is, Hubbard said in a text message it’s “all BS” and the street source the Post is relying on will not be named. So how do you print Hubbard’s name and face as charged with a felony crime when no named source will charge him?
The Wahby era may be over in city politics, but it lives on at the Post-Dispatch, which has an indentifiably lower threshold for evidence when accusing an African American of criminal corruption on the basis of unnamed, unconfirmed sources.
Alderman Carter
Congratulations to Chris Carter for pulling almost unanimous support from his fellow committee people for him to succeed his uncle Greg Carter as alderman of the 27th Ward.
