The Board of Aldermen broke for summer recess two weeks ago on July 20 and since then much city business has come to a halt. While the recessed Board chambers undergo some essential revamps – including long-overdue electrical upgrades and removal of some asbestos – some local media outlets have been struggling to find relevant content.
…the reporter [Joe Holleman] and the newspaper [Post-Dispatch] have been integral in pushing a racist campaign against the Mayor, her father, Congresswoman Cori Bush, and other outspoken Black elected leaders through some of its opinion columns.
Since the beginning of the Aldermanic recess, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch apparently has not been able to find enough stories that connect with the community. Rather they seem focused on coverage of the mayor’s father, Virvus Jones, and his social media posts. Yes, readers, a metropolitan daily newspaper is so bereft of interesting content that they had a veteran reporter spend his time penning a snarky column centered on some accurate Jones’ statements, then had his column edited, and finally, a (likely) out-of-state editor made an intentional decision to run the column.
We normally wouldn’t respond to this type of journalism chicanery in our column, but because a reporter tried to whitewash some of the highly questionable legacy of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department with an ad hominem attack on a seasoned political practitioner – a response is warranted.
At the center of veteran Post-Dispatch writer Joe Holleman’s pumped up controversy is a Twitter post, in which Jones stated “Most police regardless of their race believe that reducing crime is locking people up. Slave patrols, a forerunner of police departments, hired slaves to hunt escaped slaves. So don’t expect much needed criminal justice reform to come from police of any color. Just check out [the Ethical Society of Police].”
Show us the misinformation in that statement.
But rather than examining the underlying facts raised in Jones’ social media post – which referred to the sudden and complete reversal of progressive policy positions once taken by the Ethical Society – the Post-Dispatch opted to behave like a glorified gossip rag and regurgitated every negative, unverified detail about Mayor Tishaura Jones that the newspaper, once highly regarded for its journalism standards, was able to scrounge up. Providing a disservice to our neighbors and community, both the reporter and the newspaper have been integral in pushing a racist campaign against the Mayor, her father, Congresswoman Cori Bush, and other outspoken Black elected leaders through some of its opinion columns.
As a matter of fact, the Ethical Society’s own leadership started the conversation about some of modern policing’s origins in organized slave patrols. Former Ethical Society president and retired SLMPD Sgt. Heather Taylor was a vocal advocate for calling out racism within SLMPD and the institution of policing. She testified before numerous state and congressional legislative hearings about her experience with white supremacists and toxic police culture. But after Taylor’s retirement and a few other leaders being pushed out of the leadership, Ethical Society sadly became aligned with the white police union, the St. Louis Police Officers Association. The once-reform driven organization has now become complicit with that same toxic police culture that it once opposed.
Why not investigate this sudden shift from the organization’s original organizing principles?
Perhaps, the Post-Dispatch is trying to distract the public’s attention away from its own legal challenges? Earlier this week, a federal judge cleared the way for a class-action lawsuit against Lee Enterprises, owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for violating readers’ privacy rights against federal laws. Specifically, Lee Enterprises is accused of unlawfully sharing readers’ personal information with Facebook without their permission.
At a time when Lee Enterprises is fighting organized labor and starting to reduce its delivery days of its dailies to just three and relying on US Postal Service workers to deliver papers instead of carriers, we recognize the situation for what it is.
The plaintiffs are seeking a $5 million judgment and an immediate order that requires Lee Enterprises to remove all trackers from all newspaper websites and to first obtain consent from subscribers before sharing their data with third parties.
Seems like a pretty reasonable ask to us!
—————————
Meanwhile, grocery store chain Fields Foods has found itself in some difficult legal and financial situations. Founder and owner Chris Goodson has been trying to get an abatement to develop another store location and gain city approval to redevelop Cleveland High School.
Let’s back up and start with the genesis of some of Fields’ problems:
In mid-May of this year, Alderwoman Sharon Tyus (Ward 12) sponsored a rezoning bill that initiated the process for Goodson breaking ground on a North City development. This proposed project in the Greater Ville neighborhood, announced initially by local development blog NextSTL, included afforded housing for seniors and a new Fields Foods grocery location. North City has been identified as a “food desert,” meaning that there is a significant lack of grocery stores and fresh food vendors within a defined area. A full-service grocery store is badly needed in this part of the city, especially for seniors.
After rezoning permissions are gained, the next step oftentimes is to negotiate an abatement agreement with the alderperson and the St. Louis Development Corporation to work out the length of time for tax abatements and the percentage of taxes that will be waived. However, there has been no further movement on this project since the bill was passed on July 7. This redevelopment, as it seems, may have been built on false promises.
Only a few weeks later, on July 20, Fields Foods abruptly shut down its Page Avenue location with no notice to customers or the surrounding community. The Pagedale Fields was the only northside location, and it was closed down less than six months after opening. That same day, the City Collector of Revenue filed a lawsuit against Fields Foods for unpaid city earnings and payroll taxes.
On July 25, the landlord of Fields’ location on DeBaliviere Avenue filed a lawsuit against the grocery store chain for more than $44,000 in unpaid rent. On the same day, the landlord of Fields’ Washington Avenue location filed its own lawsuit against the store for nearly $293,000 in unpaid rent and $75,000 in unpaid taxes and maintenance expenses. Fields and Goodson have also found themselves in conflict with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655, which has raised issues about low wages and minimal benefits at the grocery store’s locations. The union has accused Goodson of taking tens of millions of dollars in public subsidies while underpaying workers.
Needless to say, the closures, litigation, and labor disputes do not suggest a solvent corporation that is contributing to its surrounding community.
Questions are being raised – or should be. Yet, despite these well-publicized legal and tax woes, Alderman Shane Cohn (Ward 3) has apparently approved of Goodson’s latest project: redeveloping the long-vacant Cleveland High School. Although LCRA designated Goodson’s Goodco LLC as the developer for the site, the Fields Foods founder likely has a number of hurdles he must clear before this project becomes a reality.
The troubling history of abatement abuse at the Board of Aldermen is no secret. If this Board intends to serve the public’s interests better than its predecessors, they need to table any further discussions on public subsidies and tax abatements to any of Goodson’s projects. It would be irresponsible to award any future public support for developers who owe hundreds of thousands in unpaid city taxes, outstanding rent, and other obligations.
Perhaps a public hearing would be more appropriate, to summon developers like Goodson, NorthSide Regeneration’s Paul McKee, and Phil Hulse of Green Street, to account for previous promises made to City Hall in exchange for public subsidy. The scales always seem to be tipped in favor of these predatory real estate developers.
Public subsidies should include some public benefit. With so much tax revenue at risk with some of these development deals, the least we should expect from our elected Board of Aldermen is greater scrutiny and due diligence when weighing these types of projects.
We should be mindful that our history is doomed to repeat itself, if our elected leaders continue to ignore our past experiences.