I’ve been slammed this week with other work so I apologize for letting this slip pass me, because this is a very big deal.

KWMU reports:

The Missouri Board of Education has voted unanimously to continue state oversight of the St. Louis school District for three more years.

Last year, State Board members voted to give authority over St. Louis schools to an appointed transitional board, for failing to meet financial and academic standards.

Dr. Kent King, Commissioner of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), says he believes progress has been made on how the school district is being run.

“Part of that is trying to get consistency among expectations for teachers and for kids…so, do we have the world solved? No, but I just feel like there’s some stability going on now that wasn’t before,” King said.

Katherine Wessling is a member of the old, elected school board. She says one year later, the SAB has done little to improve education in St. Louis.

“I frankly haven’t seen any. In fact my hope was at least they would do no harm and then when they decided to dispense with Dr. Bourisaw I think they lost that status and are now actively doing harm,” says Wessling.

Andria Simckes, a Democratic candidate for Missouri Treasurer, wants the other Democratic Treasurer candidates to agree to support the winner of the Primary, “regardless of which one of us prevails.”

From the press release:

Simckes vows that she will support whoever wins the Democratic Primary.

Simckes also believes that democratic primaries should not be focused on attacking one another. “We need to move beyond the type of politics that only hurts the party and focus instead on the serious issues that matter to every Missourian. The Treasurer’s office needs professionalism, not mudslinging.” Simckes agrees not to attack her fellow Democratic primary opponents. Simckes requests her two Democratic opponents to sign on to run positive campaigns and not attack one another.

Will her two Democratic opponents agree with these two positions?

This race comes down to three points: who has been a life long Democrat and worked in Governor Carnahan’s administration? Who has the most experience of handling money with integrity and know how? Who has the most experience for creating jobs on Main Street, Missouri, as opposed to Wall Street?

Simckes who earned degrees from Brown University and Washington University School of Law, served as a legal aide to Governor Mel Carnahan in the mid 1990’s. She then went on to serve as Executive Director of the St. Louis Regional Empowerment Zone, where she was responsible for $18.9 million in available funds and $130 million in bonding authority.

Simckes was the Comptroller of Win ‘96-Missouri’s Democratic Coordinated Campaign and oversaw the $1.6 million budget for that successful election year. She worked in the Missouri Department of Economic Development (DED) as the statewide coordinator for the Caring Communities Initiative.

Andria currently resides in Creve Coeur, MO with her husband, Elan, a physician specializing in Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Fertility, and their children Liam, Naava, and Ayden. Their oldest, Maayan, attends Tufts University. Andria Danine is affiliated with Kodner Watkins Muchnick Weigley, L.C. in Clayton, MO.

David Knight leaves the Chris Koster Attorney General campaign to lead Joan Barry’s state senate campaign.

Geen Park, MO- Today, Joan Barry hired for two important positions in her bid to fill Senator Kennedy’s seat in the upcoming November election. David Knight joins the Barry team as Campaign Manager and Mike Coleman as Finance Director.

” I am excited to add both David and Mike to the team. David’s grassroots experience is tremendous and will provide great leadership to the organization. He most recently worked for John Edwards in Iowa where he managed an office of five employees and oversaw an eight county region. Edwards, although being significantly outspent by Clinton and Obama, took second in the Iowa caucus.

Mike came highly recommended from the Missouri Democratic Party and various local campaigns where he served as a Finance Director. My first financial quarter illustrated a broad base of financial support in the community and with Mike joining the team, incoming contributions are going to increase significantly. These two seasoned campaigners will greatly enhance the direction and ability of the organization.”

The Barry Campaign continues to build on their long standing support, raise money and gain momentum that will overall lead to a strong win in November.

Late night host Conan O’Brian joked this week that Hillary Clinton told her supporters that John McCain was “out of touch” right before she told them how she’s going to win the Democratic nomination. Who exactly is out of touch again?

Barack Obama did two very important things this week: First, and most importantly, yesterday he officially clinched more than 50% of the total number of pledged delegates, meaning that if Clinton’s miracle super delegate scenario was to happen, it’s a deal that would be clearly overturning the will of the people.

Second, the powerful image of the Obama campaign event in Oregon which showed a sea of 80,000 supporters — most of them “hard-working white voters” (take that, pundits!) — showed that Barack Obama is unlike any political figure America has ever seen — and a force that no unpledged delegate, no matter how “super”, should dare stand in the way of.

And then just to add a cherry on top, this today from Reuters:

Democrat Barack Obama has opened an 8-point national lead on Republican John McCain as the U.S. presidential rivals turn their focus to a general election race, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

Obama, who was tied with McCain in a hypothetical head-to-head match up last month, moved to a 48 percent to 40 percent lead over the Arizona senator in May as he took command of his gruelling Democratic presidential duel with rival Hillary Clinton.

The Illinois senator has not yet secured the Democratic presidential nomination to run against McCain in November.

The poll also found Obama expanded his lead over Clinton in the Democratic race to 26 percentage points, doubling his advantage from mid-April as Democrats begin to coalesce around Obama and prepare for the general election battle with McCain.

EARLIER STORY:

As voters in Kentucky and Oregon are heading to the poll today, Barack Obama’s campaign is preparing to declare victory tonight — well, sort of.

After the votes are counted this evening, one thing is certain: Obama will have won a clear majority of the total number of pledged delegates (that is, delegates awarded in every state based upon actual voting), making him “the people’s candidate”.

While it is still *possible* that the so-called super delegates (party officials, Democratic members of Congress, and other party elites with special voting power) can overturn the result of these contests, of which Obama has already won 32 of 49, it is very unlikely.

For her part, Hillary Clinton is still not giving up. Although the math is next to impossible to overcome, the former First Lady says she’s staying in the race until the very last contest.

As for Obama, he’ll be speaking tonight from the site of the first contest: Iowa.

Bringing to full circle, as the pundits describe it, Obama returns to the state that gave him the first win of the 2008 Democratic Presidential contest and proved to many people that he could indeed win.

Here in St. Louis, Obama supporters will gather to watch the results of the Kentucky and Oregon primaries in what they are calling the “LAST Primary Watch Party”.

They’ll be at Bar Italia, 11 Maryland Plaza in the Central West End, from 6:30pm “til Barack speaks.”
RSVP: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/4rv3

I think it was Confucius who said, “You can take the parade out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the parade.”

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED

UPDATED: These are some videos posted on YouTube of various fights between youth after the parade downtown and in Fairground Park.

The 2008 Most Endangered Historic Places List Announcement will take place at a press conference at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at Fairfax (the James Collier Marshall House) at 9407 Manchester Road in Rock Hill, MO. This property is located at the corner of Manchester and McKnight Roads in Rock Hill, in the St. Louis area. Missouri Preservation Board President Jeff Brambila will make the announcement.

PubDef.net is told that one of the buildings on this year’s list is the San Luis Apartments on Lindell Blvd, which the St. Louis Archdiocese is threatening to demolish to build a surface parking lot.