Your $7.00 monthly contribution will go a long way to helping us expand the coverage and services you enjoy.
GET THE LATEST PUBDEF NEWS 24/7:
ABOUT PUB DEF
PUB
DEF is a non-partisan, independent political blog based in the
City of St. Louis, Missouri. Our goal is to cast a critical eye
on lawmakers, their policies, and those that have influence upon
them, and to educate our readers about legislation and the political
processes that affect our daily lives.
CONTACT US
Do you have
a press release, news tip or rumor to share?
U.S. Senate Candidate Claire McCaskill today delivered the Democratic response to Pres. George W. Bush's weekly radio address. Click here to listen to her speech in support of stem cell research.
Former Superintendent Creg Williams told Channel 4 reporter Anne Steffens that he resigned today after talking to his family and close friends. He said he was not fired or forced out as has been reported. After saying as recently as yesterday that he would not resign, Williams told Steffens that he felt that the new board deserved the opportunity to select their own superintendent. Click here to see Steffens' interview. Click here to watch Mayor Francis Slay's press conference.
School Board President Veronica O'Brien has called a special emergency board meeting for 6:30 tonight. No word on the agenda, but some speculate that this could mean the end of Superintendent Creg Williams' time in SLPS.
Developing... UPDATE: Dr. Creg Williams' time as the superintendent of the St. Louis Public Schools is over. It is not clear yet if the school board fired Williams or, in the face of a 4-3 vote, he resigned. What is clear is that the school board is as divided as ever and calls are increasing for the state to take over.
After the closed meeting vote, board member Bob Archibald was the first to emerge. He blasted the board majority for letting Williams go. He told reporters that he thinks the state should come in and take over SLPS.
Still Developing...
UPDATE 2: SLPS is now headed by Dr. Diana Bourisaw who was hired by the Board just a couple of weeks ago as an internal auditor.
More...
UPDATE 3: Mayor Francis Slay weighed in on the firing tonight, calling it a "damn shame." He told television reporters that only hope now for SLPS is a state takeover.
Oh boy. The risk of poking fun at someone is that they could go and up the ante on you. And oh boy has Sen. Jim Talent upped the ante.
Last week, we had a little fun at our junior senator's expense when he announced his Women for Talent coalition. Surrounded by a group of women from all over the state, all willing to give "pink cred" to Talent in his race against Claire McCaskill, we jokingly asked, Do ladies love Cool Jim -- L.L. Cool Jim? Photoshopped pictures of a hip-hopping Talent started coming in.
Well, tomorrow Talent is launching his "African-Americans for Talent" coalition. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.
Before we start receiving Photoshop images that are just plain offensive, let us redirect your creative "talents" back to L.L. Cool Jim. The contest is still on and that "special prize" is still up for grabs!
BTW, Talent will kick-off his African-Americans for Talent coalition on Saturday at 11:15 a.m. at the Renaissance Grand Hotel downtown. HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson will attend.
In a state that has elected more dead Democrats to statewide office than black Democrats, the question should be asked: Does the Democratic Party take black voters and elected officials for granted?
That's the question radio show Lizz Brown is discussing this morning with State Sen. Maida Coleman; State Reps. Connie Johnson and John Bowman; and Ald. Charles Q. Troupe. Listen to the show on WGNU 920-AM until 10:00 a.m. Or listen online at www.WGNU.net.
State Senate candidate Jeff Smith released a statement today responding to a press release from the campaign of Yaphett El-Amin which referred to his race, calling him a "known Caucasian."
Smith said, "While we have offered a hopeful, progressive vision to unify this district, Representative El-Amin has chosen to mire her campaign in the divisive politics of the past."
"Our city is moving forward. Yet just as we begin to move past race and revitalize our city, the El-Amin campaign had to resort to the politics of fear and hatred in a disgraceful attempt to teach racial hostility to a whole new generation of voters," said Smith.
Word is that Father Lawrence Biondi, president of St. Louis University, is in Lebanon tonight, holed up in a hotel room while Israel bombs the country.
UPDATE: The AP now has the story... "University spokesman Clayton Berry said Biondi has been in frequent contact with the school and is talking with the U.S. Embassy to find out when and how to best get out of the country and return home."
The St. Louis School Board and Superintendent Creg Williams didn't even give Floyd Irons a slap on the wrist for the financial irregularities at Vashon High School. Instead, they cleared Mr. Irons, apologized to him for the bad publicity and gave the erroneous impression that prosecutors had exonerated him.
It was a stunning example of the lack of public accountability.
...the School Board has left a mistaken impression that Mr. Irons has been exonerated by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce. Jeannette Graviss, Ms. Joyce's chief warrant officer, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that "the bookkeeping was so sloppy that there would be no way to determine if there was criminal behavior.... It is an exaggeration to say that the review exonerated anyone," she added. "That is completely false."
...Mr. Irons is a great basketball coach with political clout. Getting to the bottom of the financial irregularities at Vashon would have taken a lot of gumption and willingness to take the heat from angry Irons supporters. This board and this superintendent have demonstrated they don't have it.
From today's Post-Dispatch:
...instead of dealing with these real and crucial issues, the St. Louis Board of Education spent this week plotting coups like the tin-horn governors of a banana republic. The board fired Floyd Irons, the most successful high school basketball coach in Missouri history, a man who was going to retire next year anyway, a man with a huge and loyal following than can now be expected to create more trouble for a district that hardly needs it.
...But the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's office said it found no reason to pursue criminal charges against Mr. Irons. Mr. Williams Tuesday reiterated his view that the case against Mr. Irons didn't merit his dismissal. "It's unfortunate that as superintendent I have to spend my time on issues that don't have anything to do with academic achievement," he said.
Creg Williams may be the St. Louis Public School's last, best hope to regain accreditation and avoid state takeover. If that happens, the teachers union, and its proxies on the school board, may come to regret their actions.
Lost in all the talk about the downsizing that left Floyd Irons unemployed (if only temporarily) is the fact that this week the St. Louis School Board got a balanced budget out of a reluctant and increasingly insubordinate superintendent.
Last month, Superintendent Creg Williams submitted a 2006-2007 budget to the Board which was unbalanced and dug the district $4 million deeper into financial uncertainty. Against the recommendation of Williams and the votes of board members Bob Archibald, Ron Jackson and Flint Fowler, the four-person majority rejected that budget and instructed Williams to find more cuts.
A month later, at Tuesday's Administrative meeting, Williams came back with a General Operating Budget in which expenses did not exceed projected revenues and, perhaps most importantly, actually pays down nearly $3.5 million in debt.
Board Vice President Bill Purdy commended Williams not just for submitting a balanced budget, but also for supplying board members with much more supporting documentation than he did last month.
But board member Robert Archibald downplayed the significance of the $7.5 million swing from creating more debt to eliminating debt. He said that it represented only a small percentage of the total budget and was only a drop in the bucket compared to the $30-50 million debt projection for November 2007.
Gov. Matt Blunt has signed a new law that effectively bans Wal-Mart from opening a bank in Missouri.
The bill bars industrial loan companies from having any deposit or loan office or bank branches in Missouri. Wal-Mart recently applied to run an industrial bank in Utah. Instead of opening branch banks or granting loans to consumers, Wal-Mart executives have said the mega-company wants to charter a bank just to handle the $140 million credit, debit and electronic check payments that the company processes yearly, which could save it millions of dollars in fees.
"Ugly Water," the new book by St. Louis native Joe Wood, tells the long-forgotten story of the 1894 lynching of John Buckner in Valley Park, located in south St. Louis County.
From the description: "It has been said that Lynching is a crime peculiar to the United States; that it is an American institution. One might say that where so ever one might dig, they may find such a story. I decided to dig in my own backyard. In 1894, the small village of Valley Park, Missouri became the setting of one of American History's most peculiar crimes. This startling and controversial work documents the details of one of America's biggest secrets. Everything you thought you knew about Black History... could be wrong."
John Cross, of The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (A.C.O.R.N.), has been acting as a psuedo Director of Communications for the El-Amin for State Senate campaign, writing and faxing press releases and getting the word out to "the community" about various campaign events. Today, Team El-Amin's need for a real D.O.C. was once again blast-faxed across the 4th District.
Dave Drebes of the Arch City Chronicle, a longtime supporter of Jeff Smith, one of El-Amin's four opponents in the August 8 election, published a press release written by Cross that refers to Smith, who is white, as "the known Caucasian candidate."
The release then states that polled voters in the mostly black district changed their support from Smith to El-Amin, who is black, after they "learned more about the candidates," suggesting that the poll may have been a push poll, a technique in which a campaign attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a real poll. According to Wikipedia, the mildest forms of push polling are designed merely to remind voters of a particular issue -- such as race.
Cross' communications skills have been called into question before. After Team El-Amin was hit by a double dose of "baby mama drama" and a politically tainted Channel 5 reporter, Cross was put in charge of notifying the media of the campaign's press conference which came four days after the KSDK report. PUB DEF and representatives from The St. Louis Argus, co-owned by El-Amin's father, were the only media that covered at the event.
With 27 days left in this close campaign, there's still time for a change in message -- and messenger.
On the Voting Rights Act, which parts of are scheduled to expire in 2007: "First, records from the US Department of Justice confirm that the actual number of documented complaints to federal officials regarding unfair election practices was higher from 1982-2004, than from 1965-1982. Second, the study confirms that polling places and voting hours in minority neighborhoods were routinely changed shortly before elections. And finally, election officials were found to have illegally purged voters from registration lists and to have refused to translate election materials for citizens who have difficulty with English."
On the proposed new Missouri-Illinois bridge: "Recently... this region has tripped over the new Mississippi River Bridge... Unfortunately, Illinois and Missouri have been unable to agree on the proper financing mechanism to build the span. There have been several bridge plans; the most recent offered by Governor Rod Blagojevich and other Illinois elected officials in a press conference two weeks ago. In each proposed plan, Illinois has money, Missouri does not."
"Under the old new bridge plan, there is currently a $461 million shortfall towards the proposed $910 million needed to build a totally new, freestanding bridge. That is $461 million that MoDOT says they do not have. In addition, to pay for the new bridge some Missourians want to create a public-private consortium to build the bridge and then charge a $2 toll to the mostly Illinois motorists who will be using the billion dollar span. Mercifully - for our sake and that of the residents of Illinois -- the state of Illinois has offered Missourians a deal that we cannot afford to pass up."
On Iran, in a letter of support to Maryam Rajavi, the "future President of Iran": "Appeasement of the Iranian regime has failed to achieve a more democratic Iran. Instead, appeasement has only emboldened the Mullahs in their pursuit of nuclear weapons, and encouraged their support of terrorism and the suppression of human rights."
"I do not think war is a viable option for achieving regime change in Iran. The Iranian people do not want a foreign confrontation. Your commitment to providing a third option to support the Iranian people in their efforts to establish a more democratic government appears to be the best way to establish peace and security in the region and in the world. I wish you and the Iranian Resistance movement every success in your struggle against the brutal Iranian regime."
In other Clay news, Deb Petersonreports that he will celebrate his 50th birthday on July 21 at the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will headline the $1,000-a-person dinner party to support Clay's re-election.
GRADUATION DAY The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department will be holding a graduation ceremony tomorrow for 19 new police officers. The event will be at Harris-Stowe State University starting at 7:00 p.m. The St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association's (RCGA) Senior Vice President of Public Policy, Tom Irwin, will serve as the guest speaker at the ceremony.
ACT TWO The Police Board will hold a public meeting next week, July 19, at St. Raymond's Hall, 939 Lebanon, at 7:00 p.m. Once again, the board will be discussing the issue of the residency requirement for civilian employees. Observers can be sure to hear a chorus of whines and moans from disgruntled civil servants on everything from the poor state of the city's public schools to, most ironically, the high rate of crime. They might even boo more old ladies. The board will also hear for final approval, the order establishing Mayor Francis Slay's version of a civilian review board.
COME BACK WITH MY CAR! Early this morning, officers received an assignment to investigate suspicious persons in front of 3310 Nebraska. Upon arrival they located one male subject and two female subjects sitting in a van. The subjects were detained and an investigation was conducted. An investigation revealed that one of the female subjects was wanted for a probation violation. She was arrested, handcuffed and placed in the rear of the police vehicle. Seconds later, the woman slipped out of her handcuffs, climbed over the front seat and drove off in police vehicle. The vehicle was later located abandoned in the 900 block of Cherokee.
Here it is, your moment of Zen... Download the latest issue of PUB DEF Weekly.
Remember: make as many copies as you like and distribute them in your apartment building, on campus, in City Hall, wherever. But for God's sake, don't litter. We hate that!
A rumor is circulating around St. Louis Public Schools that the Mayor and at least one holdover from the last school board majority have requested the state to step in to take over the troubled school district.
It is believed that Mayor Francis Slay and board member Ron Jackson told Kent King, Commissioner of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, that the current board majority is standing in the way of Superintendent Creg Williams' reform plans. Sources tell PUB DEF that the two asked DESE to take over the district at the first opportunity and appoint Williams to oversee it, effectively eliminating the St. Louis Board of Education.
DESE officials told PUB DEF that they are aware of the situation in St. Louis, but would not comment any further at this time.
Board member Jackson confirmed that he has been in contact with state education officials, but denied asking them to take over the district.
"I asked them to keep a close watch on the situation," he said. However, Jackson did say he thinks that the state may need to step in at some point, should SLPS' situation get much worse.
"Boards of education are creations of the state," said Jackson, adding that he thinks tensions between Williams and the current board are standing in the way of needed reform. Jackson said he couldn't say whether or not the mayor had also been in contact with DESE.
Ed Rhode, spokesman for the mayor, has not yet replied to our request for comment. PUB DEF today made a formal "Sunshine Law" request of the Mayor's office for copies of any and all correspondences between that office and DESE.
Sources at DESE have confirmed that people from "several camps" have been in contact with the department in recent weeks about the situation at SLPS.
But even if DESE did decide to step in, the state can only take over a district after it has been unaccredited for two years (as in the case of the Wellston School District) or if disaster struck and a district was unable to open its doors and operate.
This scenario may give some support to the conspiracy theory quietly making its way around SLPS. Some SLPS principals, teachers and board members have been quietly asking this question: Is Creg Williams trying to destroy the school district? And why?
An article by Steve Giegerich in today's Post-Dispatch highlights the concerns of some in the district that the 2006-2007 school year may bring the disaster that sets the stage for a state takeover.
Williams has repeatedly said that the district faces a $50 million deficit in Fall of 2007 that would mean that SLPS could no longer meet its financial obligations. Yet in his 2006-2007 budget submitted last month, which was rejected by the board, not only were no steps taken to address that crisis, but $4 million was added to it.
Almost two weeks ago, the district failed to pay many of its employees on time, blaming it on "human error." And last week, many key district employees were dismissed, including most (if not all) of the people in the office which administers federal Title 1 dollars and possibly the only district employee familiar with the software used to send special data to the state.
District spokesman Tony Sanders has not replied to requests for comment on these dismissals.
The board will meet for three meetings tonight starting at 5:00 at the district's Administration Building, 801 N. 11th Street. See the complete agenda, including consent agenda items, at our sister site STLSchools.org, home of the St. Louis Schools Watch.
Shannon Weber, political director for the Carpenters' District Council of Greater St. Louis, has confirmed the endorsement. We're told press releases are coming...
A tipster reports that Mary "One" Johnson's realty company is among six firms whose Better Business Bureau membership was revoted last month. Johnson is the vice chairman of City's Preservation Board and the star of numerous bus stop bench ads.
In a press release dated June 30, the BBB states "Mary One Johnson Home Team Realty, LLC was notified on numerous occasions between Jan. 19, 2006, and May 3, 2006, regarding a customer complaint. The firm did not respond to this complaint."
Other firms getting the boot include: All Phase Construction, of St. Charles; Bob Wright Building Co., LLC, of Hannibal; Earthshine, Inc., of Ballwin; Furry Tails Grooming, Inc., of St. Louis; and Roofs Plus, of Hazelwood.
Former Senator Jean Carnahan is doing some online stumping for Democrat Claire McCaskill.
A letter from Carnahan was sent out this morning by McCaskill's ClaireOnline.com staff. In it, the wife of the late Gov. Mel Carnahan, asks supporters to cast their vote today to support McCaskill in an online poll. The poll, conducted by Sen. Barbara Boxer's PAC for a Change committee, will help determine who gets financial aid from some well-funded out-of-state sources.
"It is very expensive to defeat an incumbent Senator," wrote Carnahan. "But casting your vote today for Claire in Senator Barbara Boxer's online poll will pave the way for her to receive more campaign donations and more financial supporters. The candidate who wins this online poll will be included in Senator Boxer's next online solicit." Click here to vote for McCaskill in Boxer's poll. Click here to visit Jim Talent's fundraising page.
I'll be a guest on "Collateral Damage" tonight with hosts D.J. Wilson and Fred Hessel. The show starts at 7:00 and can be heard on KDHX 88.1 FM or online at www.kdhx.org.
Is Today the Day for 3rd Ward Recall? [Updated x3]
By Antonio D. French
The St. Louis Board of Elections has until 4:45 p.m. today to certify or reject the recall petition turned in 10 days ago against Ald. Freeman Bosley, Sr. But sources tell PUB DEF not to expect a first round knockout.
The veteran alderman has gotten several registered 3rd Ward voters to agree to take their names off the petition. And some political operatives working to help Bosley have brought attention to numerous invalid signatures. At the same time, sources say that Election Board workers have also found many of the approximately 1,900 signatures turned in to be duplicates or not verifiable.
If the board does not certify the petition today, the recallers have 20 days to try to get the remaining number of valid signatures. Depending on how short they are of the nearly 1,500 valid signatures required, the recallers might be able to score a second round knockout if they can pull together a well-organized campaign for the tough three-week fight which probably lies ahead.
But Bosley is ready for a fight too -- and he's called in some help from his friends. Political consultant Tim Person, who used to work for Bosley's son, former Mayor Freeman Bosley, Jr., and who has been working on the Republican side of the aisle in recent years, said he is hard at work helping the elder Bosley. He likened his assistance to the Biblical story of the prodigal son returning home. "I'm like the bastard son," he told PUB DEF.
Political operative Lou Hamilton confirmed last week that he had also taken an interest in the 3rd Ward recall. He denied being asked to assist in beating the recall, but he said if Bosley did ask, he wouldn't hesitate to help.
With decades of political knowledge and connections on one side, and strong feelings stemming from the issue of eminent domain abuse and a stinging 19-vote defeat in 2005, the fireworks may extend a few more weeks into July.
UPDATE: As of about 2:00 today, Bosley has submitted 400 affidavits of people asking for their names to be taken off the petition. Tim Person said less that 1,200 of the signatures turned in were valid. Minus the 400, it appears the recallers may have fallen 600-700 short of the needed 1,466 needed.
Developing...
UPDATE 2: The following is from the City Election Board...
The Board of Election Commissioners for the City of St. Louis today certified the results of a petition filed on June 30, 2006 to recall Freeman Bosley, Sr. as the Alderman of the 3rd Ward. The petition contained 1,850 signatures, 1,117 of which were initially accepted as valid signatures of registered voters in the 3rd Ward. However, 339 of those signatures were subsequently withdrawn. As a result, only 778 of the original 1,850 signatures were accepted for purposes of the petition. The requirement for the petition to be sufficient was 1,466 signatures.
Pursuant to the City Charter, the proponents of the recall now have 20 calendar days to submit to the Board supplemental signature pages confirming to the requirements of the original petition filed with the Board on June 30. Within 10 days after the filing of any such supplemental signature pages, the Board will certify as to the sufficiency of the recall petition as supplemented.
SIGNATURES REQUIRED TO PASS PETITION: 1,466
TOTAL SIGNATURES SUBMITTED TO AND CHECKED BY BOARD: 1,850
Accepted Signatures: 1,117
Rejected Signatures: 733
Breakdown of rejected signatures:
Duplicates: 139 (Signed petition twice).
Not Registered: 343 (Some cases of registrations being received in office after the date the petition was signed).
Wrong Address: 200 (Signed the petition however resides in a different ward).
Wrong Signature: 51 (Determined by staff that the signatures did not match the signature we have on file).
TOTAL SIGNATURES WITHDRAWN AFTER SUBMISSION: 339
TOTAL VALID SIGNATURES REMAINING AS OF JULY 10, 2006: 778
UPDATE 3: The challenge now facing the recallers is to get 688 valid signatures in 20 days. After hearing today's news, Debra Gordon, with the 3rd Ward Democrats for the People, told PUB DEF simply, "We will get what we need."
Starting this week, backers of the Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative will start running a 30-minute infomercial on television stations around the state. The program, which backers call a documentary, will feature interviews with Missouri medical experts and patient advocates, including Dr. William Danforth.
"We developed the documentary to provide all Missouri voters with convenient and easy access to in-depth information on stem cells and the Initiative," said Donn Rubin, Chairman of the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, which has raised more than $10 million in support of the initiative.
St. Louis TV viewers can see the spots at the following times:
On Channel 2 on Saturday at 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. and again on Sunday at 12:30 p.m.
On Channel 4 on Sunday at 11:05 p.m.
On Channel 5 on Saturday and Sunday at 5:00 a.m. and again on Sunday at 10:30 a.m.
On Channel 11 on Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 8:00 a.m.
