As long-time St. Louis activist Percy Green took questions Friday at the World Community Center on his decades of activist experiences, he grinned politely at the prospect of answering one audience member’s question, in particular: his thoughts on the efforts to recall St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay.
“I thought you would never ask,” he laughed.
The occasion of Green’s lecture was a discussion on protesting and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, of which he was a leading voice here in St. Louis. The event was hosted by the Peace Economy Project. After speaking for more than an hour-and-a-half, the final question he took was about the recall effort.
Green used the question as a platform to jump from addressing the legwork for signature-gathering for the recall effort to giving his opinion on the fight between Slay and his African-American constituency.
“Most of us don’t see Chief (Sherman) George and the recall Slay effort as a fight against blacks and City Hall,” Green said. “Others feel like Slay has been a poor manager of the city. Lots of the resources the current administration has used — like the new stadium — we needed a new stadium like a hole in the head. It wasn’t a new stadium. It was a replacement stadium.”
Green said Slay has misused city funds to reward business interest that have not benefited the city as a whole. He cited as the debate over the new Busch Stadium as an example where he believed the taxpayers were manipulated by the “false crisis” of Cardinal management threatening to move the team. Green saw it as a bluff.
“All of that was a game. They weren’t going any place,” Green said. “You don’t want administrators who are going to be gouging taxpayers whether they’re black or not.”
Green also gave his perspective on the firing of embattled Fire Chief Sherman George. While much has been reported of the fight being over hiring practices and race issues, Green, who was also fired by Francis Slay in 2001 from his post as head of the city’s minority business-certification program, said George’s dismissal had everything to do with money.
Green said that as Fire Chief George oversaw the fire code enforcement of downtown buildings, his refusal to approve building which he felt were unsafe rubbed Slay and the mayor’s developer contributors the wrong way. Green charged that Slay wanted George out to ease the path for these business people.
Green called the new chief a “patsy” there to “rubber stamp everything” for Slay and the downtown developers.
“Many people haven’t thought about it,” Green said. “They haven’t seen the connection.”
Steffen’s financial troubles have long been rumored in the city’s political circles. Steffen has been a regular contributor to key city officials, including Mayor Francis Slay, and is rumored to have financially backed two local newspapers, the St. Louis Argus and the now defunct Arch City Chronicle. But it was the Board of Estimate and Apportionment’s 2006 decision to have the city essentially co-sign Steffen’s $14.5 million loan application to 
