It’s a preemptive thanks, but no thanks.

State Rep. Connie Johnson sent a letter to Firefighters Local 73 Tuesday stating she would not “seek nor accept” any endorsement from the union due to the “racial discrimination” she has seen in the St. Louis City Fire Department.

Johnson is currently running for the Fifth District Senate seat.

In the letter addressed to Chris Molitor, president of Firefighters Local 73, Johnson writes how she was invited along with other Fifth District candidates to meet with Local 73’s board last week, but did not attend due to her opposition over the department’s behavior surrounding the ousting of embattled Fire Chief Sherman George last year.

She sent the letter to Molitor stating, “In the eyes of most of our St Louis community - particularly the African-American community - the fact that we have a fire department that is essentially segregated is repulsive.”

“And what makes matters even more alarming is the additional fact that we have a Union that defends and even appears to take pride in this segregation. Local 73 cannot escape either responsibility or accountability for this current state, and I cannot and will not ignore my duty to stand and fight against it.”

Johnson wrote that she is a staunch supporter of organized labor but could not support a group that possibly “engineered, the most racially divisive event to occur in this city in years.”

It is unclear if Johnson was ever likely to receive Local 73’s endorsement.

Johnson is one of three candidates seeking to replace the term-limited Sen. Maida Coleman. The other two are Rodney Hubbard* and Robin Wright-Jones.

*Hubbard is a client of PubDef.net publisher Antonio D. French.

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.”