St. Louis Board of Aldermen: New Board Bills (165-170) On 10/21/2016
The following six Board Bills will be introduced at today’s meeting of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, review the agenda here. Board bills 169 & 170 raise the age of buying tobacco products to 21.
Board Bill No. 165 | Ordinance pertaining to workforce inclusion
BOARD BILL NO. 165 INTRODUCED BY ALDERMAN ANTONIO FRENCH, PRESIDENT LEWIS REED, ALDERMAN CHRIS CARTER An ordinance amending Ordinance 69427 pertaining to workforce inclusion by amending Sections Four, Five, and Ten of said ordinance, which are codified as Sections 3.110.030, 3.110.040, and 3.110.090 of the Revised Code of the City of St. Louis, to increase percentage goals for minority, women, and city residents, and to put in place a mandatory five-year disqualification penalty and liquidated damages for developers and contractors who fail to meet the goals; and containing a severability clause.
Board Bill No. 166 | Closing Mt. Pleasant at west side of Broadway
BOARD BILL NO. 166 INTRODUCED BY ALDERMAN KENNETH ORTMANN An ordinance authorizing and directing the Director of Streets to close, barricade, or otherwise impede the flow of traffic on Mount Pleasant Street by blocking said traffic flow at the west side of South Broadway, and containing an emergency clause.
Board Bill No. 167 | Establishing a 4-way stop at Nebraska and Itaska
BOARD BILL NO. 167 INTRODUCED BY ALDERMAN KENNETH ORTMANN An Ordinance establishing a four-way stop site at the intersection of Nebraska Avenue and Itaska Street by regulating all northbound and southbound traffic traveling on Nebraska Avenue at Itaska Street and regulating all eastbound and westbound traffic traveling on Itaska Street at Nebraska Avenue, and containing an emergency clause.
Board Bill No. 168 | 99 year lease for 1901 Penrose to Sun Ministries
BOARD BILL #168 Introduced by Alderman Freeman Bosley An ordinance authorizing and directing the Mayor and Comptroller of the City of St. Louis to enter into a Lease Agreement with Sun Ministries, Inc. to lease property located in City Block 2437 of the City of St. Louis, for a period of Ninety-Nine (99) years, for the purposes of creating a mixed use service delivery facility, and other self-improvement activities as well as office space for administrative needs.
Board Bill No. 169 | Raising the age to 21 for sales of nicotine products
BOARD BILL #169 INTRODUCED BY ALDERWOMAN DIONNE FLOWERS An ordinance amending Chapter 11 of the Revised Code of the City of St. Louis by repealing and re-enacting sections 11.32.110, 11.32.120, 11.32.130, 11.32.140, 11.32.150, 11.32.160, 11.32.170, 11.76.010, 11.76.020, 11.76.030 and 11.76.040 to raise the age to 21 years old for sales and distribution of tobacco products, containing definitions; establishing penalties for violations; and containing a severability and an emergency clause.
Board Bill No. 170 | Raising the age to 21 for sales of alternative nicotine products
BOARD BILL NO. 170 INTRODUCED BY: ALDERMAN FLOWERS An ordinance to raise the age to 21 years old for sales and distribution of alternative nicotine products, and vapor products to be codified in chapter 11 of the revised Code of the City of St. Louis; containing definitions; establishing penalties for violations; and containing a severability and an emergency clause.
The meeting begins at 10am, it can be viewed live here.
Five out of these six are “busy work”, minor issues that would better be handled elsewhere . . . 165 – drive more business from the city***; 166 – another street closure*?! 167 – another 4-way stop*?! 168 – actual BoA work! 169 – better handled at the state level**; 170 – better handled at the state level**.
*The operation of the city streets should be in the hands of the Streets Department, not individual aldermen. These are just two examples of looking at the tiny, little picture and ignoring the bigger picture.
**As long as there’s a patchwork of regulations, consumers will either a) go to the areas that either offer the product legally (to 18-21 year olds), b) go to the areas that offer it more cheaply, or c) obtain it thru illegal means instead of legal ones.
***While I understand the good intentions, this only applies to publicly-funded projects, drives up the costs of doing those projects and, in most cases, results in lower quality projects (because things need to be cut to stay within budget). It requires administrators to administer the rules, it requires additional paperwork from contractors and it results in a small group of DBE (disadvantaged business enterprise) contractors getting the bulk of the work! It does very little to help the actual MWL (minority, woman, local) worker looking to work more. The best way to improve MWL opportunities would be to turn St. Louis from an anemic Rust Belt city into a boom town – when things are busy (and workers are hard to find) everyone benefits – see Rosie the Riveter, see casual labor: http://www.wallyhood.org/2010/05/save-time-hire-immigrant/#gsc.tab=0
History has proven that DBE contracts are sometimes a sham and contrived. Many DBE businesses typically do not have the bonding capacity that the CITY REQUIRES of all building contractors, so what happens? The DBE contractor “teams up” (joint ventures) with a majority contractor, sometimes performing only a perfunctory role in the actual construction and realizing only a small percentage of the profit, or they actually perform no role whatsoever other than in name only. So what happens? Sometimes….the majority contractor covertly shifts costs from some of their other projects into the joint venture, which ultimately benefits the majority contractor to the detriment of the minority contractor. Not saying this is ALWAYS the case, but contractors sometimes have a slick way of concealing and shifting costs…..and only an expert can sift through all the creative accounting.
One way to avoid this situation is for the City of St Louis to establish relationships with financial and bonding institutions so that minority contractors are given working capital and bonding capacity, and the opportunities that they deserve–without having to piggy-back onto majority contractors. The Urban League of Metropolitan St Louis for a time, several years ago, discussed establishing such relationships, but I don’t think they were successful, at least not on the scale necessary to handle some of St Louis City’s larger projects. This is a project that Treasurer Jones and Comptroller Green could work on, together.
There are a few minority contractors in the city with the bonding capacity to perform solo work, but SOME, not all, are subsidiaries of majority contracting firms…..and MANY of their top executives are in fact not minorities.
The bottom line is this: SOMETIMES on very large projects, majority contractors increase their bids in order to cover their extra costs associated with teaming up with minority contractors that they joint venture with, and since there is a stated quota in the bidding documents, the overall project costs obviously exceed the amount that the project would have cost otherwise.
So the question to be answered is: are the additional costs justifiable? I can’t answer that question.
And this doesn’t happen only in STL….it’s a somewhat widespread problem.
I like the idea of raising the age to buy nicotine related smoking products to 21. The health effects of tobacco are arguably worse than those of alcohol. I also think nicotine is far more addictive.