Remembering Moscone & Milk; And a Call To Action

As an Apple Computer fan I’m looking forward to news from next weeks MacWorld Expo at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. But each time I hear “Moscone Center” I think of Harvey Milk.

Twenty seven years ago on November 27, 1978 San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor (like our aldermen) Harvey Milk were assassinated in SF City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White.

Milk had a couple of unsuccessful bids for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors but in 1977 he was finally elected. He became the first openly gay person elected to any such office — ever. At the time it was thought it was better to work within the system by electing a straight but friendly candidate to bring about change. Milk was determined to win and break down doors.

Supervisor Dan White was upset over the anti-discrimination legislation enacted in SF so he resigned his seat. A week later he returned to seek revenge. If you’ve heard of the phrase “twinkie defense” this is where it came from. White was sentenced to less than eight years in prison which sparked the White Night Riot. After serving only a portion of his sentence White committed suicide.

For more information see:
• Time Magazine 100 Heros & Icons
• Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What is the point you ask? Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the day I filed to run for the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. I didn’t win on my first try (story). As I fight to make St. Louis a more urban place to live and to break down decades of self-serving ward politics I draw strength from men like Harvey Milk. I’m constantly told things won’t change here — we’re too conservative, we’re too this and too that.

BS!

We can change if we want to.

We can have a legislative body that actually governs the entire city and not just their selective 1/28th of the city while ignoring the remaining 27/28th. If they only want to take responsibility for their 1/28th then pay them 1/28 the salary.

Life is too short. We must make the best of the time we’ve got.

If you live in an even number ward — 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, or 28 — now is the time to get involved for the Spring 2007 election. Bookmark your alderman’s page and check each week to see what new legislation they are sponsoring or co-sponsoring. Ask them how they voted on controversial issues in other wards. Review their campaign finance reports to see who is giving them money and how often. Join your local ward committee (Democrat, Republican, or Green) and challenge any assumptions of propping up the status quo simply for the sake of business as usual or that is the way it is supposed to be. For those of you in odd numbered wards you should get involved as well in pretty much the same fashion. Not sure of your ward? Click here to find out.

Those already elected and those running the Democratic machine have no interest in real change or if they do they’ve been unwilling to prove it by there actions. We will have to take it by force at the grass roots level. If Harvey Milk can get elected in 1977 we can certainly change our board of aldermen thirty years later.

– Steve

Parishioner & Resident Wants St. Aloysius Saved

I wanted to share with you a series of emails I have had with a resident near St. Aloysius. This person asked me keep their identity private.

Here is the first email I received from this resident two days ago:

Thank you for your efforts towards saving the buildings at St. Aloysius.
Our family is for the preservation of the entire block.

I was baptized at St. Al’s, attended and graduated from the school. My sister was married there. My parents were married in the “bowling alley” underneath the Gym, while the church was being built, It served as the church for a few years and if you look closely you can see remnants of the windows and where the alter was situated.

We are now residents of the Hill and belong to St. Ambrose Parish. We have not heard anyone say they would like a housing developement on the spot. It sounds political to us.

Thank you again!

I wrote back asking this person to “speak up” — that the alderman, priest and developer needed to hear from people on this issue. Here was the response:

I would hate to have repercussions.
This is definitely the way I feel…….tell me I am not the only one. I feel it would be painful to see buildings torn down!

I can hear this person’s pain. They feel like they might secretly be the only one that wants to save the building, afraid to speak out. I tried to reassure this person they were not the only one from the neighborhood that felt the same way. Here was the last thing I received:

I do not think that any of the three you mentioned in your first email [alderman, priest & developer] care about how the parisioners feel (We were never asked) I believe that they are own their own mission!

A little more bold than the last email. This time they consented to let me quote what they wrote anonymously. I’ve deleted only a few bits that might have identified who this person is. This is far from the only such email I’ve received on my efforts to save these buildings. I think many felt strongly about saving the buildings but didn’t want to speak up or didn’t know how to go about having an impact. Myself and others have got the ball rolling, we’ll see if they finish the job.

– Steve

Vollmer Prepares Bill To Blight St. Aloysius

Alderman Vollmer’s latest bill is BB368, a measure to blight the city block known for the last century as St. Aloysius, and provide for 10-year tax abatement on the new development.

It looks from the wording that the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (LCRA) will hear the plan at their next public meeting on Tuesday January 24, 2006 at 3pm (more info).

For those of you following along at home here are all the dates that I know of at this time where the public, especially neighborhood residents, can share their views:

Note: don’t be confused by the dates on the SWGNA website, those are meeting dates for 2004 — not 2006.

– Steve

We “Defer” To The Alderman To Know What Is Best

I just got off the phone with Alderman Fred Wessels, Chairman of the busy Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee (aka HUDZ). We were discussing a bill that will come before his committee next week on the Planned Unit Development on the site of the former St. Aloysius.

I commented how other aldermen just allow an alderman to do whatever they please. He rephrased it as “we defer” to the Alderman because they know their ward and neighborhood best.

This deferment practice, otherwise known as aldermanic courtesy, is destructive to the future of St. Louis. On paper is might sound good but what it really does is divide our city into 28 smaller villages. This is much like St. Louis county with all its municipalities competing with each other for a fixed tax base and no coordination to creating a unified development plan.

We need our legislative representatives to question, probe, and challenge each other in the interest of making sure development decisions are in the best interests of the city, not just that particular ward on that particular day.

By deferring to the wishes of a single alderman the other 27 aldermen are negligent in their duties to protect the interests of the constituents that elected them. I expect the legislative body of this city to look out for the city, not curtail to the wishes of one person.

We need elected officials that can look out for the interests of the city as a whole and at times that might mean not deferring to an alderman. They deferred to former Ald. Bauer when he removed the 24th Ward from the Preservation Review process and subsequently angered the residents they removed him from office and elected someone to reinstate the Preservation Review process in their ward. Had the aldermen not deferred to Bauer but instead told him, through not voting for the legislation, that the process was good and it protected the interests not just of the ward but adjacent wards in the city as a whole. But they didn’t.

In my view any alderman that votes to approve legislation that directly or indirectly leads to the unnecessary destruction of St. Aloysius would be just as guilty as Alderman Vollmer.

Wessels’ HUDZ Committee meets next at 10am on Wednesday January 18, 2006.

– Steve

Aldermanic Options for Razing St. Aloysius

My last post on St. Aloysius had to do with the notion of effectively spot zoning the one city block by removing only it from the City’s Preservation Review ordinance. A couple of others options exist for Alderman Vollmer to go around the appointed volunteer body that reviews demolition applications.

First is to pass an ordinance removing the 10th Ward or much of the ward from the Preservation Review ordinance. By doing so he avoids the look of favoritism for a single property owner, in this case a private developer from Wildwood. This could have dire consequences for the ward in the future.

When a building owner applies for a demolition permit the City’s Building Division checks to see if it falls within a historic district (local or national) or within a preservation review district. If so, it seeds the request over to the cultural resources office for review. The staff at Cultural Resources looks at the building in question as well as the criteria of the enabling ordinance to make a judgement call. This was done to give some oversight so that we don’t accidently erase buildings of value. They staff routinely approves demolition of buildings after reviewing the criteria. In the case of St. Aloysius, they approved two of the six structures on the site. The other four they sent to the Preservation Board for a decision. This is a valuable process for protecting our heritage.

Removing all or part of the 10th Ward from this process will mean buildings could be razed without any public input.

The other option Alderman Vollmer may seek is a Chapter 99 Development Plan. In short this is a process of blighting the property and passing an ordinance for the redevelopment. This is complicated and the public doesn’t generally follow along. Of course, the other 27 aldermen in the city will use “aldermanic courtesy” and approve the ordinance no matter how they or their constituents feel about the damaging affects it will have on the city as a whole. The city has a brief summary of the process which you can read here.

Finally check out the Suburban Journal today. The Southwest City Journal has an article by Shawn Clubb titled “Developer to appeal decision on St. Aloysius.” [Note, the Post-Dispatch and Suburban Journals do not offer permanent links to their articles so I cannot provide valid links to them as much as I’d like to.]

The alderman, developer and neighborhood executive director are claiming nobody objected to the proposal. I’m getting calls and emails from neighbors thanking me saying they either weren’t aware of what was going on or thought it was a done deal so why bother.

I seriously doubt any of them ever asked the neighborhood a balanced question like, “Would you rather see all the buildings razed and replaced with new single family homes or would you like to see the church, rectory and convent converted to condos with new single family homes on the west end of the site?”

– Steve