Friday I listed five books about St. Louis to consider as gifts. Today’s book, a massive volume, isn’t about St. Louis. Well, not entirely. Chapter 8, titled “St. Louis: Protection from Erosion”, is the story of our own convention center folly. From the publisher:
American cities have experienced a remarkable surge in convention center development over the last two decades, with exhibit hall space growing from 40 million square feet in 1990 to 70 million in 2011—an increase of almost 75 percent. Proponents of these projects promised new jobs, new private development, and new tax revenues. Yet even as cities from Boston and Orlando to Phoenix and Seattle have invested in more convention center space, the return on that investment has proven limited and elusive. Why, then, do cities keep building them?
Written by one of the nation’s foremost urban development experts, Convention Center Follies exposes the forces behind convention center development and the revolution in local government finance that has privileged convention centers over alternative public investments. Through wide-ranging examples from cities across the country as well as in-depth case studies of Chicago, Atlanta, and St. Louis, Heywood T. Sanders examines the genesis of center projects, the dealmaking, and the circular logic of convention center development. Using a robust set of archival resources—including internal minutes of business consultants and the personal papers of big city mayors—Sanders offers a systematic analysis of the consultant forecasts and promises that have sustained center development and the ways those forecasts have been manipulated and proven false. This record reveals that business leaders sought not community-wide economic benefit or growth but, rather, to reshape land values and development opportunities in the downtown core.
A probing look at a so-called economic panacea, Convention Center Follies dissects the inner workings of America’s convention center boom and provides valuable lessons in urban government, local business growth, and civic redevelopment.
Reading the background on how the Cervantes Convention Center came to be is fascinating! There were competing proposals to locate a convention center elsewhere, including near Union Station.
A week ago the world learned the grand jury did not indict Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown.
It was a big Monday night for St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch. Stepping to the lectern, with the eyes of the country fixed firmly on Ferguson, McCulloch used his moment in the spotlight to deliver an odd, extended ramble before finally declaring that no charges would be filed against police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. As we think about the subsequent outrage, feast on images of the looting and fires, and pore over the damage assessments and arrest counts, it is worth taking a moment to talk about the road to this ruinous place and the ways in which McCulloch’s decisions exacerbated the problem. (The Independent Grand Jury That Wasn’t: The Ferguson prosecutor’s bizarre, self-justifying press conference revealed his own influence.)
Well, in some parts of the world it was already Tuesday, because it was nearly 8:30pm (CST) Monday night when Bob McCulloch finally said:
AFTER THEIR EXHAUSTIVE REVIEW, THE GRAND JURY DELIBERATED AND MADE THEIR FINAL DECISION. THEY DETERMINED THAT NO PROBABLE CAUSE EXISTS TO FILE ANY CHARGES AGAINST OFFICER WILSON AND RETURN A NO TRUE ON EACH OF THE FIVE INDICTMENTS.
It has been dark outside for hours at this point, it’s no wonder the night played out the way it did. This should’ve been scheduled for 8am, not 8pm.
McCulloch did this knowing that this protest movement, when enflamed, can take on a very different nocturnal character. In the turbulent days and nights of August, when Ferguson was placed forever on the map of the world’s struggles, police authorities came to distinguish between day protests, which were multi-generational and invariably peaceful, and night protests, which were younger and much more unpredictable. Further, McCulloch decided to deliver this inflammatory news at night when national intelligence about outside agitators’ plans to infiltrate Ferguson when the decision is announced was so harrowing it helped influence Gov. Jay Nixon to preemptively declare a State of Emergency and conduct a press conference where the Governor rattled his sabre like invading hordes were descending on Missouri. (The fire Bob McCulloch started)
From a New York Times editorial:
The St. Louis County grand jury’s decision not to indict the white police officer who in August shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, would have generated widespread anger and disappointment in any case. But the county prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, who is widely viewed in the minority community as being in the pockets of the police, made matters infinitely worse by handling this sensitive investigation in the worst possible way.
First, he refused to step aside in favor of a special prosecutor who could have been appointed by Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri. He further undermined public confidence by taking a highly unorthodox approach to the grand jury proceeding. Instead of conducting an investigation and then presenting the case and a recommendation of charges to the grand jury, his office shifted its job to the grand jury. It made no recommendation on whether to indict the officer, Darren Wilson, but left it to the jurors to wade through masses of evidence to determine whether there was probable cause to file charges against Officer Wilson for Mr. Brown’s killing. (The Meaning of the Ferguson Riots)
Aside from the poor timing of the decision, the months long process was a farce. At the beginning of November I said:
If McCulloch wanted an indictment he’d have handled the case differently, this has been an elaborate act to give the appearance of due diligence while guaranteeing no indictment. (McCulloch’s Process Guarantees No Indictment)
In the last week many in legal & law enforcement professions have combed through the thousands of pages of documents, including former prosecutor Nancy Grace:
Look, do you know how many times I have sided against a cop? Never. But to me, this is bigger than a badge. And I don’t like speaking out against a cop, but this doesn’t add up.
Here her reaction in the video below:
Direct link to above video on CNN here. Another quote from the above:
The grand jurors are like sheep, they’re babes in the woods. The prosecutor’s duty is to seek the truth. I am telling you that the prosecutors, if they want an indictment, they will get an indictment.
This is related to the 1985 comment by then chief judge of New York, Sol Wachtler, that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich if he/she wants. Ironically, a few years later the Republican judge was indicted, convicted and sentence to 15 months in prison, see The Judge Who Coined “Indict a Ham Sandwich” Was Himself Indicted. McCulloch didn’t want an indictment, he just wanted the appearance of justice.
Back to the grand jury…
On MSNBC Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out how prosecutors gave the grand jury a copy of a 1979 Missouri law that was ruled unconstitutional nearly 30 years earlier, in 1985!
The assistant prosecutors misled the grand jury on the law. At the conclusion of the almost 22 minute segment Lawrence O’Donnell said:
With prosecutors like this, Darren Wilson never really needed a defense lawyer.
The other part is Darren Wilson was allowed to testify for 4 hours without cross examination from the prosecutors. Civil rights attorney Lisa Bloom:
A long-time personal friend, an attorney, posted the following on Facebook:
Being a lawyer, I thought I might post some analysis of the grand jury process in the Darren Wilson matter. My grave concern over the conduct of this matter is the prosecutor effectively tried to make it look like a “jury” trial was conducted, without actually bringing the charges against Wilson to cause this to occur. His attempts to demonstrate an exhaustive introduction of physical and witness offered evidence (of the type you typically don’t see at grand jury proceedings) as well as a seeming lack of partisanship only reinforce his attempt to short circuit the normal process and obtain a desired result in a politically sensitive matter. He clearly must have known what he was doing as a grand jury hearing and a jury trial bear little resemblance, despite the common name. A grand jury has no power to convict, only to recommend that a defendant stand trial (subject to due process protections). A regular “petit” jury trial is a constitutionally protected, complicated process that is designed to maximize the likelihood of a fair result, taking into account the challenges associated with individual citizens rendering the verdict. In a jury trial, a judge presides to ensure that the lawyers behave appropriately and to minimize the possibility that a jury is unfairly biased by evidence they are not competent to disregard or qualify (knowing that jurors are often swayed by emotion and subject to clouded reasoning); the judge uses a body of law called the “rules of evidence”, developed over centuries in order to minimize problems caused by the nature of the human participants in the process. A jury trial is inherently and intentionally a partisan battle (mediated by the judge) in which the prosecution and defense vigorously attempt to prove their case, allowing the jury to watch the sausage being made and inform their opinion; cross-examination of the other side’s witnesses is a crucial aspect of exposing lies, bias, ignorance, or other factors that might make that witnesses’ testimony unreliable. A jury trial is typical open to the victims, the families, the public and the press, the openness being crucial to avoiding corruption (or the appearance of corruption) as well as shining a light on the process in order to maximize its integrity. And, a jury trial is subject to appeal so that any errors made by the judge or the other parties in the conduct of the trial can be reviewed by other senior judges, outside of the realm of politics, and overturned if they posed the possibility of impermissibly biasing the verdict. The rules governing a jury trial are certainly not perfect in concept or execution but they have been put into place over generations in order to avoid precisely what happened at the “grand” jury trial of Darren Wilson, an informal procedure closed to the public, not mediated by a judge, not governed by the rules of evidence, not partisan in nature, containing no cross examination and the exposures that typically are made through that process, and not subject to appeal to a higher court. The prosecutor, in his current position for I think 23 years, clearly has to understand the failings of the highly unusual process he conducted but obviously tried to make it appear that Darren Wilson had been effectively tried and acquitted. While there is nothing illegal associated with the prosecutor’s actions as he is elected to oversee the grand jury and determinations if charges are to be brought, the underlying complaints of the protestors about the abuse of power of law enforcement and the distortions of the criminal justice system against minorities are only reinforced and made more manifest by the actions of this prosecutor, in my relatively well-informed opinion.
The problems started on August 9th, with the how the Ferguson Police handled the case:
From the reams of grand jury testimony and police evidence, here are some key points that, if this case had gone to trial, could have been highlighted by prosecutors (not including the witnesses who appeared to contradict Wilson’s testimony):
Wilson washed away blood evidence.
The first officer to interview Wilson failed to take any notes.
Investigators failed to measure the likely distance between Brown and Wilson.
Investigators did not test Wilson’s gun for fingerprints.
Wilson did not immediately turn his weapon over to investigators after killing Brown.
An initial interview with investigators was delayed while Wilson traveled to the hospital with his superiors.
Wilson’s initial interview with the detective conflicts with information given in later testimony.
Justice hasn’t been done in the death of Michael Brown. A special prosecutor needs to be appointed to bring charges against Darren Wilson so we can see in a normal jury trial overseen by a judge if a jury will convict or acquit.
“Mist and smoke hung over St. Louis on this day in January more than year after Black Tuesday however the smoke lifted within a hour.” Missouri Department of Natural Resources
During the 1930s the population of St. Louis was declining, no doubt in part due to the unhealthy air during the winter months when soft coal was used to heat nearly every building.
In February 1937 a smoke ordinance was passed creating a “Division of Smoke Regulation in the Department of Public Safety”, forcing larger businesses to burn only clean coal and setting standards for smoke emission and inspection. By 1938 emissions from commercial smokestacks had been reduced by two-thirds. (Wikipedia)
Mayor Bernard F. Dickmann, the first Democratic Mayor in decades, put Raymond Tucker in charge of cleaning the air. In 1941 Dickmann lost the race for a third term, defeated by Republican William F. Becker:
Perhaps the most significant development during Becker’s term as mayor was the adoption of a civil service amendment to the City Charter. The amendment enacted a merit system for the hiring of city employees. Prior to that time, a political patronage system prevailed in which all city employees could be replaced with a change of partisan administration. Becker supported the civil service reform and it was approved by the voters in September 1941. Becker also retained Raymond Tucker who had been appointed Smoke Commissioner by Mayor Dickmann, and supported his efforts to reduce air pollution within the city. (Wikipedia)
Becker was killed in a glider accident just two years later, he was succeeded by the Republican President of the Board of Aldermen Aloys P. Kaufmann. Kaufmann was elected to a full term in 1945, he was the last Republican mayor in St. Louis.
I’m glad the citizens of St. Louis in the 30s & 40s took the big steps they did to clean the air. Today I don’t think we have the kind of political leadership that it takes to achieve such change.
The St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners is on the first floor at 300 N. Tucker (@ Olive)
The national midterm elections are only 3 weeks behind us, but already the Spring 2015 St. Louis municipal election season has begun, yesterday candidates filing for office in the city’s even-numbered wards. Also on the ballot will be the citywide office of President of the Board of Aldermen.
So far the following wards will have contested races in the Democratic primary: 4, 8, 15, 20, 24. 28. The last day to file for office is January 2, 2015. You can see a list of candidates that filed yesterday here.
A majority of those who voted in the poll last week foolishly think voter ID laws are about preventing fraud. The real motivation is to keep those who typically vote Democratic from voting:
A disabled woman in Travis County was turned away from voting because she couldn’t afford to pay her parking tickets. An IHOP dishwasher from Mercedes can’t afford the cost of getting a new birth certificate, which he would need to obtain the special photo ID card required for voting. A student at a historgically black college in Marshall, who registered some of her fellow students to vote, won’t be able to cast a ballot herself because her driver’s license isn’t from Texas and the state wouldn’t accept her student identification card. (Ginsburg Was Right: Texas’ Extreme Voter ID Law Is Stopping People From Voting)
A couple more examples from Wisconsin, via the ACLU:
Ruthelle Frank is a resident of Brokaw, Wisconsin, where she has served on the Village Board since 1996. She was born at her home in Brokaw in 1927. She is an eligible voter registered to vote in Wisconsin. She has no accepted form of photo ID under the photo ID law and lacks a certified copy of her birth certificate, which she needs to prove citizenship to the Wisconsin DMV. Though she has never had a birth certificate in her possession, the state Register of Deeds has a record of her birth and can produce a certified copy of her birth certificate, but at a cost. The record on file, however, has an incorrect spelling of her maiden name: Wedepohl, and is consequently an unacceptable form of identification. The process to correct the birth certificate is lengthy and costly, with some reports suggesting it might require $200 or more. She has voted in every election since 1948 and intends to vote in Wisconsin again next year.
Eddie Lee Holloway Jr.’s birth certificate says Eddie Junior Holloway and as a result he is no longer able to vote in the state of Wisconsin. DMV employees tell him that his birth certificate is an unacceptable form of ID because the name on it reads “Eddie Junior Holloway,” due to a decades-old clerical error. It doesn’t matter to the DMV that his father’s name — “Eddie Lee Holloway” — is printed on his birth certificate, and that Eddie has a Social Security Card and an expired Illinois photo ID both bearing the name “Eddie L Holloway Jr”. Eddie says, “I never miss voting” and has rarely missed a chance to cast a ballot since he was 18. He worked in Illinois for years as a cook at the airport and Claire’s Family Restaurant, and he cooked in nursing homes too. Years of heavy lifting and hard work left him severely disabled, unemployed, and homeless — in that order. He now lives with his mother in Milwaukee but cannot secure the disability benefits and medical attention he so badly needs due to a lack of photo ID.
You might think it’s no big deal if a handful of people are inconvenienced or turned away to cut down on the massive fraud that takes place. The reality is the reverse, thousands are turned away because of a few cases of fraud:
Election fraud happens. But ID laws are not aimed at the fraud you’ll actually hear about. Most current ID laws (Wisconsin is a rare exception) aren’t designed to stop fraud with absentee ballots (indeed, laws requiring ID at the polls push more people into the absentee system, where there are plenty of real dangers). Or vote buying. Or coercion. Or fake registration forms. Or voting from the wrong address. Or ballot box stuffing by officials in on the scam. In the 243-page document that Mississippi State Sen. Chris McDaniel filed on Monday with evidence of allegedly illegal votes in the Mississippi Republican primary, there were no allegations of the kind of fraud that ID can stop. (A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast)
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