Nineteen year ago I started this blog as a distraction from my father’s heart attack and slow recovery. It was late 2004 and social media & video streaming apps didn’t exist yet — or at least not widely available to the general public. Blogs were the newest means of …
The new NGA West campus , Jefferson & Cass, has been under construction for a few years now. Next NGA West is a large-scale construction project that will build a new facility for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in St. Louis, Missouri.This $1.7B project is managed by the U.S. Army …
Book publisher Island Press always impresses me with thoughtful new books written by people working to solve current problems — the subjects are important ones for urbanists and policy makers to be familiar and actively discussing. These four books are presented in the order I received them. ‘Justice and …
This post is about two indirectly related topics: the new Siteman Cancer Center building under construction on the Washington University School of Medicine/BJC campus and an update on my stage 4 kidney cancer. Let’s deal with the latter first. You may have noticed I’ve not posted in three months, …
In December 2007 I wrote a post entitled ‘Congress Wake Up & Let Farmers Grow Industrial Hemp!‘ Since then we’ve had a big shift in the both the Congress and White House. Hopefully we now have enough leaders that realize industrial hemp is different than pot.
In these economic times we need new entrepreneurs. Growing and creating durable & green products from industrial hemp is a way to jump start new businesses and create jobs. Continuing to treat industrial hemp the same as we treat a carcinogenic drug is insane and it puts our country at a disadvantage
April 20, 2009MediaComments Off on Patterson on KDHX 88.1FM Tonight, 7pm
Tune into KDHX tonight (4/20/09) at 7pm as I will be the guest on Collateral Damage with hosts DJ Wilson & Fred Hessel.  You can listen on the radio (88.1FM) or online. Tpoics will likely include transit funding, a proposed smoking free ordinance and the new members of the Board of Aldermen.
Today is Sine Die at the St. Louis Board of Aldermen:
Adjournment sine die (from the Latin “without day”) means “without any future date being designated for resumption” or “indefinitely”. It is often used with reference to meetings or when an organized body’s existence terminates. (source)
In short, today is the last meeting of the old Board. For three members today is their last meeting as an elected official. Ald. Hanrahan & Ald. Kirner both opted not to run for reelection. Ald. Bennice Jones King was defeated in the Primary by Antonio French.
Tomorrow 4/21/09 is the first meeting of the new session. The winners in the odd-numbered wards will be sworn into new 4-year terms. For 11 of the 14 it is just a continence of prior terms. But three new members will officially become Aldermen tomorrow:
21st Ward -Â Friend and fellow blogger Antonio French
23rd Ward – Political insider & car wash owner Joe Vacarro
25th Ward – Shane Cohn, a friend and the first openly gay elected official in St. Louis city government
The testosterone level in our legislative branch will change. Three seats held by women will now be held by the men listed above. The old board had 11 women and 17 men — or a 40/60 ratio. Tomorrow it will have 8 women and 20 men. Not that gender matters. The racial composition of the Board will be unchanged tomorrow — 16 white and 12 black (57/43).
What about political party? After all we went through a partisan primary. Well, the political party composition of the board remains unchanged. It remains 27 Democrats and 1 Republican.
Last week the Democratic members held a caucus to determine seniority among members elected at the same time. I’m not sure how it turned out. Ald Heitert has been on the Board the longest but, as the only non-Democrat, he has the least seniority.
Also on the agenda tomorrow, Darlene Green will be sworn in again as Comptroller. Francis Slay will begin his 3rd term as Mayor.
Friday May 1st is the first full business meeting of the new Board.
The poll for this week is about your TV viewing habits. Specifically, if you watch the St. Louis Board of Aldermen on the city’s channel 10 on cable, STL TV.
STL TV provides government related informational television programs to the residents of the City of St. Louis. The channel, which is available to basic cable subscribers, serves as a vital link in making local government more accessible to the community via cable television.
STL TV is operated 24-hours daily and has logged thousands of production hours in pursuit of its mission to inform, educate and promote City government operations.
For the past several years, STL TV has produced original programs tailored to inform and promote the City of St. Louis. Weekly coverage of the Board of Aldermen meetings (beginning in 1993), Mayoral Press Conferences, public events and other government-related programming has been a major function of STL TV since 1991.
Do you watch the weekly live broadcast of the Board of Aldermen? Do you get TV10? The poll is located in the upper right corner of the main page.
A lot has changed in the world in the 14 years since the Oklahoma City Bombing. Tomorrow marks the 10th Anniversary of the Columbine Shootings. It has been nearly 8 years since 9/11. Shootings seem almost commonplace these days.
This August marks the 23rd anniversary of the Post Office shootings in the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond. That day 14 were killed and six others were injured. The shooter took his own life. I was about to begin my sophomore year at the University of Oklahoma. By 1995, when the Alred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed, I had been living in St. Louis for nearly 5 years.
I knew the building well. It opened on March 2nd, 1977, two days after my 10th birthday. The late 1970s was a year of transition for many cities. Oklahoma City, like St. Louis, sought to be on the cutting edge by razing large areas, creating formidable superblocks, and constructing new buildings that were hostile to pedestrians.
Later that same year the once magnificent 33-story Billtmore Hotel was imploded. I cried that day. The block that had contained the Biltmore was combined with 3 others to create asuperblock. Ditto for the four blocks to the East. Thank you I.M. Pei.
The Murrah Federal building was on the opposite side of downtown. Not part of a superblock, the building did consume an entire city block. Like most buildings of this era, it was brutal and demeaning to the sidewalk.
The tower was heavily damaged in the bombing so what remained was imploded a month later. But part of what made the building so horrible remains as part of the memorial. The Southern half of the block was a raised plaza (Plaza = Pretty Lame Area with Zero Activity). The plaza was above the sidewalk level like so many of the time. It was also too large and too boring. Today it serves as a vantage point for viewing the memorial.
The building itself occupied less than half the block, the remain part of the block held the plaza which still exists. The memorial is very well done.
View looking West on the former 5th Street. In the late 80s I considered renting an apartment in the building in the background.
Almost done well enough to accept the closing of 5th Street. Almost.
But while I didn’t like the building the bombing was not at all how I imagined it going away.
For more info on the memorial check out the official site and a few more of my pics on Flickr.
AARP Livibility Index
The Livability Index scores neighborhoods and communities across the U.S. for the services and amenities that impact your life the most
Built St. Louis
historic architecture of St. Louis, Missouri – mourning the losses, celebrating the survivors.
Geo St. Louis
a guide to geospatial data about the City of St. Louis
