My Endorsement for President of the Board of Aldermen

Regular readers know that I love incumbents to be challenged — nothing worse than someone getting elected for a four-year term simply due to the lack of a challenger. I’m also fond of giving the new guy a chance, especially if the incumbent has been in that office a while. So where am I on the race for President of the Board of Aldermen? I’m not a huge booster of incumbent Jim Shrewsbury but I am opposed to Lewis Reed. Let me explain.

I’m going to go right for big issue — race! I personally don’t vote on race and would hope that nobody does. Sadly, the reality is that white & black voters alike do too often vote on race. And candidates on both sides can sometimes use that to their advantage. From PubDef this morning:

Reed is trying to become the first African-American ever elected President of the Board of Aldermen and the first black to unseat a white incumbent in a citywide election in 25 years.

Funny, I thought Reed was trying to become a better President of the Board of Aldermen? I’ve seen similiar statements elsewhere which makes the campaign about race, not city-wide issues. From the St. Louis American on January 3rd:

If Reed beats Shrewsbury on March 6, he and Green would form an African-American majority on E & A. This would be the second time in the city’s history that blacks formed a majority on the city’s chief fiscal board. From 1993 to 1997, Bosley was mayor and Virvus Jones was the city’s first black comptroller.

I may be an exception, but I really don’t care what the race is of my elected officials as long as they are representing the interests of the city. However, I have commented that our elected officials are not fully representative as we do not have any asian or latino representation as well as many of the other ethnicities that make up our population. Everything is black vs. white.

For a number of years now we’ve had a white majority on E&A with Slay & Shrewsbury but that has seemed to make little difference in the final outcome of votes. All three have shown a willingness to vote with or against the others as it should be. Shrewsbury has twice ran for Comptroller against black candidates and lost.
At some point our city must address the issue of race. A city-wide election between a white candidate and a black candidate is not the time to do that. Mayor Slay needs to pick a non-election year and hold some on-going forums to hash out issues and concerns over race. During the election cycle a white candidate simply cannot say the black candidate is taking the black vote for granted and the black candidate can’t help sounding as though the only reason they are running is to shift racial power at city hall.

Both Jim Shrewsbury and Lewis Reed have supporters on their sides that gives me reason to doubt both. Shrewsbury has some of the white good-ole-boy network in his corner while Reed has both black & white political insiders in his corner. Jennifer ‘Drive-Thru’ Florida’s early backing of Reed turned me off right away. Ald. Phyllis ‘Raze Bohemien Hill’ Young supporting Shrewsbury is equally offensive. There are some people, elected & non-elected, backing each candidate that I like and respect so this does little to help in a decision.

Both candidates are political creatures.  Shrewsbury has been in the game longer than Reed giving him some more experience, quite possibly a bad thing.  Shrewsbury as the incumbent came into the race with a huge advantage — only needing to prove why he should remain.  Reed’s task became having to prove why we should dump Shrewsbury and select him, no easy thing to do.  As a result, his campaign has gone to the negative side while Shrewsbury has had the comfort of taking the high road in most cases.

St. Louis Oracle, on his site, had an interesting post about role reversal in this contest, concluding with:

So, in this classic match up, the slick black dude is the proponent of Big Business, tax cuts for the rich, and “trickle-down” economics, while the little nerdy white guy is the true representative of ordinary people. Go figure.

Oracle has also endorsed Shrewsbury, here is a quote from his endorsement:

Shrewsbury is a principled, matter-of-fact, no-nonsense guy who doesn’t “showboat” to the media. Reed has criticized Shrewsbury’s lack of “vision,” without really saying what that means. The contrast is reminiscent of that between Former Mayor Vince Schoemehl and Former County Executive Gene McNary. In describing their joint efforts for the region in the 1980s, Schoemehl explained that McNary “sold the steak,” while Schoemehl “sold the sizzle.” Notably, sizzle-selling Schoemehl’s ward organization backs Reed. But the “vision” thing doesn’t resonate with me. If “vision” means new proposals and new ideas, let’s see them! Reed offers hardly any specifics. The appeal seems to be an attempt to tap into the “style over substance” trend that is infecting society. I don’t buy it.

My reality is that I don’t have high expectations for the issues that matter to me, such as a new zoning code, to be any different regardless of who wins.  However, I think I have a better chance of getting Jim Shrewsbury to listen and be responsive.  He may not look it, but in many respects he is quite progressive minded.  Reed simply has not impressed me to this point and I have no incentive to elect a black man to the position just for the sake of doing so.  Tomorrow vote to re-elect Jim Shrewsbury.

Reads on Highways, Pedicabs, High Rises, Parking and Christian Clubs

Like many of you, I read so many things each week of interest. I wish I had the time to share & comment on each with you. Because so many are relevant to St. Louis, I may look at doing a weekly post with links of interest sans my comments. Here are a few articles along with quotes from each:
Mega Highway in Phoenix

A plan to widen part of Interstate 10 in metropolitan Phoenix from 14 lanes to 24 is the USA’s latest giant superhighway proposal designed to ease the kind of gridlock that some planners say could stunt economic growth.

For a 2-mile stretch between U.S. 60 in Tempe and State Route 143, the interstate would have six-general purpose lanes, two carpool lanes and four lanes for local traffic in each direction. Work on the first phase, which planners expect to cost about $550 million, could begin by 2011.

NYC Limits Pedicabs

Chad Marlow, who represents the New York City Pedicab Owners Association, said the association agrees with much of the legislation, but plans to file a lawsuit challenging some elements of it. He said it believes that the Council was within its rights to impose a cap as the city does with taxis, but that the restriction on electric motors and the provision giving the police the power to ban pedicabs from Midtown run afoul of the law.

Building Up In Seattle:

Developers should be able to build taller than current zoning allows if they pay for public amenities such as affordable housing, the Seattle Planning Commission said Tuesday.

Mayor Greg Nickels favors such a plan and is working on so-called incentive zoning proposals for the South Lake Union, Interbay and South Downtown areas. Nickels intends to roll out his proposals in the next year. They would be similar to new downtown building rules Nickels and the City Council approved last year.

Less Parking for Brooklyn Whole Foods:

Whole Foods’ corporate machine beat back a neighborhood green dream team this week, denying a petition from a civic group to shrink its parking lots and put an earth-friendly solar roof on its super-store, now under construction on Third Avenue at Third Street.

The Park Slope Neighbors petition asked the grocer to cut 100 of its planned 420 parking spaces, a move that the group believed would discourage driving and reduce traffic.

And for some local flavor…

Christian Club Locating in Failed Mall:

The Exodus, an all ages nightclub promoting Christian values and family entertainment, will likely open to area residents this fall.

Aldermen approved the final development plans for the community center Wednesday, which will be located within the Mall at Wentzville Crossings that owners Cory and Darian Atkinson purchased last March.

The $2.5 million, 100,000 square-foot nightclub is one of two phases of a non-alcoholic, smoke-free environment that will include a bowling alley, rock-climbing wall, video arcade and possible cinema.

Have a great weekend!

Pre-Election Recap: French & Patterson on KDHX Monday 7pm

St. Louis’ municipal primary is Tuesday so on Monday evening Antonio French of PubDef and myself will be guests on KDHX’s Collateral Damage program hosted by DJ Wilson & Fred Hessel.  Tune into 88.1FM at 7pm on Monday 3/5/07 for discussion of the candidates.

Portion of Delor Bridge Collapses onto I-55

Tonight, just two blocks from my house, a portion the Delor St. bridge collapsed onto I-55 below. The massive section of concrete, the sidewalk and railing, fell to the highway below, blocking all four northbound lanes. A single car seems to have run into the concrete, luckily not ending up under the concrete.

The image above is looking east from the intersection of Minnesota & Delor (google map). You can see the section of concrete completely blocking the lanes as well as the car. I returned north to be able to get under the highway at Broadway so that I could get to the other side.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_cYo25iMR4[/youtube]

As you can see from the above video, a section of the sidewalk & railing along the north side of the bridge gave way.

So we are preparing to spend the next few years and half a billion dollars rebuilding I-64 (hwy 40) all the while the Mayor is calling for a billion dollar bridge across the Mississippi River. And yet, it seems, we can’t maintain the infrastructure we already have. Even our mass transit system, MetroLink, has deferred maintenance issues. True, this might be a freak accident but this is one of our oldest stretches of highway with questionable bridge structures.

Last week I received a questionnaire from MoDot asking if I, as an area resident, use the pedestrian bridge located a block north at Itaska. Obviously they are looking at this section of highway for a future round of upgrades. At this point we have so many miles of roads & bridges that the upgrading never ends. Sadly, the number of miles per capita continues to increase meaning each of us is responsible for funding more and more infrastructure.

City Owns Land For Proposed City Hospital Square Retail Project

Recently sprawl apologists have defended the proposed City Hospital Square (aka Georgian Square) as a property rights issue — the developers should have the right to build what they want on their land (see prior post). I, however, contend the community has the right to set the bar for what gets constructed where through tools such as Land Use & Zoning policies. These tools, like eminent domain, are valuable to municipalities to maintain the health, safetey and welfare of a community.

But what about when it is the community itself that owns the vacant land in question? Yes folks, with the exception of a few parcels, the City of St. Louis through the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) and the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (LCRA) own the land in question for Phase 1 of the project. Some of the land on the southern edge is owned by the State of Missouri. A few small parcels are owned by individuals in St. Louis and out of state — none in the names of the principals of the developers.
So how is it that we already have an announced project on predominently publicly owned land? Given that agendas for these various boards are only posted in the lobby of 1015 Locust it is entirely possible I missed the announcements of the Request for Proposal (RFP) seeking developers for this land. I suppose it is also possible that I missed the meeting(s) in which the city selected Guilded Age and their associates. But maybe, just maybe, it is possible that a few key steps were omitted in order to give this a “done deal” appearance so that owners of the adjacent blocks would simply roll over and accept the city’s offer to buy their homes from them.

This is the city, through various boards and Ald. Phyllis Young, actively participating in the deliberate demolition and threat of eminent domain without public input. Public input should have been solicited early on as the city began acquiring property across from the long-vacant city hospital. Instead it appears we have an end-run around the public in order to plop down an auto-centric suburban model between two very dense neighborhoods.

Why not have an open RFP to see if a more urban-minded developer would come to the table to bring a decent mixed-use project to the site that works with the existing residential to the East? What about a design charette to get the community interested in the future of the site? Maybe a competition where local architecture & planning professionals (and students) might form teams to develop concepts for how to creatively use the site to enable Lafayette Ave to reconnect the Lafayette Square and Soulard neighborhoods?

I will be making a formal request to see if indeed a RFP was issued and Guilded Age selected as the designated developer for this site.