Negligent Board Giving Away Charless Home

Despite the spin in the Post-Dispatch back in April the Charless Home, founded in 1853, is not “merging” with or being “acquired” by Bethesda Health Group. The folks I talked to tell me Charless’ Board is essentially paying Bethesda to take the south side landmark. The Charless Home has prime real estate at I-55 and South Broadway (map) yet the board has voted to give the real estate and millions of dollars to Bethesda in exchange for… well, nothing.

The board, comprised mainly of Clayton & Ladue socialites, is making a huge mistake. I’m told the Charless Home has nearly $17 million in the bank, hardly a distressed non-profit. A few board members voted against giving Charless to Bethesda and instead suggested they take on medicaid patients and consider constructing independent living housing on their grounds.

The one-sided article in the Post-Dispatch says staff didn’t want medicaid patients due to the paperwork. Wrong. The issue is the country club board didn’t want to spend any money upgrading the facility, instead finding it easier to give away the 153-year old institution. The grounds, just two blocks from my house, are spectacular. The setting is ideal for constructing new independent living apartments facing Osceola St. &/or Nebraska Ave.

Bethesda is talking about ensuring the facility remains open for at least three more years but I can’t see families entrusting their loved ones here with the possibility of future closure. Also, I’ve heard talk of Bethesda building some new building in St. Louis County and calling it “Charless at Bethesda” or a similarly offensive name.

Back to the location. I have fears a deal is already in the works to sell the property and raze all the structures and mature trees. I suspect city and Ald. Ortman (9th Ward) will use the “we need retail & sales tax” argument to go along with the demolitions. The property, originally 8 acres, was reduced to just over 1.6 acres over the years as the adjacent neighborhood developed. Still, I can see a big box developer eyeing the property’s easy highway access and visibility and try to get a couple of more adjacent blocks razed for a big development.

And before I hear the now tired “it is not in your ward” argument let me state that the other three corners of my intersection are the 9th Ward. So while I am in the 25th Ward I look at the 9th Ward daily. Furthermore, a potential buyout of homes and demolition to create a large site could end up directly across the street from me.

While this board is off playing golf with their country club buddies from Bethesda it will be those of us in the city left to deal with the consequences of their actions. If they didn’t want to take the responsibility to see the 153+ year old facility continue they should have resigned from the board so that community leaders with vision for the future of the city could take their place.

At the very least I would like some assurances the property is not leveled. The building and setting are spectacular and has great reuse potential. Our city continues to face critical urban development decisions but the decision makers are woefully inadequate.

– Steve

Bosnian Festival Enlivens Bevo Neighborhood

Last weekend the 3rd Annual Bosnian Festival took place despite the extreme heat. It didn’t take long to determine that “voda” is Bosnian for water. Not that I was clever or anything, it helped having a friend originally from Sarajevo to interpret the menus and such. With the exception of cake, all the food contained meat so this vegetarian stuck to water.

It was nice being in a place where another language is spoken, if not for the sprawling QT across Gravois I might have thought I was in Europe.

The crowd gathered around the music stage for various performances during the afternoon. The Bevo Mill make a nice backdrop for the events.

In the nearly 16 years I’ve lived in St. Louis we’ve had quite an uptick in immigration helping offset population losses as natives continued to flee to the suburbs. Immigration is important to the life of a thriving city as our new residents bring language, food, and customs different than our own. This adds an interesting layer to urban life.

Sadly, I think too often our new citizens try to hard to fit in to our society — adopting our wasteful ways of driving everywhere and aspiring to a home in the suburbs. Part of coming to America is a better life and for many that means a private car rather than mass transit or a bicycle of their home country.

We need more people in the City of St. Louis, a good 100,000 or so. I don’t think we are going to steal these kind of numbers away from St. Charles County anytime soon and the region is not growing at a fast enough pace for us to add this many in the coming decades. Increased immigration into St. Louis may well be the key to repopulating the city.

– Steve

How Secure is the City’s Computer Network?

Two weeks ago, on Tuesday May 15, 2006, my website was attacked. I did a post the next day but did not share any details on the source. Well, it was from the City of St. Louis. Not within the city limits but from the government of the City of St. Louis.

For about an hour and a half a server(s) asked for my main page at a rate of twenty times per second. At the time I characterized it as a deliberate denial of service attack.

I know a bit more now so let me share what I’ve been told. First, depending upon who you talk to you get a different answer — typical with technology issues. The chart at the right shows information on visits to my site all in mostly cryptic IP address. The top one, however, has been confirmed as being from the City of St. Louis. That IP is their standard outgoing IP for 42 various locations. As you can see the numbers are totally off the chart compared to typical traffic coming from many different ISP connections.

The city’s private security consultant did not want to characterize this as an attack. In fact, he said they can’t really track anything down because they have so many sites all using the same IP. I’ve been told attackers can sometimes “spoof” where they are coming from by giving a false IP address but apparently the type of tracking report my hosting company uses sees the real IP.

This leaves three scenarios.

Some have suggested the city’s server just randomly messed up and began hitting a site by mistake, my site. Can you imagine the odds of that? Another is that someone from outside the city’s network hacked into their system so they could launch the attack on my site and do it through the city’s system. That would be a scary thought that someone could do such a thing but I’ve been told it is not out of the realm of possibilities. The other, more realistic, conclusion is that someone did make a malicious attempt to knock out my site from within the system of the City of St. Louis. As I stated above, I’m told they have over 42 locations using the same IP address from the firewall.

I’ve reported the abuse to SBC (AT&T), the city’s internet provider. I’ve gotten a response only to say they are looking into the issue. I’m not hopeful they will be anymore forthcoming with information than the city’s security consultant was.

My site was slowed to the point of nearly being shut down. Sadly, the attack affected about 50 other sites on the same server including all the other blogs on the STL Syndicate and the Arch City Chronicle. The extra 5gb of bandwidth used by this attack does not come free.

Someone probably got a pretty good laugh over the whole deal but it shows a level of immaturity and fear that is unacceptable. If you don’t like my views write a well-reasoned opposing view but don’t resort to criminal activity just because you don’t like the message.

– Steve

Urban Review Privacy Policy

Given recent flack over comment tracking and such I thought it best to explain a few things and clarify how information is used or not used.

First, every website you visit tracks your IP address and creates a big log showing traffic. This is how sites know things like the number of unique visitors or total page views in a month. I have looked at my log a total of once — the day after my site was attacked. I do not and will not search through a 100,000 lines of boring code. Furthermore, this information will not be sold or given to anyone for private or commercial purposes.

Many blogs, such as MayorSlay.com, do not permit comments at all. I happen to like the discussion so comments are very important. Some sites have moderated comments where they appear only after being approved by the host. I don’t like that either. Since day one my comments have been open and people are free to post anonymously.

The site structure requires a name & email address. These can be your actual name & email or they can be completely false. I have many people that comment here on a regular basis that disagree with me — some using their real info and others that don’t.

If you post a comment you’ll see that in addition to name & email address a place for a URL exists. You are free to add a website address in this location. With a website address the public reading the comments will see the URL rather than the email address you use. Without a URL, the public reading comments will see the email address you use. In the past, people have been really clever with made up names & email addresses. I want to repeat this, everyone reading the site can see the email address you use on comments unless you use a URL (I still see your email address regardless). If you do not want me or the general public to see your actual email address then simply make one up.

For the record, email addresses are not gathered for any purpose private or commercial. This data is not even complied so it is not used to send out spam or other. It will never be sold.

I do look occasionally to see if a new comment matches up with any earlier comments, especially if the post catches my eye. I do publicly reply to comments to a few as time permits. I get a large volume of comments so I mostly scan them to make sure they are not offensive or otherwise inappropriate.

And yes, there are comments you do not see. I’ve had cases where people abused the system. People have made highly personal comments about some of the people discussed here, suggesting they have mental illness, engaging in extra marital affairs, etc… These were intended to inflict pain or cause major personal embarrassment for the people they were about — I removed these immediately as they were unverified and on a personal level unrelated to the issues. I’ve also had cases where people try to pose as someone else. Using the IP address information I was able to verify a couple of comments as not being from the public figures that were claimed as they came from the same location as another person. These comments, trying to pose as public officials, were immediately deleted so as not to mislead the public reading my site and to help protect the integrity of the people mentioned. In one case I warned a reader not to continue to post as someone else or use foul language or he would be banned. These are the things you don’t see.

Even computer IP addresses can be misleading to a degree. For example, multiple people posting from wi-fi locations such as Hartford Coffee will show up as being from the same location as these are internet connection, not computer, specific. People posting from the same company will appear as being from the same place as well. For the most part, I can draw no specific conclusions other than they are from the same place, a place that I have no idea where it is.

Yes, posting a comment on my site may mean I will highlight that comment in its own post. I’ve done it before and may well do it again. Posting an anonymous name & email address will ensure that your thoughts are just that — anonymous. Posting your real name &/or email address may lead myself or anyone of the 16,000+ monthly readers to call you out publicly.

On a related side note: For those that are concerned about computer safety you really should consider a web browser other than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. In April 2006 63% of the visitors to this site used IE even though it cannot be trusted as it can lead to vulnerabilities within your system. A great alternative to IE is the open source browser Firefox which is free for Windows & Mac users. Over 11% of you are really smart and use Macs.

So, thank you so much for reading and participating in discussions here. Be savvy about when & where you give out your personal information (here and anywhere).

– Steve

Who Can It Be Knocking At My Door

One of the best things about having such a well-read website is all the feedback I get — both the pro & con. I love nothing better than a good debate on issues. Of course, some comments have little to do with the actual issue and simply seek to bash me. I’m pretty thick skinned so I can handle it. Such was the case with this comment a couple of weeks ago:

From “James” on 5/13/06:

I think it is fortunate for Steve Patterson that this is a Blog. It is human nature to give more credibility to items that are read than those heard by word of mouth. For this reason, Steve is able to present himself as a Journalist in order to gain credibility all the while using this sight for his own personal gain. It is really kind of clever because Steve can write absolutely anything he wants and people will read it and think because of the lay-out it is true. Talk about self-serving.. tell me Steve.. are you planning on moving to the 15th ward anytime soon? I heard forces outside of the Ward may render it alderman-less pretty soon.. maybe if you could run opposed the people would be idiotic enough to elect you.

A couple of hours later I got the following comment, sent from the same location [computer IP, unknown physical location] as “James” from above.

From “Megan” on 5/13/06:

I am a Journalism student at the University of Missouri-Columbia. I heard about your blog through various sources and I decided to check it out.
Recently, in one of my Journalism classes we discussed the dangers of blogging to the field of Convergence Journalism. The Convergence field of Journalism is a newly recognized (it is the first year this sequence has been offered at MIZZOU) sequence that focuses mostly on Online Publishing and Online Periodicals (CBSNews.com, etc). The problem of blogging is that in creating a blog and deeming it a title so decidedly journalistically inclined as the “Urban Review” you are lending a false credibility to yourself and, in essence, misleading those who may misinterpret your articles as truth instead of simply your opinion. I am sure that you think that you are very unbiased but the truth is that as a Journalism student I am horrified at what blogs like yours will mean for the future of Convergence Journalism. I can see that you have been praised by several in my future chosen field, but I am simply horrified and insulted by your irresponsible use of a blog for your own ulterior motives.

The above two comments were among a total of 70 on this post from May 10th. Yesterday I get another comment from the same location [cryptic IP, unknown physical location] answering another commenter’s question from a different post about what Metamora has to do with Jennifer Florida.

From Ian on 5/31/06:

Michael Allen

The comment about Metamora is a reference to where she was raised. She was born in Peoria Illinois and was on the road with her father and mother until middle school, when her parents settled down. She lived there until she graduated from college. Metamora is located about twenty five miles South East of Peoria, it has a population of roughly three thousand, however, due largely to many residents of Peoria leaving the city, Metamora’s population has been steadily growing.

So Ian is posting from the same location as James & Megan. Interesting. And who is this Ian with email address ief919@truman.edu? Well, I believe that would be one of Jennifer Florida’s children, Ian Florida.

Today Ian posted another comment, this time on the post about the ACC;

Doug Duckworth

Your assertion that citizens are moving out of the area because of the “botched” redevelopment of the Sear’s site is absurd. People have been leaving this city for many years, just look at the population statistics and crime rate and you’ll see for yourself why. The city’s crime rate has risen from roughly 38,000 in 2000 to
over 45,000 according to the most recent estimate. While at the same time the population has dropped from 396,685 in 1990 to 348K in 2000 and is now hovering just under 340K. It would be much more rational to draw a correlation and subsequantly attempt to prove a causation between crime and people fleeing the city than your supposition that its all Florida and McDonalds.

So this leaves me wondering, who are “James” and “Megan?” Also, does Ian Florida share his mother’s view that a new McDonald’s will help reduce crime?

The soap opera that is the McDonald’s on Grand continues….

[UPDATE 6/2/06 @ 4am – I added a bit of clarification to the above shown in brackets. I have no clue as to the physical location of the single IP address where these came from, nor do I really care. Nor do I know about 99% of the visitors/commenters to the site. I have not done any research on her kids, an there are many, and only know Ian is her son because she mentioned him at the SSNB ribbon cutting on Wednesday. For all of you that want to think I’ve been doing major digging get over it already — I simply observed four comments came from the same computer location of an unknown physical location. Without her mentioning her son at a public event I would not have been able to know that was who posted. ]

[UPDATE 6/2/06 @ 5:30am – please see my next post on privacy policy.

– Steve