PR: Mayor appoints Roth Public Safety Director

The following is a press release:

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Bryson to serve as senior advisor on neighborhood affairs

St. Louis Mayor Francis G. Slay has appointed Eddie Roth as director of public safety for the City of St. Louis.

Roth, 53, came to city government in August 2011 to join the mayor’s staff as St. Louis’ chief performance officer. He was hired to implement recommendations made by IBM to reduce crime in St. Louis through improved coordination and communication in the City’s criminal justice system. IBM’s recommendations were part of St. Louis’ involvement, last year, in the company’s Smarter Cities Challenge program. St. Louis was the first city chosen, nationally, to participate in the program.

Mayor Slay seeks to accelerate the implementation process through Roth’s appointment as Public Safety Director.

“Eddie Roth’s experience as a Police Board president combined with his recent work to better coordinate the criminal justice system makes him ideally suited to serve as director of public safety during this important period in the City’s history,” said Mayor Slay.

Roth was a member of the Board of Police Commissioners from 1998 through 2001, serving as president in 2000-2001. He is a former editorial writer at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and before that practiced law for nearly 20 years. He is past president of the Shaw Neighborhood Improvement Association.

As public safety director, he will continue work as the city’s chief performance officer.

 “I look forward to working with the various arms of public safety in the City of St. Louis, including the Board of Alderman’s Public Safety Committee,” said Roth.

“As chairperson of the Public Safety Committee, I look forward to collaborating with Eddie Roth to increase safety and quality of life in the City of St. Louis,” said Alderman of the 27^th Ward Greg Carter.

Roth succeeds Charles Bryson, who has served as public safety director for five years. Bryson will rejoin the mayor’s staff as a senior policy advisor with a focus on neighborhoods.

“Charles deserves praise and thanks for his service in the Department of Public Safety,” said Mayor Slay. “Charles’ experience in creating more and better neighborhood partnerships will be beneficial to our City.”

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About the St. Louis Department of Public Safety:

The Department of Public Safety is the largest municipal government department in the City of St. Louis with more than 1,400 employees.  The Divisions of the Department of Public Safety are: 

• Building Division
• City Emergency Management Agency
• Corrections Division, which includes the City Justice Center and Medium Security Institution
• Excise Division (liquor control office)
• Fire Department, which includes the Bureau of Emergency Medical Services
• Neighborhood Stabilization Team, which includes Citizens’ Service Bureau
• Office of Special Events

The Department of Public Safety is responsible for:

• Code enforcement in the development of new construction and substantial rehabilitation
• Preventing use of unsafe buildings (monitoring unsafe buildings to prevent usage)
• Emergency management planning (and execution)
• Fire prevention and suppression (fire education and suppression)
• Emergency medical services
• Land use zoning
• Issuing permits for residential and commercial construction, business occupancy, the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages
• Management of correctional facilities (and inmates)
• Neighborhood safety, enrichment programs and citizen services (work order and complaint reporting system)
• Special events planning.

Downtown’s First Electric Vehicle Charging Station

Last month the first electric vehicle charging station opened in downtown St. Louis:

Microgrid Energy, based in Clayton, Missouri, unveiled its second charging station at its second hotel in less than a year, Thursday morning. Microgrid Energy spent a rainy Thursday morning celebrating the installation of the second station where customers can pay to charge their electric volt (or EV) cars.

The first was at the Moonrise on Delmar less than a year ago. (KPLR)

Earlier in the week I stopped by and saw it was being used.

From the company’s website:

Microgrid is helping lead the transition to Electric Vehicles (EVs). An extensive shift in infrastructure from gas stations to EV Charging Stations is required to fulfill the potential that EVs hold. This transition will go hand in hand with the transition to locally generated energy from renewable sources. EVs result in lower carbon emissions, but when coupled with onsite solar power, the carbon footprint can go to zero. (Source: Microgrid)

As a city and country we are a long way from mass consumer adoption of electric vehicles, but early adopters will pave the way:

The climate will get kinder for electric cars.

 A prolonged spike in oil prices may send consumers scrambling toward electric. Wider adoption rates should result in lower battery and car prices down the line.

 We’re just not there yet. (Daily Finance: 3 Reasons Why You’re Not Buying an Electric Car)

This charging station is next to the former downtownDillard’s, now home to the Laurel Apartments (an advertiser here) and Embassy Suites Hotel.

– Steve Patterson

Biondi Threatened To Move Saint Louis University Medical To St. Louis County

The presentations were completed and the Planning Commission had asked questions of Saint Louis University representatives about their appeal. Don Roe, Director of the St. Louis Urban Design & Planning Agency was discussing procedures with the members of the Planning Commission and Saint Louis University President Biondi got up and spoke for an additional two minutes — saying if the demolition of the Pevely office building isn’t granted he’ll move the medical center to St. Louis County.

Biondi shouldn’t have been allowed to speak at that point — anyone else in the room would have been silenced immediately. But what he said was a very clear threat –don’t overturn the Preservation Board’s decision and we’ll abandon the city like every other catholic hospital in town has done before us!

Sorry for the poor audio:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub8u2khAo3c

“What I forsee, if you don’t approve our request, is that we would have to shut down our medical school and find property in west county,” noting that 35 years ago, Maryville offered up land for the university to move west. Earlier, Biondi cited the school’s record of renovating and restoring historic buildings and also highlighted the law school’s impending move to downtown. (KMOX)

The Planning Commission voted to reverse the the Preservation Board and allow demolition of the corner office building with the condition a permit has been issued for construction of the new project.  They reversed the Preservation Board and allowed demolition of the historic smokestack without any conditions. They modified the Preservation Board decision on the milk plant and garage to allow demolition to proceed at once on those.

– Steve Patterson

St. Louis Question: Answer Depend On If You Attended High School Here

The results from last week’s poll was interesting to me. The question asked is below with the answers presented in order from highest to lowest responses:

Q: The St. Louis Question: “Where did you go to school?” is?

1. Just an ice breaker (I went to high school here) 40 [26.49%]
2. Highly parochial (I went to high school here) 24 [15.89%]
3. Annoying (I didn’t go to high school here) 22 [14.57%]
4. Annoying (I went to high school here) 16 [10.6%]
5. Other: 15 [9.93%]
6. Just an ice breaker (I didn’t go to high school here) 13 [8.61%]
7. Highly parochial (I didn’t go to high school here) 11 [7.28%]
8. Great question (I did go to high school here) 10 [6.62%]
9. Great question (I didn’t go to high school here) 0 [0%]

But it’s hard to draw any conclusions from the above as presented. Of the 151 responses, 136 answered with one of the predefined answers and the other 15 provided their own answer. I took the 136 that used the answers I provided and divided them based on if they went to high school here or not. Two-thirds of these did go to high school here, one third didn’t.

What we can see from the two pie charts is those of us that didn’t go to high school here (right) have very different thoughts on the question, with seventy-two percent of us selecting one of the two negative answers (annoying & highly parochial).  Conversely, fifty-five percent of those that did go to high school selected a positive answer (just an ice breaker & great question). No surprise, where you went to high school (here or not) influences your viewpoint.

The 15 “other” answers were:

1. An ingrained part of growing up in STL. I find it annoying, but am unable to b
2. a way to size someone up by class
3. More than highly parochial, it is often a hierarchical query..
4. It is an accepted, right or wrong, way of identifying you socio-economically. 
5. Lived here 2 and half years, never heard it.
6. used to discriminate and continue prejudice – another reason outsiders move away
7. a salute to St. Louis 
8. It’s part of the St. Louis culture – enjoy it, it makes you unique!
9. a way to pigeonhole people by class. (I didn’t go to high school here). 
10. Amusing. Especially from the perspective of one who was raised in the Metro-East 
11. Who the hell cares? I’m in grad school! 
12. An annoying question asked by dullards who have nothing more interesting to say 
13. Symptomatic of a insular, backwards, anti-progressive community. 
14. county – e, n w or south city east of grand west of grand TIRED TIRED TIRED 
15. not an issue…..not worth discussing…..people make too much of the question

Among the above you get a full range of views.

The city and region needs more people to grow and prosper economically and those from the region aren’t pro-creating fast enough, too many Catholics using contraception.The region must attract more people from outside while not pushing away those raised here or attended college here. Last week the RFT had an article and brilliant flow chart on this topic.

– Steve Patterson

Planning Commission To Hear Appeal On Denial Of Permit To Raze Historic Pevely Dairy (Update w/Agenda)

I have a note on my calendar that the St. Louis Planning Commission will hear an appeal of the Preservation Board’s decision in December 2011 to uphold the staff denial of Saint Louis University’s demolition requet for the historic Pevely Dairy at Grand & Chouteau tomorrow. Yesterday I tried to confirm this but was unable to do so online.

All I got was two links to an agenda from March 2011 — neither of which worked. Frustrating! The main page gave me some general information on the Planning Commission:

The thirteen-member Planning Commission adopts and amends the comprehensive Strategic Land Use Plan and General Land Use Plan for the City of St. Louis.

The Commission adopts zoning ordinances and makes decisions on some variance and all rezoning petitions, thereby guiding the development and redevelopment of the City. It also renews blighting studies and redevelopment plans and provides recommendations to the Board of Aldermen.

The Planning Commission consists of thirteen members. The following city officials are members: The President of the Board of Public Service and the Chairs of the Transportation and Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committees of the Board of Aldermen. The Mayor, Comptroller and President of the Board of Aldermen each designate one member. The Mayor appoints the seven remaining members (“citizen members”).

The directors of the Departments of Parks, Recreation and Forestry, Public Safety, Public Utilities and Streets serve as advisors to the Commission.

I emailed a couple of people and confirmed the Planning Commission will indeed hear an appeal to raze the Pevely Dairy at their meeting tomorrow:

The Planning Commission meets the first Wednesday of every month at 5:30 P.M. Meetings are held at the Planning & Urban Design Agency office located at 1015 Locust Street, Suite 1200 and are open to the public unless otherwise posted.

Hopefully the room will be packed with people supportive of the Preservation Board’s decision.

I’ll be at the meeting, will you? Update: view the agenda here.

– Steve Patterson