March 8, 2020Featured, STL Region, Sunday PollComments Off on Sunday Poll: Is The St. Louis Region Prepared For The Coronavirus?
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It’s a common joke that the first hint of a storm St. Louisans head to the store to buy bread, milk, & eggs. Now expand that globally.
Rationing supplies. Overwhelmed delivery workers. Toilet paper protected by security guards.
This is the new reality for some retailers, who are having to take drastic action to limit the number of toilet paper rolls, face masks and hand sanitizer bottles each person can buy as customers stockpile goods over fears of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
The epidemic has infected more than 97,000 people and killed 3,300 globally, leading to growing alarm that has resulted in mass bulk buying around the world. (CNN)
I’m not clear on how toilet paper is going to protect you from COVID-19. Last night the first case in Missouri was announced:
Gov. Parson said a St. Louis County woman in her 20s had traveled to Italy and was tested positive for COVID-19. The woman tested positive at a Mercy hospital in the St. Louis County area. The sample was sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A total of 26 people were tested for COVID-19 including the positive case. Three additional tests remain in progress. (KMOV)
Today’s poll isn’t about our personal stockpiles of supplies, but how our region will respond now that the Coronavirus has arrived.
This poll will close at 8pm tonight, assuming I have all the settings correct to deal with the start of Daylight Saving Time.
This Day in St. Louis History, February 16, 1959: Mill Creek Valley becomes “Hiroshima Flats”
With $7 million from a 1955 St. Louis Civic Progress bond issue and $21 million in federal funds, the Land Clearance Redevelopment Authority began clearing the 454 acres of Mill Creek Valley, from Lindell on the north and Scott on the south, and Twentieth on the east and Grand on the west. The historically black area’s homes and dilapidated buildings were razed for 132 acres of industrial sites, 26 acres of commercial, 83 acres of residential, a 22 acre extension of St. Louis University across Grand, and the Ozark Expressway. 1,772 families and 610 individuals were displaced, some of the poorest in the city, and almost all black. Slow redevelopment after the rather quick destruction gained the giant empty fields of land the nickname of “Hiroshima Flats.” The Mill Creek Valley site is now covered by the portion of St. Louis University east of Grand, Harris Stowe State University, and the Wells Fargo Advisors buildings.
Here’s more:
By World War II, Mill Creek’s tenements and faded town houses were home to nearly 20,000 people, many of them poor blacks who had migrated north from the cotton fields. More than half the dwellings lacked running water, and 80 percent didn’t have interior bathrooms.
Tucker proposed knocking over nearly everything and starting over. In 1955, city voters overwhelmingly approved a $10 million bond issue for demolition, on the promise that the federal government would reimburse most of it. The local NAACP endorsed the idea. Work began on Feb. 16, 1959, at 3518 Laclede Avenue, where a headache ball smashed a house that dated to the 1870s. (Post-Dispatch)
On December 16, 1950, my grandmother purchased a house from her landlords, Richard and Betty Bennett, at 2649 Bernard Street in Mill Creek for $1,400. She had saved the $100 down payment from her meager salary. Twenty years after leaving Earl, Arkansas, for St. Louis, she would finally have a home of her own with her son, his wife, and their eight children. She would be the last in a long line of owners of the hundred-year-old Italianate- style two-story dwelling.
My grandmother was unaware of the city’s plans when she bought her house in the neighborhood where she had lived since leaving the South. However, politicians, realtors, and religious and business leaders knew what the future held for this 450-acre neighborhood. Egged on by a series of derisive articles in the local media, the city was moving to deem the area “blighted.” The designation would pave the way for the eventual erasure of an entire African American community to make way for an interstate highway to the suburbs.
There you have it, an overview of Mill Creek Valley. It was sixty-one years ago today that demolition began, so that’s the subject of today’s poll.
The idea of a high speed tube transportation system connecting St. Louis to Kansas City (Missouri, not Kansas) was back in the news recently after getting initial approval the Missouri House:
Although the long-term goal is to connect St. Louis and Kansas City with a pneumatic tube people mover that could transport passengers across the state in 30 minutes, a recent study commissioned by House Speaker Elijah Haahr recommends the state should first build a 15-mile track to test the feasibility of the concept.
The report put the price tag on the test track at $300 million to $500 million. The cost to build a track linking St. Louis, Columbia and Kansas City is estimated at $10.4 billion.
Before lawmakers gave their approval, however, Fitzwater proposed an amendment that would ban eminent domain for tube transport systems. (Post-Dispatch)
For those unfamiliar with the term eminent domain
Eminent domain refers to the power of the government to take private property and convert it into public use. The Fifth Amendment provides that the government may only exercise this power if they provide just compensation to the property owners. (Wex legal dictionary)
My one and only Hyperloop poll was in October 2018, and readers were split on Missouri being able to afford such a massive project.
Today’s poll is about the amendment banning the use of eminent domain added to the Hyperloop bill.
As always, today’s poll will close at 8pm. On Wednesday I’ll share my thoughts on Hyperloop and eminent domain.
The group that backed the successful medical marijuana constitutional amendment in 2018 is looking for a repeat in November 2020. New Approach Missouri plans to gather signatures to place a measure on the November 2020 ballot for legalization of marijuana for recreational use.
New Approach’s petition would legalize adult use of marijuana for those 21 or older.
The state would tax sales at 15%, with the proceeds going to veterans, highways and drug addiction treatment.
People with marijuana convictions would also be able to apply for sentence reductions and conviction expungement. The petition would require local voter approval to ban dispensaries.
Fiscal analyses of the proposal estimate the program would generate between $93 million and $155 million for state coffers annually.
Running the program would cost the state $21 million initially and then $6 million a year. (Post-Dispatch)
Though the state has awarded licenses for medical marijuana businesses, actual sales won’t begin until the summer.
Today’s poll assumes they gather the required signatures in time.
Right now it’s hard to ignore Missouri’s neighbor to the north, Iowa. The Iowa Caucuses are the first in the nation to begin nominating presidential candidates.
The Iowa caucus campaigns are closing in on their final days. Whether you’ll be a first-time caucus participant or you’ve been participating for decades, now’s the time to put your knowledge to the test.
The caucuses gained national notoriety after helping catapult Jimmy Carter to the White House in 1976. This cycle has brought dozens of candidates to the state to win over Iowans. (Des Moines Register)
The Iowa Caucuses will take place on Monday February 3, 2020. Interestingly, due to a rule change, more than one candidate could claim victory. New Hampshire is next, with a traditional primary, on Tuesday February 11, 2020.
Though President Trump is being nominally challenged for the GOP nomination in most states, this primary season will focus on the still-large field of Democratic candidates. Their focus will soon turn to other states, including Missouri & Illinois.
Monday 2/3/2020: Iowa caucus
Tuesday 2/11/2020: New Hampshire primary
Saturday 2/22/2020: Nevada caucus
Saturday 2/29/2020: South Carolina primary
Tuesday 3/3/2020: Super Tuesday with 14 states, American Samoa, and Democrats Abroad
Tuesday 3/10/2020: Missouri, 4 other states, and Washington D. C.
Thursday 3/12/2020: Virgin Island caucus
Tuesday 3/17/2020: Illinois plus three other states.
This continues into early June, see the 270towin primary calendar page here.
The winner(s) of the Iowa caucus will get a bump in polls and media attention, but that’s no guarantee of a victory in November.
Only three politicians have won a contested Iowa caucus and become president — Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. (Business Insider)
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