Sinquefield Flack Admits City/County Unificaiton Plan Is About Eliminating Earnings Tax

St. Louis Business Journals noted recently that "Republican strategist" Gregg Keller tweeted that he was in favor of the City/County unification plan proposed by right-wing millionare Rex Sinquefield's group Better Together STL because it would get rid of St. Louis's earning tax:

Earnings tax: gutted. City aldermanic system: gutted. Dozens of governmental entities: gutted. Hundreds of millions in annual governmental duplication: gutted. https://t.co/dpUp5TBNCi

— Gregg Keller (@RGreggKeller) December 30, 2018

What they didn't note, however, was that Keller is a member of the board of Rex's original right-wing think tank, the Show Me Institute. So it seems like he might have a pretty good idea of what the real intentions are behind this plan. And, of course, the earnings tax has long been a white whale for Rex, since wrecking the state economy of Kansas ceased to be amusing. And for anyone wondering just how much old Rex values independent thinking in those on his payroll, keep in mind that the muesum he bankrolls recently ran an exhibit titled, literally, "The Sinquefield Effect."

Rex Sinquefield Refers To International Master in Chess as "Some Blond"

The favorite right-wing millionare of the corporate wing of the St. Louis Democrats disgraced himself even more than usual last November by referring to Anna Rudolph, an International Master of chess, as "some blond" on the Today in Chess program. As was pointed out by many chess commentators, Rex himself has not achieved IM status.

Found it... pic.twitter.com/Ae8N0vbR2s

— Charlie the Chess Cat (@CharlieChessCat) November 11, 2018

It's just so strange that Rex engaged in such blatant sexism, since all of the St. Louis Rexocrats kept telling me that old man Rex is a committed libertarian who's, like, totally cool and compassionate on social issues even while he works tirelessly to defund state and city governments. It's almost as if he's just a typical old cranky conservative who figured out how that he can buy off unprincipled "Democrats" in order to get them to sell out the citizens of cities like St. Louis and Kansas City.

St. Louis Public Radio Story on the Nicastro Scandal

Dale Singer has a nice story up at the newly merged St. Louis Public Radio/Beacon site on the Nicastro controversy.  There's a lot in there, so please read the whole thing, but here are a few highlights:

Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal says that Nicastro has not been honest during her time at DESE:

“My total issue,” she said, “has been her not being transparent and telling the truth. She tells school board members one thing and she tells senators and representatives something else. Since I serve in both capacities, I’m hearing both sides.”

Specifically, Chappelle-Nadal complained that when Normandy absorbed the Wellston school district in 2010, she was told that the district would not lose accreditation for at least three years. The district lost accreditation two years later, leading to the student transfers that have resulted in serious financial problems and questions about whether the district can survive.

“When you make a commitment,” Chappelle-Nadal said, “you stick to your commitment. The one thing I will never ever ever ever tolerate is an administrator who misrepresents the truth and makes misstatements and outright lies.

It doesn't look like the controversy is going away any time soon.  The Kansas City School District filed suit to prevent the state's breakup of their school district, stating that Nicastro has been working "covertly to orchestrate a breakup of (the district) into charter schools."

And Tom Schweich has asked for documents to investigate Nicastro's decision to change wording on DESE's cost estimate (or lack thereof).  There are reasons, however, to be skeptical about the chances of Schweich taking any action that would negatively impact Sinqeufield's agenda. Many reasons.

Mike Jones, a senior policy adviser to Charlie Dooley and the vice president of the state board of education, had a jaw-dropping quote:

“But the process of making the sausage is a different issue. I’m big on accountability. I think transparency is fairly overrated. Transparency is a liberal fetish. It’s way overemphasized.”

 His full quote is a little more nuanced and contains some interesting observations:

“On one side you have the education reform establishment. There is a small group of people who want it to work for all children, then there are two other groups: libertarians, who live in a fantasy world and don’t believe in public education, and corporate interests, who see education as a cash cow.

“Then you have the education establishment. They are genuinely concerned about the education of kids, except they collectively seem to lack the will to fundamentally change the way we deliver public education. They have lost the moral high ground.”

It sounds like Jones is thoughtful about this issue, but I have a feeling the transparency quote is not going to go over very well and will lead to future headaches.

Finally, I wanted to make sure to flag this important tidbit:

Sinquefield has declined repeated requests for an interview on his stand on education issues.

Rex spends millions to bend state policy to his will, relying on slick advertising campaigns and predetermined "reports" from stink tanks rather than comprehensive, honest debate.  So it figures that he would not want to answer questions about his true views.  

The Usual Suspects Say Open and Transparent Government is Overrated

Republican Jay Barnes wrote a blog post claiming that the Nicastro scandal wasn't really a scandal because, I guess, unions are bad, and they have secret bad motives.  How exactly the claim that unions are big meanies gets Nicastro off the hook for pushing for a no bid contract and then rigging the process is left unexplained, but that didn't stop Rex Sinquefeld's favorite Democrats from declaring that the Republican's post was a vindication of Nicastro.

Martin Casas, of course, declared that the Nicastro scandal "is a total farce:"

(note the "favorite" by the director of one of Sinquefield's front groups)

And Robbyn Wahby linked to the post saying that it revealed "the full story:"

Wahby, however, is a member of CEE-Trust, so it's not exactly surprising that she's a fan of rigged processes that get CEE-Trust lucrative contracts:

Not surprising. But worth noting.  And twenty years from now, if school privatization has gone bonkers and the schools are still a mess, it will be worth remembering.

Chris Nicastro Redux

Another scandal for the Missouri Commissioner of Education.

Strange. I seem to remember Rex Sinquefield's front group CEAM actively rooting for the failure of the Kansas City public schools as well.

State Education Commissioner Helps Right-Wing Front Group Write Evasive Ballot Language

Here's a November 21 statement from the Missouri NEA site:

(Jefferson City, MO) Today education leaders from the American Federation of Teachers, Missouri National Education Association and the Missouri State Teachers Association issued the following joint statement regarding press reports of Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro’s covert conversations with Rex Sinquefield lobbyist Kate Casas. 

“As educators we are disturbed by Commissioner Nicastro’s covert communication with a registered lobbyist, her potential disregard of open meetings law, and the circumvention of input from anyone involved in the day-to-day operations of public schools. 

Published reports indicate Commissioner Nicastro actively assisted a special interest lobbyist in crafting language for an amendment to the Missouri Constitution and ordering DESE staff not to post items to the State Board of Education’s public agenda. Nicastro assured special interest groups the fiscal note outlining the financial impact would be favorable.

The professional staff at DESE developed language that disclosed the potential significant costs to local districts. However, Nicastro chose to personally override her financial experts at the expense of taxpayers. 

Government officials have a duty to act in an open and transparent manner for the benefit of the citizens of the state of Missouri – Commissioner Nicastro’s actions fall short of that duty.”

More soon.

Sinquefield Spokesperson Not Sure If Sinquefield Has Opinion On Sinquefield-Funded Project

From a recent Beacon article:

Better Together executive director Nancy Rice said last week that she hasn't talked to Sinquefield about the new organization.

Better Together is funded by the Missouri Council for a Better Environment (MCBE).  Nancy Rice is the media contact person for MCBE, a group previously funded exclusively by Sinquefield.  She's a spokesperson for Sinquefield.  She works for his lobbying group. Sinquefield was reported in August to be working on this project.

These games are silly.  Just stop.

Déjà Vu: Casas Confused About The Group He's Working For, Again

A long while back, I reported on how St. Louis "Democrats" were being paid off by extreme right-wing ideologue Rex Sinquefield to work on the ballot initiative restoring local control of the police department to St. Louis.  As I've said many times, I support local control, and in fact worked with the groups who had been pushing for local control long before it occurred to the St. Louis establishment that it might be a politically useful campaign. However, I had concerns about the way the campaign was being run as a PR campaign for Rex Sinquefield and anti-tax groups around the state.

Specifically, I was critical of one of Sinquefield's group's primary beneficiaries, Martin Casas, who repeatedly claimed to be clueless about the operation he was working on.  Casas wrote an article for Vital Voice asking people to sign a petition for United for Missouri, a right-wing group run by Sinquefield's employee Carl Bearden, who among many other things:

Voted to ban the existence of gay/straight student alliances in Missouri.

Was a co-sponsor of HB885 in 2004, which would "Prohibit public institutions or any entity receiving state funds from adopting discrimination policies that exceed state and federal protections against discrimination."

Voted in favor of placing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Missouri on the 2004 ballot.

So Casas wrote an article for St. Louis's premier LGBT news source asking people to hand their contact information over to a dude categorically opposed to equal rights.  And to make it worse, rather than just being honest about it, when I asked Casas about who was handling the emails from the petition, he responded by claiming: "I have no idea! I'm working on #LocalControl!" The idea that Casas, a failed candidate for state office, had been contracted to get signatures to an online petition without having any idea of what would be done with the signatures is pretty ridiculous, even for him.

So now we have a new Sinquefield-backed initiative, described by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch way back in August, created to "study" various aspects of City and County services. Again, I personally think the City and County should be merged.  But like the Post-Dispatch editorial board, I think this discussion should be transparent and honest, rather than opaque and deceptive.  However, rather than being honest, the group, staffed by Rex's previous campaign operatives, is pretending to be unconnected to Rex Sinquefield.

So for starters, let's just be clear that the Twitter feed for the group, Better Together St. Louis, is run by Martin Casas.  With his usual stealth, Casas managed to tweet and post on facebook an identical post using his personal account and Better Together simultaneously, demonstrating that he's running both.

But what's really amazing is that Casas is again acting clueless about Rex Sinquefield's involvement in the group.  During a Twitter conversation, Casas initially said that Sinquefield wasn't involved in funding the group, then said he "didn't know" after it was pointed out that Sinquefeld was previously the only funder of the group, MCBE (Missouri Council for a Better Economy) that paid for "A Better St. Louis":

So Casas, for the second time, gets very confused when he's asked about whether he's working for a Sinquefield group and in what capacity. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, Casas is pretty irrelevant to whatever policy outcomes might occur.  Yet this whole approach is suggestive of a broader disdain for the public from the group.  Rather than simply being up front about Sinquefield's involvement, the effort so far has been designed, rather sloppily I might add, to act as though Rex has nothing to do with it, though he clearly has been involved in the planning and financing of the plan for a long time.  And if they can't just admit that he's a key part of the effort, what else are they trying to hide?  And more importantly, as the Kansas City Star's Yael Aboulhalkah asked, "What's in it for Rex?"

Missouri Jobs with Justice Says Vote NO on Proposition A. I agree

Supporters of the bill are flat out falsely claiming that this will make it easier to get a civilian review board, even though the ballot language explicitly prevents this.  Jobs with Justice, and pretty much all of the activists who have worked on this issue for over 10 years, are opposed to the phony version of "local control" expressed in Proposition A.  The people pushing this bill are working for multi-millionaire right-wing extremist Rex Sinquefield, who sees Missouri as his personal chess board.  Here's the text of the message from Missouri JWJ:

Jobs with Justice has supported local control of the St. Louis City Police Department, collective bargaining rights for police officers, and a civilian review board for our neighbors for over a decade.

However, the current ballot initiative proposing local control of the police unnecessarily undermines the power of a civilian review board and threatens good community/police relations.

Therefore we endorse a NO vote on Prop A, but continue to support other efforts to return control of the St. Louis City Police Department in a way that protects the rights of our police force and our neighbors by protecting collective bargaining rights for officers and the establishment of a civilian review board for our city. For more information check out: www.citizensagainstpropa.com.


Proposition A

Official Ballot Title:

    Shall Missouri law be amended to:
However, the current ballot initiative proposing local control of the police unnecessarily undermines the power of a civilian review board and threatens good community/police relations.

Therefore we endorse a NO vote on Prop A, but continue to support other efforts to return control of the St. Louis City Police Department in a way that protects the rights of our police force and our neighbors by protecting collective bargaining rights for officers and the establishment of a civilian review board for our city. For more information check out: www.citizensagainstpropa.com.


Proposition A

Official Ballot Title:

    Shall Missouri law be amended to:
Therefore we endorse a NO vote on Prop A, but continue to support other efforts to return control of the St. Louis City Police Department in a way that protects the rights of our police force and our neighbors by protecting collective bargaining rights for officers and the establishment of a civilian review board for our city. For more information check out: www.citizensagainstpropa.com.


Proposition A

Official Ballot Title:

    Shall Missouri law be amended to:

Proposition A
Official Ballot Title:
    Shall Missouri law be amended to:
 allow any city not within a county (the City of St. Louis) the option of transferring certain obligations and control of the city’s police force from the board of police commissioners currently appointed by the governor to the city and establishing a municipal police force;
establish certain procedures and requirements for governing such a municipal police force including residency, rank, salary, benefits, insurance, and pension; and
prohibit retaliation against any employee of such municipal police force who reports conduct believed to be illegal to a superior, government agency, or the press?
    State governmental entities estimated savings will eventually be up to $500,000 annually. Local governmental entities estimated annual potential savings of $3.5 million; however, consolidation decisions with an unknown outcome may result in the savings being more or less than estimated.

For the Full Text of Proposition A, visit this page on this Secretary of State's website. For the Fair Ballot Language, visit this page on the Secretary of State's website. To see the full list of MO JwJ's recommendations on this election's Propositions and Amendments, click here.

Sinquefield Is Bad For St. Louis, But Has Paid Off Enough People That It Doesn't Matter

As reported by Progress Missouri last week, Rex Sinquefield openly bragged about killing the potential game-changer for St. Louis known as the China Hub. Said Rex:

“The institution most responsible for torpedoing that [China cargo hub bill] was the Show-Me Institute”

Today, KMOX reports that St. Louis is "watching in envy" as Illinois might get the deal:

Now organizers of the failed [Missouri China Hub] effort are watching with envy as Illinois considers a China hub of its own. St. Clair County officials are debating whether to issue a half-billion dollars worth of bonds to help attract international cargo flights to Mid-America Airport in Mascoutah

You might think this would have some negative repercussions for Rex, since he potentially just cost the region many jobs. You'd be wrong, though, because between his unlimited donations to politicians, his donations to local cultural institutions, and his putting political figures directly on his payroll, Rex is basically protected from even the possibility of criticism from the St. Louis media. He's a great case study in how money + a largely sycophantic local media make it incredibly easy for the wealthy to undermine the best interests of the community without even having to explain themselves.

Are Missouri Republicans More Willing To Stand Up To Sinquefield Than St. Louis Democrats?

Fired Up Missouri posted audio earlier in the week of Republican Senate appropriations chair Kurt Schaefer saying that Rex Sinquefield's disastrous Everything Tax "scares the bejesus" out of him while Sinquefield was sitting in front of him:

“It scares the bejesus out of me what's going to happen if we phase into this and we have a substantial dip in general revenue,” said Senator Schaefer, who also said he was “intrigued” by the concept of a higher sales tax, in general. But “I'm very concerned about what happens when it phases in, especially during the phase in, and whether or not we have a substantial dip in general revenue because we cannot take it right now.”

Which makes me wonder: why are statewide Republicans so much more willing to publicly criticize crazy right-wing ideas from Sinquefield than many (but not all) St. Louis Democrats? They're all getting "donations" from Rex, but shouldn't Rex's St. Louis Democrats be able to, you know, actually stand up for Democratic values on financial issues every now and then?

Mayor Slay's Education Team Turns a Blind Eye to Michelle Rhee's Scandals

Michelle Rhee, hailed as a prophet by people who want to privatize education and destroy teachers' unions despite her sketchy results and lack of an education background other than a year short stint teaching, is getting involved in Missouri politics, with her group "Students First" (bankrolled by undisclosed donors) pushing for new education laws in the state. Local right-wing zealot Mark Reardon naturally had Rhee on his radio show to discuss her history and the legislation. Here's what Mayor Slay's education adviser Robbyn Wahby, last seen attending a Koch brothers-funded American's for Prosperity propaganda panel on education with Dick Morris, Dana Loesch, and Gateway Pundit, had to say about it:


It's sad that the Mayor's staff would so uncritically praise Rhee's status despite the fact that numerous experts have claimed that the D.C. school district results that catapulted her to fame were fraudulent. A recent article explained it well:

Investigations questioned many of Rhee’s accomplishments in increasing test scores in D.C. schools. In 2008, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education discovered that 103 schools -– more than half of D.C. schools -- were flagged by third parties for suspiciously high wrong-to-right answer changes. These including eight of the 10 campuses where Rhee handed out TEAM awards “to recognize, reward and retain high-performing educators and support staff.”

During Rhee’s tenure, CTB/McGraw-Hill informed her office of abnormally high rates of answer changes at Noyes Elementary School. Answers were consistently changed from wrong to right. The gains in test scores made at Noyes earned the school recognition as a Blue Ribbon School. Rhee promoted the school as a model for her education reform movement.

Statisticians, including Professor Emeritus Thomas Haladyna, told USA Today “the odds are better for winning the Powerball grand prize than having that many erasures by chance.”

Haladyna suggested the answer sheets had been tampered with.

Furthermore:

The Washington Post reported Jan. 31 that for the most part there was little meaningful change in the D.C. schools’ testing performance over the past two full school years following Rhee’s exit.

Moreover, the graduation rate was also essentially unchanged -- moving from 72 percent in 2009 to 73 percent in 2010 (2011 rates will be released later this year).

According to Rhee’s own policy standards, her performance bonus program has not worked. And the same thing goes for her other signature policies, including D.C.’s new evaluation system and the annual dismissals based on the results of that system.

So Rhee is someone with almost no education background, who is being funded by undisclosed donors, and whose only success story was based on an absurdly high erased wrong-to-correct test answers. Yet she is being hailed uncritically by Mayor Slay's staff in order to push their agenda (and, no doubt, to keep that sweet, sweet Sinquefield money flowing to the campaign). If Slay's office really wants to claim that they're doing this "for the children," then they owe it to the children to make sure they are relying on credible information rather than propaganda.

Update: To be clear, Rhee doesn't, as far as I know, advocate for the privatization of schools; I just meant she's a hero to those who do. And I agree that we need changes in education, but let's do it carefully and not rely on the gospel of someone whose "success story" looks pretty questionable and is currently being investigated!

What's Worse Than a Democrat Paid By Sinquefield Keeping Quiet About Rex's Crazy Ideas?

As I documented yesterday, there are a lot of St. Louis "Democrats" being paid by Rex Sinquefield who are mysteriously keeping quiet about his crazy ideas, even those ideas that cut funding for Missouri schools. But you know what's even worse? Democrats being directly paid to advocate for his crazy ideas!

John Temporiti, the former chief of staff for Charlie Dooley who is still listed as Dooley's campaign Treasurer and getting reimbursed by his campaign on the latest finance reports, received $7,500 for "campaign expenses" from the Sinquefield funded-group designed to get rid of the income tax and increase sales taxes (which would have the effect of both gutting state government and shifting the tax burden overwhelmingly to the poor and middle class and away from the rich).

You might remember Temporiti from the fact that his son Mike Temporiti was awarded a $70,000 patronage job during a hiring freeze in St. Louis County:

In January, with St. Louis County in the third year of a hiring and pay freeze, Mike Temporiti landed a $70,000 county job.

Temporiti, 27, is now the county's abatement compliance officer. It's a brand new job, created just for him in the Revenue Department. His salary is the ninth highest of the 237 employees in the department.

The job was never posted, and Temporiti did not have to interview for it.

He is a lawyer and the son of John Temporiti, who is County Executive Charlie A. Dooley's longtime campaign treasurer and manager and former chief of staff.

Also in the same Post-Dispatch article:

Several county employees, including some in the Revenue Department, have complained to the Post-Dispatch about the hiring of Mike Temporiti. They asked to remain anonymous because they fear retribution from their supervisors.

They dispute Earls' contention that the job is essential or that it needs to be full time.

"It's a task that could easily have been relegated to a current employee without adding too much strain to their current job," one employee said. "It would have only entailed several extra hours a week."

Oh, and there's also this:

Katy Temporiti, who is married to John Temporiti's eldest son, John Jr., is also a patronage employee, as a part-time administrative assistant in the Parks and Recreation Department. Since hiring her six years ago this month, the county has paid her a total of about $178,000....

At the time she was hired, John Temporiti was serving as Dooley's chief of staff..

Katy Temporiti's supervisor, Chief Parks Ranger John Nesbit, said Temporiti primarily worked from home.

Just read the whole article (which has a lot more detail and nuance) and reach your own conclusions.

St. Louis County Executive Dooley, of course, is also a frequent recipient of Sinquefield's donations.

Follow Michael Bersin at Show Me Progress for more details about various campaign finance reports.

Finance Report for Fake Local Control: How A Right-Wing Idealogue Pays Off Local "Democrats"

Now that the Mayor's office and right-wing multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield have thrown local control activists under the bus and are pushing for a new ballot initiative that would actually decrease accountability and transparency, it might be worth taking a closer look at some of the campaign finance reports for Rex's front group, A Safer Missouri. Rex, if you recall, wants to gut state government and shift the tax burden to the poor, and local "Democrats" who get paid by him conveniently stay quiet on these disastrous ideas, just like they did when Rex pushed a statewide ballot initiative to get rid of the earnings tax. How many local "Democrats" need to be on the payroll of a right-wing ideologue with crazy ideas before St. Louis residents start to worry about our City's future?

First things first for documenting the atrocities: the astroturf local control group is called A Safer Missouri. Only one person has ever donated to the group: Rex Sinquefield.


And who benefits from the amazing generosity of Rex, who graciously took time out of his busy schedule of trying to privatize everything in Missouri to magically start caring about this issue last year? Why, St. Louis "Democrats" of course! One of the biggest beneficiaries was Martin Casas, former President of the St. Louis Young Dems and a current candidate for the Missouri House of Representatives. Casas, if you recall, previously said that he had no position on the disastrous Everything Tax, which should be enough to disqualify anyone from calling themselves a Democrat, asked people to sign a petition from the right-wing front group United for Missouri while working for Rex, and also claimed that he had "no idea" if signing up for A Safer Missouri would help build Rex's email list:


In light of how much Casas was paid by Rex, it's pretty hard to believe this claim was true. And how much was that? Casas got close to a cool $20,000 from Rex Sinquefield in 2011 according to the most recent campaign report:

And this is all in addition to the fact that Casas's wife is also on Rex's payroll, through a different organization.

Another local principled "Democrat" who benefited from Sinquefield's kindheartedness was Gregg Christian, Democratic Committeeman in the 15th Ward. Here's A Safer Missouri's payment to Christian's company Gladius Communications for "graphic design:"

Was Gladius responsible for this beautiful logo? Cause I'd say that's worth about $4,000 just by itself:

Another local Democrat paid off in this campaign is Nancy Rice, but she's paid by Rex for a lot of things (she works for Pelopidas) so I won't bother to document the cash for this situation.

Every politician who has ever taken money from ideologues has claimed that the money has *nothing* to do with their future votes. Yet we know our democracy is broken because the uber-wealthy have far too much influence on our laws via their donations. If St. Louisans are really worried about Democracy being for sale, we're going to have to start paying better attention to what's happening locally. Having "Democrats" in office isn't any better than Republicans, if they're all getting paid by the same people.

Roorda Says Only "Cop Haters" Could Be Opposed to Rex's Phony Local Control Ballot Initiative

To review, last year, activists working for local control of the St. Louis police department teamed up with the Mayor's office and other opportunistic local Democrats to try to get a bill passed through the Missouri legislature. Mayor Slay and the other opportunists, of course, used this as yet another opportunity to get paid by multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield who, just like every other entity that donates huge amounts of money to politicians, obviously doesn't want anything in return. I agreed with the St. Louis American on this: though I was suspicious of the group working with Rex, I ultimately thought local control was a good thing because the activists endorsed the idea and it could get St. Louis closer to a system with increased transparency and accountability.

However, the bill failed last year thanks to the incompetent GOP legislature, and when it returned as a ballot initiative, it was in a mutated form that discarded the original reasons for supporting it. The whole point of local control was to bring accountability and transparency, not to just shift from one opaque, unaccountable board to another. But the new ballot initiative pushed by Rex, Mayor Slay, and the other "Democrats", but not the actual activists, actually takes a step backwards on accountability and transparency, because what it actually does is prevent the creation of a civilian review board, and puts all of the power in the hands of a board appointed by the Mayor. Don't take my word for it: read the op-ed by Brenda Jones, executive director of the of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.

But to give you a sense of how nasty the "Democrats" are who are doing Rex'$ bidding, check out this quote from Jeff Roorda saying that only "cop haters" could oppose the Rex Sinquefield phony local control ballot initiative:

Let’s not get distracted by cop haters that are trying to drive a wedge, when we’re coming to the table trying to find a way to make this department work better,” Roorda said. “Civilian review boards do not work. They’ve never worked anywhere they’ve been tried. They’ve got one function, and one function alone, and that’s to drive a wedge between the police department and the community.”

Yep. Only "cop haters" could possibly agree with the ACLU about having accountability and transparency be a part of the law. Or maybe it's just, you know, people who want accountability and transparency.

Momentum!

Question: if you are an organization created by a multimillionaire for the sole purpose of doing that multimillionaire's bidding, does it really count as "momentum" when that guy gives you more money? Apparently it does according the the Let Voters Decide "coalition", who received a donation from Rex Sinquefield, the only guy in the state who actually believes it'd be a good idea to gut state government and shift the tax burden to the poor and middle class by eliminating income tax and shifting exclusively to a sales tax. Check out this hilarious headline from the "coalition" referring to Rex's new donations of $1.2 million dollars:


In light of this genius idea, I've decided to start off every day with some extra "momentum" by giving myself $20. Look out world! I've got momentum!

Local Control Activists Thrown Under the Bus

This was an amazing story in the Political Eye that I had not seen before (but see the update):

As for the activists, they had been on the side of local control all along. Not because they love and trust this mayor, which they do even less than the coppers love and trust him, but because they see city control of the city police as a stepping stone towards citizen overview of a police force that has done much to test public trust in its authority to impound, confiscate, arrest and use lethal force. Whether this is reasonable thinking or not, activists have believed that mayoral control of the city police would be a meaningful step towards a Civilian Review Board. Activists believe civilian review is needed because the police department has a proven, poor track record of cracking down on its own. Even federal investigators, who were expected to bring down a host of white shirts along with the petty operator Greg Shepard in the towing scam, have let down the public where there seemed to be obvious, widespread corruption in the department.

This incredible, tentative coalition is officially quitsville. The POA and Mayor Slay have sided with Sinquefield on his local control ballot initiative, and the activists have turned against them. On the face of it, it would be difficult to imagine local control activists siding with any group that includes Slay, the coppers and Sinquefield, but they have specific reasons for their opposition that were outlined in a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri.

Please read the whole thing if you haven't already. It offers some important insights into St. Louis City politics.

One thing not mentioned in this article is that several St. Louis City Democrats were paid substantial sums of money by Rex Sinquefield to work on this issue. These same Democrats are supportive of Rex's plans to inch ever closer towards privatizing education, and turn a blind eye to his insane policy suggestions (backed by millions of dollars) like the everything tax.

Update: There was a nice op-ed in the Post-Dispatch about this by Brenda Jones of the ACLU.

Today In Interesting Twitter Exchanges

I had an Twitter exchange just now after casually mentioning that I was glad that newspaper editorial boards apparently can't be bought off quite as easily in Missouri as politicians. My comment was in relation to the fact that multimillionaire-warrior-for-the-1% Rex Sinquefield is throwing around boatloads of cash trying to get people to pretend that they really really like his disastrous Everything Tax that would bankrupt the state and many municipalities in addition to shifting the current tax burden away from the wealthy and onto the backs of the poor and middle class.

Anyway, here's how it went. Me:

State Representative Mark Parkinson (whom I don't think I've ever interacted with before):

Me:

State Representative Mark Parkinson:


Goodness, this guy is sensitive. To be honest, with the unlimited campaign contributions, frequent wining and dining by sketchy lobbyists, and the fact that many Missouri Republicans' legislation was actuallly written by corporations, I just kinda assumed that there wasn't even any reason for them to take illegal bribes. But now that Representative Parkinson mentions it, I guess the current legislature is both corrupt and incompetent enough it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they did.

Parkinson does, by the way, receive donations from Rex (not that there's anything illegal with that).

In Blow To The Show Me Institute, Another Business Decides to Create Jobs in Downtown St. Louis

Tim Logan at the Post-Dispatch reported on the decision of Stifel Financial Group to purchase the downtown office building that houses their corporate headquarters. Much of the subsequent analysis has focused on the fact that this is a setback for the "ballpark village" concept the Cardinals have been pushing (since the group was previously thought to be interested in building a new office building as part of the village), but I think there's another noteworthy feature of the decision. Namely, in spite of the fact that Rex Sinquefield's Show Me Institute repeatedly claims that St. Louis's tiny earnings tax of 1% acts as a major disincentive for businesses to locate in the city, Stifel has decided to remain in the City of St. Louis and add approximately 225 jobs over the next three years.

So the region apparently can add jobs and residents while still generating revenue for vital public services! Who would have thunk it?

Despite Best Efforts of the Show Me Institute, St. Louis Will Add Thousands of Jobs

Rex Sinquefield's Show Me Institute has been vigorously pushing against a tax credit bill that would pave the way for an international cargo hub in the St. Louis region expected to generate thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity. In the past week, SMI helped push the narrative that the guy who "literally wrote the book on the Aerotropolis concept" was opposed to building the hub in St. Louis. However, a blog post by Frank DeGraaf at NextSTL effectively demolished this argument:

In the Nicklaus column [author] Lindsay is quoted as saying: "Chinese carriers will come until the subsidies run out, then they look again at their balance sheets and pull out.” This is not at all how the tax credits will work. The Chinese are not receiving any subsidies. They are willing to come to St. Louis on their own dime. What they want from us is an investment in warehouses to accommodate freight forwarders and logistics companies in order to build the critical mass needed to establish a network around the hub. Freight forwarders don’t like to build their own warehouses. The strategy is to encourage the building of state-of-the-art facilities and give a tax credit on goods exported from Lambert.

And as the RCGA's Dick Fleming said (as quoted by the St. Louis American):

But Lindsay admitted to KMOX’s Mark Reardon that he’d never been to St. Louis, and he showed no signs that he had read or understood the proposed Missouri legislation. Nor did he take into account that Lambert has a ‘mega customer’ – China – for their cargo hub...

Lindsay appeared not to understand that the core incentive does not even get triggered until AFTER the facilities are built, the cargo flows and the jobs are here. That also means that as the incentives produce results, the State would be able to add to them and produce even more benefit.

So, just for the record, the Show Me Institute is now on the record against Metrolink, against the earnings tax that generates nearly 1/3 of the city's revenue, and against a bill that would help create 12,000 to 15,000 jobs in the St. Louis region. One of their recent publications worried that the proposal would give St. Louis leaders too much "power." In fact, the Show Me Institute has even teamed up with the coffin-carrying, effigy-burning, Hitler referencing St. Louis tea party to push their agendas. With actions like these, it's hard for me to take seriously SMI's claims that they are dispassionate analysts objectively evaluating the data rather than extreme partisans on an ideological crusade.