Mayor's Staff Plots How to "Disarm" OccupySTL Members

More fun with Sunshine Law requests! Mary Ellen Ponder, a staffer for Mayor Slay, sent Jeff Rainford (Slay's Chief of Staff) an email suggesting a strategy for "disarming" the Occupy St. Louis members:



The text:

Jeff,

I would like to recommend that you start the meeting by asking them what they want from the City. I suggest this because I think it will disarm the occupiers. I also think it will make the meeting less hostile. If at all possible, I would like to know who Jeff plans to bring to the meeting.

When you ask the occupiers what they want from the City, they will say they want to continue their freedom to assemble in public spaces: they believe it is their individual right to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests. The right to freedom of association is recognized as a human right, a political freedom, and a civil liberty. They will say they believe this freedom, documented in the 1st amendment, trumps all other laws.

Also, i do not think we should move to remove them until after November 17th. On November 17th, the AFL-CIO and Jobs with Justice plan to rally and march with the occupiers. If we remove them before November 17th, November 17th will turn into a rally and march against the Mayor instead of a rally and march about joblessness.

I don't think it's a bunch of anarchist kids anymore. I think there is a decent number of labor peeps and veterans that support this movement.

Sincerely,
Mary Ellen

Being but a humble distributor of the facts, I will refrain from comment.

Did St. Louis City Cave to Downtown Partnership Requests? New Evidence Suggests Yes

Occupy St. Louis has previously alleged that St. Louis City's decision to evict them from Kiener Plaza was prompted by a meeting with the Downtown Partnership, a St. Louis business partnership whose board includes representatives from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bank, Peabody Coal, and many others. Reporter David Hunn of the Post-Dispatch followed up on this suggestion by asking Mayor Slay's Chief of Staff Jeff Rainford about the allegations, but the city apparently would not answer his question:

Jeff Rainford, Slay's chief of staff, refused to say if the city met with the Downtown Partnership last week, but insisted that the complaints are coming from many, not only the Partnership.

"There are lots of people complaining. I'm not going to point at one versus the other," he said. "I'm not going to get into it. What I would prefer not to happen is to have this personalized."

The city, he said, would not meet with occupiers today, nor would it discuss the issue in the press.

In documents obtained from a Missouri Sunshine Law request, I have found conclusive evidence that officials from the Mayor's office did meet with the Downtown Partnership to discuss OccupySTL. In fact, an email sent from Maggie Campbell, the President and CEO of the Downtown Partnership, suggests that the St. Louis group had been communicating with "counterpart organizations" around the country with the express goal of "unoccupying public parks." Campbell is forwarding an email from Jane Jenkins of Downtown Oklahoma City, Inc. about a man found dead in a tent at Occupy Oklahoma City. Here's the exact quote from Campbell's Oct. 31st email to Jeff Rainford (Chief of Staff for the Mayor) and Sam Dotson (Director of Operations for the City of St. Louis):

Fyi - newsflash from Oklahoma City - we are talking weekly with counterpart organizations in dozens of American cities, learning that more of them are moving forward with local plans to unoccupy local parks and return them to a condition that everyone can use them, while still allowing for the right to assemble and protest without taking possession of public space. We look forward to our meeting tomorrow to discuss this issue further, and we appreciate your support and thoughtful guidance.

I've uploaded the document to DocStoc, blocking out emails and phone numbers for the people involved. I can make the original, unaltered version available for any press who are interested in following up. Here's the document:

DowntownPartnrship


If it is true that the meeting with the Downtown Partnership is what promted the City to evict Occupy St. Louis from Kiener Plaza, this seems like an important example of exactly what the movement is complaining about: city policy being determined by business elites. Why should the city of St. Louis bow to pressure from groups like Bank of America who have a vested interest in shutting down protests that remind the public of their unethical and likely illegal behavior?

I think this also suggests that people in other large cities should also start investigating the communication between their city governments and the local downtown association. It sounds like St. Louis was just one of any number of city's where local business groups pressured the city's to crack down on protesters.

Slay Obeyed: Mayor Slay Messaged Dana Loesch to Tell Her He Was Arresting Protesters

Yesterday, I pointed out that Mayor Slay's office said one of the reasons they decided to arrest protesters was because of feedback from "talk radio." Apparently, they think it's good city policy to try to appease the furthest right-wing fringe that carries coffins to local congressperson's yards, calls USDA officials "racist" based on doctored videos, and regularly attacks St. Louis institutions like UMSL and SEIU.

And thanks to a helpful tip from a commenter, it sounds like Mayor Slay was so eager to appease the right-wing fringe in St. Louis, he sent Loesch a personal message on Friday to let her know that he was going to be arresting protesters. She couldn't just wait to read about it on the news like all of the other rubes; nope, she's gets a special message so that she could cheer about those darn hippies getting their due.

Here's the clip of Loesch telling her rabid audience that Slay sent her a personal message on Friday:


Throughout the occupy protests, protesters have often chanted the following to the police: "Who do you protect? Who do you serve?" I think it might be more appropriate to ask the Mayor these questions.

Slay's Representative Cites "Talk Radio Complaints" And "Newspaper Comments" As Reason For Evicting OccupySTL

Prior to last Friday's mass arrests by the city of St. Louis of people engaging in political activism in Kiener Plaza, Mayor Slay's representatives Eddie Roth and Mary Ellen Ponder went to the Occupy encampment to make a non-negotiable proposal. While they were there, they were asked why, after nearly a month, they all of a sudden decided to kick the occupiers out of Kiener Plaza.

Here's Cathy asking the question:

And here's Eddie Roth's response:

He went on to note that in his impression it wasn't a decision made by "the plutocrats."

Roth worked for the Post-Dispatch editorial team. He knows better than to take those comments seriously.

And, in what can only be described as a remarkable coincidence, Jeff Rainford was on Dana Loesch's show today to receive her congratulations for kicking the violent dirty hippies out of Kiener Plaza (more on this later). It was the third time in less than a week that a representative from Slay's office was on her show.

St. Louis City Violates Their Own Rules During Occupy Eviction

For a group that decided that all-of-a-sudden they needed to follow the precise dictates of every rule and ordinance, the Slay administration didn't do a very good job of following their own rules. Here's the text of the eviction notice they sent to OccupySTL:

PUBLIC NOTICE: The City of St. Louis has a policy in place for handling and storing unattended property in downtown parks. The parks dept will gather up the property, put it in bags, tag it and store it in a secure place. To retrieve any items you leave in a downtown park, go to 1212 N. 13th between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m, this Saturday Nov. 12th or Sunday, Nov. 13th. After that, you can call the Parks Department at 314-289-5300. You are responsible for securing your valuables and personal belongings. We will use our best efforts to return belongings you leave behind.

Yet during the raid they threw signs and tarps into a garbage truck to be crushed:

In fact, they even destroyed and trashed the media tent:


Lesson for the day: following the rules is really, really, really important... except when it isn't.

Legal Analysis of Mayor Slay's Decision to Remove OccupySTL

Fox 2 News had lawyer Chet Pleban on yesterday to analyze the legality of Mayor Slay removing the occupiers from Kiener Plaza. For some reason I can't embed the video, but you can watch it here. It's pretty clear both people on the program have a lot of biases about the occupiers. The clip starts with them linking the Anonymous hacking to the St. Louis group, despite the fact that the Mayor's spokesperson Richard Callow said he didn't think the hacker was part of OccupySTL. They also call the part of the legal interpretation that says Slay is justified in kicking the occupiers out "the good news," later suggest that they're worried about riots from the group, and lament that horrible time in U.S. history known as the 60s. So yeah, it's pretty clear who they're rooting for.

However, what I thought was interesting is that Pleban suggested that while St. Louis City would normally be justified in removing they occupiers (a claim I'm sure Occupy STL disagrees with), the city is now in a pickle because they waited a full month to take any action. So it sounds like he thinks they need to provide some legal justification for why they made the change. I find this interesting because it seems to track the trajectory of my own thoughts.

I previously stated that I could understand why the city felt like it had to enforce the codes on the books. However, I objected when Slay's Chief of Staff Jeff Rainford suddently tried to suggest (on Dana Loesch's radio show) that something had changed and that the occupiers were no longer "not harming anyone." It seems to me that he has not provided sufficient justification for that claim, and if the decision really was the result only of complaints from groups like Bank of America, then it does seem like a change in policy based on a decision to prevent the occupiers from speaking out (quite effectively) against corporatism run amok. Thus, following policy consistently from the beginning might not have been a violation of First Amendment. But changing how they enforce the policy based on the fact that the message was offending local businesses seems like it would be a restriction of free speech.

This is why last night I filled a Sunshine law request with the Mayor's office to try to ascertain what the actual complaints were, and to compare them to statements in support of the occupation. I'll let you know what I find out.

Video: Rainford Dodges Request for City To Divest From Bank of America

As an update to my previous post, here's video of the exchange where OccupySTL asked the Mayor's staff about divesting from Bank of America.

Here's the initial question:

And here's Rainford's non-response response:

Notice that, despite saying he didn't want to give a "mealy mouthed answer," he didn't actually explain why they need to keep their money in one of the worst banks in the country rather than a local credit union or even to a bank like Commerce or Pulaski which doesn't have the same horrible track record as BoFA.

Wagman Blames Occupy For Hacking That Took Place A Month Before Occupy Movement

Update: Wagman's post has now been corrected, though without noting that it was corrected, as is standard practice.

Someone hacked Mayor Slay's website yesterday and claimed to do so in support of Occupy St. Louis (which seems pretty ridiculous considering that Occupy St. Louis is currently negotiating with Slay's office). This was clearly a counterproductive move, and as far as I can tell was done with absolutely no consultation of the people who are involved in the Occupation.

However, leave it to Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman to invent new facts that make the story better right-wing link bait. Wagman claimed in the post that Anonymous's hacking of the Oakland BART system was "linked" to the Occupy movement:

The poster claimed affiliation with the hacking network Anonymous, which has taken credit for infiltrating the computer network for the transit system in Oakland, a move also linked with the Occupy movement.

But, as Trianglman on Twitter points out, the hacking of BART took place on August 14, a full month before the Occupy movement even started. Nothing in the article Wagman linked to in order to support his claim mentioned anything about Occupy, which makes sense given that Occupy didn't exist then.

By the way, in my opinion David Hunn has being doing a great job covering the Occupy STL movement, and in general has been much less of a uncritical mouthpiece for the Slay administration than Wagman was when he covered City Hall. It's not clear why Wagman took the day off from his usual job of butchering stories about statewide politics to write about this story.

Jeff Rainford Declares That St. Louis Won't Move Money From Bank of America

I guess Mayor Slay's Chief-of-staff Jeff Rainford isn't a big fan of consensus decision-making. Or even that Far Left, touchy-feely process known as "consulting with others." From the KMOX report on the meeting between Slay's office and Occupy St. Louis:

Rainford refused the idea of moving city funds out of big banks, saying the banks provide revenue to the city and fund services downtown. He also refused to provide a building for the protesters to occupy.

Bank of America is one of the most unethical financial institutions in the country. Shouldn't Rainford at least provide an opportunity for the residents of St. Louis, or his fellow staff members for that matter, to weigh in?

Update: After seeing the video, Rainford does mention that people can introduce a bill to the Board of Aldermen regarding divestment.

Rainford Won't Speak With Reporters But Will With Loesch?

Another interesting tidbit from the Post-Dispatch article on Occupy STL:

[Mayor Slay's Chief-of-Staff Jeff] Rainford said the city would not meet with occupiers Monday, nor would it discuss the issue with reporters.

But, of course, Rainford was willing to embarrass the city yesterday by appearing on Dana Loesch's hate-filled radio show.

Of course Loesch isn't a reporter or even a person who makes any attempt to accurately convey information, so there's nothing inconsistent about Rainford's action in relation to his statement. Still, it's rather curious that he's only willing to take questions on the issue from people like Loesch.

Rainford Pushes Flawed Arguments Against OccupySTL on Dana Loesch's Radio Show

First, Mayor Slay's Chief of Staff Jeff Rainford copied Dana Loesch's inflammatory rhetoric against OccupySTL, ridiculously claiming that the group was "unruly" and falsely suggesting that they were relieving themselves all over Kiener Plaza rather than in the port-o-potty's provided by local unions:

Jeff Rainford, Slay's chief of staff, said the camps are getting unruly, the plaza is beginning to smell like urine, and a few were recently arrested for public intoxication.

Then, Rainford mimicked Loesch again by seemingly suggesting that the OccupySTL group might want violence:

"All I'm trying to do is to keep this from becoming Oakland," he said. "I'm trying to get this solved with no violence."

Still, he said, he understood that the occupiers may not have the same plans

So I guess it really should be no surprise that Rainford decided to appear on Loesch's radio show today to explain why the city has decided they need to kick the Occupy group out of Kiener Plaza. After all, Loesch has been trying to portray the campers at Kiener as filthy, violent, parasite-infested, astroturf, drug-crazed, sexual deviants from the very beginning, so it makes perfect sense that Rainford would help provide validation to St. Louis's Queen of Hate Radio.

You can listen to the interview here:


Rainford claims the city originally felt that OccupySTL was not hurting anyone, but "what changed" was that they no longer believed this was the case. However, his justification for the claim that OccupySTL is now "doing harm" is that the city has received complaints from people who "work downtown, live downtown, and have businesses downtown." Combine this with the previous revelation from the Post-Dispatch that Rainford refused to answer whether the city was now planning on cracking down on OccupySTL only because the Downtown Partnership complained at a meeting last week, and it seems like we have the makings of a very shoddy argument.

Previously, Occupy STL wasn't hurting anyone. But now, because a group with Peabody and Bank of America representatives on their board is complaining about Occupy STL, Rainford suddenly thinks that they are "doing harm?" Being angry at someone you wish would go away does not mean that person harmed you. Occupy STL could just as credibly claim that Bank of America was harming them with the stink eye. Furthermore, the idea that they're monopolizing the space isn't true either, as the group has been willing in the past to move tents to accommodate events. The city's sudden reversal without any evidence to now claim that Occupy STL is harming people seems like an incredibly tacky move. I hope they reconsider.

Rainford Refuses To Say If The Downtown Partnership Pushed Slay Into Telling OccupySTL To Leave

Occupy St. Louis earlier accused the Slay administration of asking them to leave Kiener Plaza and coming up with a list of grievances based on pressure from the Downtown Partnership:

Occupy St. Louis is one of many cities that exist as a solidarity movement with the Occupy Wall Street movement, which formed to publicly attest to the fact that corporations control far too much of our economy and political life. This movement has received vast support across the country. How ironic, then, that Mayor Slay has decided to stop listening to the complaints of the people and instead heed the complaints of the corporate groups who control the city. This week, Downtown Partnership met with the mayor’s office and told him to shut us down. He responded to their call. No more fitting example could illustrate who is pulling the strings. (For a list of who voiced the words behind the Mayor’s blog: http://www.downtownstl.org/AboutUs/PartnershipforDowntownStLouis/PartnershipBoard.aspx)

David Hunn of the Post-Dispatch followed up on this question with Jeff Rainford, Mayor Slay's Chief of Staff who previously made ridiculous accusations about OccupySTL, and tellingly Rainford refused to answer the question:

Jeff Rainford, Slay's chief of staff, refused to say if the city met with the Downtown Partnership last week, but insisted that the complaints are coming from many, not only the Partnership.

"There are lots of people complaining. I'm not going to point at one versus the other," he said. "I'm not going to get into it. What I would prefer not to happen is to have this personalized."

The city, he said, would not meet with occupiers today, nor would it discuss the issue in the press.

So Rainford won't just say that the decision was not based on pressure from a business group? Seems pretty telling. And how many of the "other complaints" are coming from Dana Loesch's rabid followers, who have been whipped up into a frenzy based on repeated lies about the group? Rainford continues:

"We're gonna cool off," Rainford said this morning. "It's probably going to get inflamed anyway."

"All I'm trying to do is to keep this from becoming Oakland," he said. "I'm trying to get this solved with no violence."

Still, he said, he understood that the occupiers may not have the same plans

Is Rainford implying that the protesters want this to "become Oakland," where the situation escalated to violence and several protesters were seriously wounded by the police? I sure hope "the same plans" was intended to refer to something else.

Occupy STL Responds to Mayor Slay: Will The St. Louis Media Cover the Response?

Update: Looks like David Hunn wrote a story about the response for the Post-Dispatch. Glad to see it. Chad Garrison at the Riverfront Times also had an interesting take on the developments. Jo Mannies at the Beacon also covered the response.

The media in St. Louis reported excitedly last week on Mayor Slay's blog post indicating that the city was planning on kicking the Occupy St. Louis group out of Kiener Plaza (at least for overnight stays). Part of the Mayor's PR campaign included releasing a list of alleged violations by the occupiers (without any evidence to support the claims). Now Occupy St. Louis has responded with their own list of "violations" by the Slay administration, and I'll be curious to see if our enthusiastic media provides equal coverage for these grievances. I don't necessarily agree with every point on the list, but surely many of them would be part of the discussion in a healthy democracy, no? And it seems like it should be the media's job to provide equal coverage to both sides of the issue.

Here's the first part of the Occupy St. Louis response:

Occupy St. Louis is one of many cities that exist as a solidarity movement with the Occupy Wall Street movement, which formed to publicly attest to the fact that corporations control far too much of our economy and political life. This movement has received vast support across the country. How ironic, then, that Mayor Slay has decided to stop listening to the complaints of the people and instead heed the complaints of the corporate groups who control the city. This week, Downtown Partnership met with the mayor’s office and told him to shut us down. He responded to their call. No more fitting example could illustrate who is pulling the strings. (For a list of who voiced the words behind the Mayor’s blog: http://www.downtownstl.org/AboutUs/PartnershipforDowntownStLouis/PartnershipBoard.aspx)

The Occupy St. Louis movement is further disappointed that the mayor has chosen to hide behind false accusations to sway public opinion and to indicate that he has spoken to Occupy St. Louis. There has been no conversation from the Mayor’s office to Occupy St. Louis, only blog posts that have not been sent to Occupy St. Louis. The mayor’s chief of staff is quoted as saying that Kiener Plaza “reeks of urine.” Anyone is welcome to come to the site to see that this is not true. The occupiers have done a remarkable job of maintaining a clean and orderly space. The other allegations issued by the Parks Department are equally untrue in blaming the occupiers for a host of grievances, ranging from the ridiculous, (glass bottles) to the obscene, (public urination). Occupy St. Louis has always adhered to the idea that public spaces are public spaces and we have no grounds to tell people to leave, other than to encourage everyone to adhere to our safe space policy. The Mayor blames Occupy St. Louis, (which is not an organization but a group of autonomous individuals coming together to make decisions collectively) for behaviors that are almost universally the actions of individuals not participating in Occupy activities and would most likely have occurred regardless of our presence. The mayor’s other concern, that the occupiers must give way to allow for other events, is equally unfair. We have shared the Plaza with other groups on several occasions so far; it is everyone’s space and everyone is welcome. On the other hand, a Macy’s display with the occupiers evicted might just be enough to convince many in the area to Occupy the Holidays by shopping only at smaller local businesses.

And here's a general description of their criticisms of the city:

To put these accusations in perspective, we are issuing today our own list of violations committed by the city, of which Mayor Slay has been the chief executive for eleven years. Some of the violations cited illustrate the inconsistent application of laws that the mayor now wants to use against Occupy St. Louis. These are cases of hypocrisy and raise serious questions about unequal protection under the law. Other violations show the city’s cooperation with Big Business and demonstrate complicity in the economic oppression being raised by Occupy St. Louis. And of course, the violations include the incredible disparity and racial injustice that this City has long been guilty of towards African Americans. In total, these violations make the trivial and untrue accusations raised against us pale in comparison.

To read the full list of "Violations" by the city, see the Occupy STL post. I should note that I can't verify that the Downtown Partnership has anything to do with Slay's decision, and my guess would be they'd deny the claim.

Update: It looks like Mayor Slay has also updated his blog, with what sounds like a pretty reasonable response to me:

I expect the loudest critics of this measured approach to be those whose political agendas are most opposed to the Occupy protestors and who would love a provoke a confrontation to “prove” some prejudice about the groups that make up the Occupy coalition. That’s not my plan.

It's hard to evaluate for me, because some times the Mayor's office says reasonable things like this, and other times they engage in clear provocation and demonization.

Jeff Rainford Demonizes Occupy STL in Anticipation of Kicking Them Out of Kiener Plaza

In case you haven't noticed, Occupy St. Louis has been camping out in Kiener Plaza since the beginning of the movement. Kiener Plaza has an official curfew of 10 PM, so technically occupying the park after 10 is illegal. The members of Occupy St. Louis believe that their First Amendment rights entail that they should be able to occupy public space, and they disagree with the curfew. This is what civil disobedience is: explicitly violating laws that you disagree with but being willing to gracefully accept the consequences of breaking the law as a way of raising awareness. Thus, I respect Occupy St. Louis's decision to stay in the Plaza.

On the other hand, I can understand why city officials might be conflicted about enforcing the rule. I'm sure they feel that it's their job to enforce the laws whether they agree with the laws or not, and this is not not an unreasonable position. In fact, you might argue that democracy wouldn't work unless police and public officials respect laws they don't agree with. Of course, as with anything, this is not a black and white issue, and there's a substantial grey area that allows for some wiggle room. My preference would be that city officials look for a way of working with the occupiers to find a compromise that allows them to continue staying in the plaza.

However, while I can understand the city's decision to enforce their laws (even if I disagree with them), what is absolutely not cool is their attempt to use overcharged rhetoric to try to demonize the occupiers. And this is precisely what Mayor Slay's Chief of Staff Jeff Rainford has done:

Jeff Rainford, Slay's chief of staff, said the camps are getting unruly, the plaza is beginning to smell like urine, and a few were recently arrested for public intoxication.

For anyone who's visited the plaza, the idea that it's "unruly" is ridiculous. They have an explicit policy against drugs and alcohol. And as far as the organizers know, the only "public urination" was from people who weren't occupiers (after all, the occupiers actually have to live there). So Rainford is trying to wage a nasty PR war against the group, which I assume he thinks will make it easier for them to remove the group without causing a controversy. It's too bad he can't just stick to the facts and say they want to enforce the curfew, rather than resorting to tea party-like smears.

Discussions of Merged City/County Services Taking Place Behind Closed Doors

I could have sworn that Mayor Slay and his advisors were saying that they wanted to plan the city's future along with "the people." Mayor Slay:

Over the spring and coming summer months, I plan to continue the conversations with City voters that began in the successful campaign for passage of Proposition E. And I will ask other city officials to join the discussion and to work with me on a systematic review of government - what we do, why we do it, and how much it costs.

And his Chief of Staff Jeff Rainford:

And the key here is the voters. The voters in the City and the County are going to have a say in how much they want us doing business together and I think they've got to be part of the conversation and be brought in to the conversation.

Yet, KMOX reports that meetings have been taking place behind closed doors, and that not even Aldermanic President Lewis Reed knew about them:

A top St. official says there needs to be some legal ‘sunlight’ cast on the continuing merger talks between St. Louis City and County, which have been taking place out of public view.

Aldermanic President Lewis Reed says he was shocked to learn in earlier news reports that city and county officials have been meeting to talk about dovetailing economic development, construction codes and healthcare. “I am not in the loop at all on any of this,” Reed said. “I found out in the news paper like everyone else.”

Reed requested that he and the comptroller be brought into the conversations "as a bare minimum:"

Reed says the Mayor’s office alone should not be at the table in the merger talks. He wants his office and the comptroller in on any future negotiations. “At minimum today, or as soon as possible, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment should get an update on what is going on,” Reed said. “And that would be the bare minimum.”

Rainford responded to the story on Twitter as follows:

But this seems to miss the point. I don't think peopler were criticizing the idea of meeting behind closed doors to plan a merger because what they really wanted was for the officials to meet behind closed doors and declare that there wouldn't be a merger. The point is that this should be a transparent and open process where citizens are given an opportunity to help shape the discussions rather than a group of suits meeting behind closed doors before bringing "The Answers" out on stone tablets to be voted on.

What's the Cost of Local Control?

Like most St. Louis residents, I'm in favor of St. Louis having control of it's own police force, at least if provisions are included that ensure that the city can't raid police officers' pensions. Why should our police, unlike pretty much any other group in the country, be accountable only to a state board that might not care about the city of St. Louis and might not be familiar with it even if they do care?(I'm not saying this is true of the current board: only that the potential exists) So, in my mind, local control makes a lot of sense.

However, I do want to raise a few red flags about the coalition that has been organizing around this issue. Jamilah Nasheed, who was once described as one of Mayor Slay's "fiercest critics," is now retweeting Slay and Jeff Rainford regularly. Maybe this is not a big deal. As they always say about people trying to get things done in politics: "no permanent friends and no permanent enemies: only permanent interests"

But slightly more suspicious is the support of the effort from Rex Sinquefield and the Missouri GOP. Rex, of course, is behind the earnings tax repeal that would gut St. Louis City government, and behind efforts to eliminate income tax in favor of increases in sales taxes, which would gut state government and place a much larger burden on the poor and working class while allowing Rex's fellow millionaires to continue to stockpile money.

There are different ways of viewing Sinquefield. One might think that he views the Missouri political system as one of his chess matches, and he cynically uses his money to move politicians around like pawns. In this case, I think we'd want to be very suspicious of this new collaboration, and ask what exactly he's getting in return. On the other hand, you might look at Rex and think that he really is a True Believer in his right-wing anti-government ideology, and is more misguided than cynically trying to manipulate things. In this case, you might think that he just donated $300,000 to the local control cause because it fits with his ideals about government, and he's not necessarily expecting anything in return.

But even if you think that Uncle Rex might be willing to do some good for St. Louis without asking for some pints of blood in return, you couldn't possibly think the same about our current GOP controlled legislature. They are led by birthers, conspiracy theorists, and people with extreme hatred of anything to the left of Sarah Palin. The Republican house already voted in favor of local control; why would they do this unless they expected something in return?

What might be the exchange? I have no idea, but there are certainly extremely important issues up for discussion and Republicans are only a few votes away from a veto-proof majority. Is local control important? Yes. Is it more important that stopping the sales tax? No way. Is it more important than stopping Republicans from destroying our unions by making Missouri a right-to-work-for-less state? Definitely not. Is it more important than making sure Republicans don't game the redistricting process? Nope. I don't know if this new coalition has anything to do with these issues, but it's worth keeping an eye out.

The new "grassroots" group that is funded by Rex's $300,000 is called "A Safer Missouri." Their facebook page, which has been around for a while, only had six members when I checked. Two of those members were local Democrats Martin Casas (of the Young Democrats of St. Louis) and Nancy Rice. Ben Muehleisen has worked with Sinquefield's groups in the past.

Both Casas and Rice, along with Rainford and Slay, are big supporters of the move to charter schools and away from public schools, one of the issues Sinquefield is best known for. My guess is that this collaboration might have something to do with future cooperation on pushing for the charter school movement, arguably at the expense of public education.

I don't want to sound all "the sky is falling!" here. I'm in support of local control, and I don't have any evidence that Rex's support is in exchange for some blood money. However, I think it's important to raise the flag now, so that our future understanding will be informed. If there is any indication that some of the Democrats involved in this process fail to push back against Rex's right-wing agenda (like many did during the Prop A campaign), this will be useful background.

Update: Here's a response from Martin Casas, which makes sense to me:

Coalitions are a beautiful thing, but they are different then a circle of friends. THIs IS A HUGE ISSUE FOR THE CITY OF ST. LOUIS, and it's a civil rights issue. People frequently disagree on many issues, but when there is a common goal we have to come together and fight for it. This is the kind of thing we ask our representatives to do: to put the welfare of the people ahead of any of their personal feelings. Adam, thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about this.

I can understand why Martin supports this. But what still puzzles me is why Sinquefield, the MO GOP, and even Carl Bearden (formerly of Koch brothers funded Americans for Prosperity) would support this. I'd really like to know what they're trying to get from this.