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Leaders Argue Over $37 Million in COVID Relief to North St. Louis | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis | St. Louis News and Events

Leaders Argue Over $37 Million in COVID Relief to North St. Louis | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis | St. Louis News and Events

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DOYLE MURPHY

St. Louis City Hall.

The St. Louis Board of Aldermen advanced a bill Thursday that will allocate several million dollars of funding to north St. Louis if passed after a final vote next week.

The bill, Board Bill 82, would allow for $37 million of federal COVID-19 relief funds to be used as grants for small businesses, nonprofits and community enhancement projects within 11 commercial corridors in north St. Louis. These corridors all lie within census tracts where at least half of households earn incomes significantly less than those in surrounding areas.

A vote for advancement of the bill followed a long, contentious discussion between aldermen.

Ward 6 representative Christine Ingrassia said she supported the investment into north St. Louis, but was “concerned about the process” by which the bill was amended, citing a lack of open and public negotiation.

Sharon Tyus, alderwoman for Ward 1, quickly rebutted.

“No change of major money or anything like that happened,” Tyus said, adding that the Board of Estimate and Apportionment was very involved. “I don’t believe it was done behind closed doors. It was just a process thing.”

Ward 3 representative Brandon Bosley criticized questions people have asked about investments for St. Louis’ north side. He passionately spoke for over 15 minutes on the decades of disinvestment in north St. Louis and the struggles Black residents have had in St. Louis’ history to get things done under primarily white governance.

“We’ve been tearing down everything for all these years and ain’t nobody said nothing about what we’re tearing down… But when we want to build, there’s a question?” Bosley asks.

Bosley later added, “Ya’ll been telling us one more [year] for 400 years. Ya’ll been telling us one more meeting, one more analytical data session, one more meeting to get the community’s input. Every time the community tell ya’ll what we want, you don’t implement… You are not the representatives of these areas — we are,” Bosley said to aldermen who don’t represent north St. Louis.

The board then advanced the bill with 26 votes in favor. Aldermen will have a final vote on the bill during a meeting Monday at City Hall.

In a statement, Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed said the board “has worked tirelessly” for north St. Louis residents to get the funding they deserve “in a quick and expedient manner.”

“Our residents deserve the safety, stability and access to opportunities these funds will provide,” Reed said.

St. Louis Mayor’s State of the City Address Calls for More Work to Be Done | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis | St. Louis News and Events

St. Louis Mayor’s State of the City Address Calls for More Work to Be Done | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis | St. Louis News and Events

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Monica Obradovic

Mayor Tishaura Jones gave her first inaugural State of the City address.

After a year in office, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones sees a lot of work that still needs to be done.

The mayor gave her first State of the City address at Harris Stowe University Tuesday night, just a day before her one-year anniversary of taking office. Jones made several proposals in her speech, including a commitment to funnel $150 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to north St. Louis in an effort to “reverse decades of disinvestment in our neighborhoods.”

How this money would be spent was not specified, but it’s “just a start,” according to the mayor.

“With the resources St. Louis has at our disposal, we have the opportunity to create change St. Louisans can both see and feel on their streets,” Jones said.

Some of those resources include federal grants and the $500 million settlement St. Louis city and other plaintiffs won from a lawsuit over the Ram’s departure.

“I truly believe that St. Louis is on the precipice of change, and that our brightest days lie ahead if we invest these resources wisely to make a long-term impact for generations to come,” Jones said.

Jones also proposed paid family leave and a 3 percent raise for all city employees to make St. Louis more competitive in job hiring. Additionally, Jones says the city will restart alleyway recycling collection in May. The service came to a halt last year due to a staff shortage.

In a continuation of her effort to “reimagine public safety,” Jones also proposed the creation of the Mayor’s Office of Violence Prevention. This new office would address public safety beyond policing and enforcement, since “poverty is the father of crime,” Jones said.

After the mayor’s address, Nick Dunne, a spokesman for Jones, told the RFT the crime prevention office would be a collaboration between “everyone who touches community violence,” from health leaders to police. It’s unclear where the office will be located.

“We believe that public safety is also public health, there’s a lot of overlap in between,” Dunne says. “The creation of this office would help streamline a lot of the resources we’ve created in order to approach public safety and community violence from a public-health approach.”

Jones concluded her speech by quoting words from her “forever junior.” The mayor did not attribute these words to Cora Faith Walker, the former policy director for the St. Louis county executive, who died in March. But a version of the statement remains pinned to the top of Walker’s Twitter page.

“Is it good? Is it kind? Is it useful? Is it necessary? If not, feel free to keep it to yourself. We’ve got a whole lot of work to do for St. Louis,” Jones said.

Amy Harms, Alleged Sexual Assault Victim of Steven Roberts, Speaks Out | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis | St. Louis News and Events

Amy Harms, Alleged Sexual Assault Victim of Steven Roberts, Speaks Out | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis | St. Louis News and Events

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State Senator Steven Roberts

Early this morning, allegations and strong criticisms against state Senator Steve Roberts were posted to a Twitter account apparently belonging to Amy Harms, a former law student who in 2015 accused Roberts of sexual assault.

“Seven years. It’s been seven years since @RobertsforSTL sexually assaulted me, a complete stranger, in public and then tried to blame me for what he’d done. He’s tried to blame me for it ever since, all while denying that it happened,” read one of the tweets.

Starting shortly after midnight, the allegations, as well as a series of documents, appeared on Twitter, detailing requests for information about the aborted prosecution attempt against Roberts, stemming from his alleged sexual assault against Harms in April 2015 at a downtown bar on Washington Avenue. (Roberts denies the allegation.)

Roberts, who is challenging U.S. Representative Cori Bush for her House seat, has been in the news following the death of former Missouri Representative Cora Faith Walker, who also accused him of sexual assault in 2016. In response, he argued that their affair had been consensual and countersued Walker. Later this morning, the Post-Dispatch published a report detailing terms of Roberts’ settlement agreement with Walker. (Criminal charges were also not filed against Roberts in the Walker case.)
Harms was Roberts’ first accuser. And according to tweets, the memory of the incident is still reverberating.

“I barely sleep. I have nightmares when I do. The kind that you awake from in a panic. The kind that make it nearly impossible to get back to sleep at all. I’ve still never again been able to look at the building where it happened.”

(Though the Riverfront Times could not definitely ID the account as belonging to Harms, the documents posted, as well as an email from KMOV reporter Lauren Trager, seem to verify the identity of the account holder.)

This morning’s tweets also spelled out details of a frustrating ordeal, in which St. Louis Police were largely uncommunicative with Harms about the status of her case against Roberts, which ended without charges being filed.

The tweet thread seems to have been spurred by an interview that Steven Roberts had with KMOV 4’s Lauren Trager last night, where he denied Walker’s allegations against him.

The tweets note that Harms has largely refrained from speaking out publicly against Roberts. “I advocated for him, the person who sexually assaulted me, to be treated fairly,” reads one of the tweets. “Everyone deserves that, even people who commit crimes— even dreadful, life-altering ones.”

But the tweets say Harms is now willing to call him  a “sexual predator” publicly, because “no one has ever held him accountable for the things he’s done” and he “desperately needs help.”

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    • St. Louis Leaders Join Fight in Eliminating Blanket Housing Bans on Felons | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis | St. Louis News and Events

    St. Louis Leaders Join Fight in Eliminating Blanket Housing Bans on Felons | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis | St. Louis News and Events

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    When Brandon Reid tried to get an apartment at Hampton Gardens he found out they have a 100 year ban on people with felony convictions, no exceptions.

    Brandon Reid already has two cats, but he wanted to get a dog. So he decided to go apartment hunting.

    “I wanted a place with a yard,” he says.

    Reid, who is president of PrideSTL and matriculating at the Brown School at Washington University in the fall, has a criminal record that includes felony convictions. He has been out of prison since 2013 and works at Criminal Justice Ministry helping other formerly incarcerated people do things like locate housing, connect with resources and transition back into society.

    So, he knows that many landlords are reluctant to rent to people with criminal history. He’s even spoken to property management companies about this issue. But he had never encountered a policy as restrictive as the one at Hampton Gardens in South City, one of the first stops on his apartment hunt. There, if you have been convicted of a felony in the last 100 years, you are automatically rejected.

    “That kind of threw me for a loop. I’ve just never heard that before. I’ve heard 10, 20 years and specific crimes,” Reid recalls. In his role at CJM, he has come across many advocacy groups fighting discrimination against formerly incarcerated people. One group mentioned a memo from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Reid pulled up the memo on his phone and re-read it.

    click to enlarge Brandon Reid is trying to get rules changed in St. Louis so property managers can't ban formerly incarcerated individuals for life. - COURTESY BRANDON REID

    Courtesy Brandon Reid

    Brandon Reid is trying to get rules changed in St. Louis so property managers can’t ban formerly incarcerated individuals for life.

    It begins by explaining that barring formerly incarcerated individuals (or even, as some landlords do, barring anyone who has ever been arrested), actually is discriminatory, though having a criminal record is not a protected characteristic under the Fair Housing Act. But because African Americans and Hispanics are arrested, convicted and incarcerated at disproportionate rates, they are also disproportionately targeted by such housing policies.

    The HUD memo states that housing providers can implement policies to keep their housing safe, but “bald assertions based on generalizations or stereotypes that any individual with an arrest or conviction record poses a greater risk than any individual without such a record,” is not okay. A housing provider who has any restrictions (even non-blanket ones) on formerly incarcerated individuals must “show that its policy accurately distinguishes between criminal conduct that indicates a demonstrable risk to resident safety and/or property and criminal conduct that does not.”

    Suffice it to say a blanket 100-year rejection policy does not meet the threshold. A HUD memo, however, is not law, though violations can disqualify property managers from HUD funding.

    Reid made a Facebook post and tagged people, including the mayor who reached out to Reid personally to offer a course of action. Reid then returned to Hampton Gardens so he could record them telling him the policy.

    That evening, Reid received a message from the management company. “We could not help but notice your mention on your social media page as it pertains to our rules and guidelines,” the message said. “Although here at HGA we make every attempt to be inclusive and fair. You are in no way a threat, but our rules as explained or our rules and unfortunately every action, whether it was 10 years ago or 10 minutes ago has its consequences. I’m sure someone will take a chance on you and bravo for turning your life around. Be Safe Mr. Reid and keep rehabilitating.” (Mistakes are from the original.)

    “It was probably the most condescending text I’ve gotten in a long time,” Reid says. And he was confused how the management company obtained his phone number. “I know there’s consequences for my actions,” says Reid, who went to prison for drug possession. “I paid them.”

    On the advice of the mayor, Reid reached out to the St. Louis Civil Rights Agency. He also called Tony Messenger, the ACLU, and Ward 15 Alderwoman Megan Green.

    “My goal is to get that policy changed to where you can’t do that in the city of St. Louis,” Reid explained. “It’s harmful. It’s just not fair. And when you send me a message like that, it’s like kicking a dog when he’s down.”

    Green is hoping for the same. “I have found that legislation has been passed in a number of cities that creates housing non-discrimination protections for people who have been previously convicted of certain crimes,” Green said. “If this is something that has been done in other cities, I’m hopeful we can do it here.”

    Reid is confident he’ll find an apartment. “Hampton Gardens is not the standard of apartments by any means. You can’t tell me there are no felons living there.”

    Dark Ace Brings a Heavy Metal Aesthetic to Disc Golf | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis | St. Louis News and Events

    Dark Ace Brings a Heavy Metal Aesthetic to Disc Golf | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis | St. Louis News and Events

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    George Fiorini

    Dark Ace brings a metal aesthetic to disc golf.

    George Fiorini has been playing disc golf for about three years. But he’s never been impressed with the attire associated with the sport, which is mainly “hippie” or “pseudo-jock,” as he describes them. Neither fit his style.

    “One day I was like, ‘I think it would be hilarious to combine two of my favorite things,’” Fiorini says.

    Those things? Disc golf and heavy metal.

    He launched Dark Ace Disc Golf about two years ago. One shirt features four upside down disc golf baskets. Another design features a horned demonic creature with the phrase, “Play Disc Golf; Listen To Metal.”

    click to enlarge Seeing Headbangers Ball “changed everything” for Fiorni. - GEORGE FIORINI

    George Fiorini

    Seeing Headbangers Ball “changed everything” for Fiorni.

    It turns out he wasn’t the only one who enjoyed this combination. Fiorini noticed that Disc Golf Pro Tour champion Nathan Queen, from Kernersville, North Carolina, would “put up the horns” after a great put. Clearly, this was a kindred spirit.

    Fiorini connected with him, and Dark Ace Disc Golf now sponsors him.

    Fiorini got into metal as a young teenager. Staying at a friend’s house one night when Headbangers Ball came on “changed everything” for him, he says. On MySpace, he discovered Every Time I Die, now his favorite band, and began attending metal concerts.

    “It was just so communal. It was like, you accidentally hit somebody in the face and then laugh about it later,” Fiorini says, “and you’re cleaning each other’s blood up off the ground outside and laughing about it and you just got all your angst out at the show.”

    click to enlarge Dark Ace Disc Golf launched about two years ago. - GEORGE FIORINI

    George Fiorini

    Dark Ace Disc Golf launched about two years ago.

    There’s that same sense of community in disc golf, Fiorini says. Many St. Louis area courses are free to the public, and are complemented by local clubs like St. Louis Disc Golf Club. Everyone’s supportive of noobs.

    “I just think it’s a beautiful thing,” he says.

    The company is currently working on putting its logo and designs on discs. Fiorini says Dark Ace Disc Golf works with local artists for its designs, and they also donate meals to Operation Food Search for every $20 spent.

    His company is a niche within a niche. People “freak out” when they learn about it, both positively and negatively.

    click to enlarge The upside-down baskets can be likened to upsidedown crosses. - GEORGE FIORINI

    George Fiorini

    The upside-down baskets can be likened to upsidedown crosses.

    “You take shirts like the one I’m wearing right now that has upside-down baskets on it,” which can be likened to upsidedown crosses, Fiorini says. “If our brand didn’t have controversy, we wouldn’t be doing it right.”

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