This morning, backers associated with two competing visions for how to spend the city’s Rams settlement appeared together at a press conference to announce those plans had merged into one. Boosters of the new compromise bill say it has the votes it needs, but others aren’t sure.
“I’m not convinced it has the votes to pass,” Alderwoman Anne Schweitzer, previously seen as a swing vote between the two camps of the two competing bills, told SLM.
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Alderwoman Pam Boyd, who seemed to speak in favor of the bill at this morning’s press conference, told SLM late in the day, “We haven’t come up with the final corrections. We have been negotiating. They’re misleading you all. We haven’t had a compromise.”
Boyd said she was worried about specific people being left behind. When asked who in particular, she said: “Anne Schweitzer’s neighborhood was in there in the first place. And then when we looked back, they had cut her out. So I was like, no. Because she has a piece of a deprived neighborhood.”
Mayoral spokesman Conner Kerrigan brushed off Boyd’s concerns, saying, “We are working with both sponsors to tighten up the language on both bills to have something that everyone can agree on.”
At least tonally, Boyd’s comments to SLM seemed at odds with what she said at the press conference this morning about the compromise, a revised version of the Transform STL bill (Board Bill 153) first introduced by Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier, which has now been combined with many elements of Boyd’s own Board Bill 131.
“The mayor’s office was at the table with us, and we were trying to work it out to make the changes on the bill,” Boyd told SLM. “And then I get an email today saying, ‘Oh we’re having a press conference.’ I said, ‘Why are we having a press conference? We haven’t even seen the final bill.’
“And so I made it clear that my focus is (Board Bill) 131, it’s not 153,” Boyd added.
Boyd praised Sonnier for extending the olive branch. But, she said she has concerns about money earmarked for daycares in the new version of Transform STL being administered by nonprofits, not the Comptroller’s Office.
Schweitzer, too, cited the specifics of the $30 million for early childhood education as a red flag. “It seems like there’s a special interest that’s just trying to attach something the majority of the aldermen are not supportive of to the bill, with enough other things that are in the bill to make people happy enough to vote for it,” she said. She says her constituents want to see investment in city services. Making it easy to hire more workers by subsidizing childcare could be a big step in the right direction. However, based on the FAQ sheet she’s been provided, she worries that money “to increase the supply of providers” will benefit a special interest group, not parents, since the money would go to private companies who might, she worries, spend it as they wish.
The compromise plan also includes $74 million for downtown (contingent on a one-for-one match from business leaders) and $40 million for north city—allocations that reflect the priorities of a bill backed by Greater St. Louis Inc. and Boyd, albeit in pared back sums. The new bill earmarks $50 million for citywide development, half of what was originally proposed in the Transform STL bill pushed by Mayor Tishaura Jones, Sonnier, and Aldermanic President Megan Green. Other interests that had to take a haircut, but are still very much in the mix, include the aforementioned money to pay for childcare for city employees ($30 million, down from $37.2 million) and college for their dependents (cut in half to $10 million).
At the morning presser, Boyd, Jones, Sonnier and Greater St. Louis Inc. interim CEO Dustin Allison all congratulated and thanked each other, while Green, standing right next to them, was left out of the kudos. Her name was also conspicuously absent from the materials made available to press prior to yesterday’s press conference.
Green’s spokesman Yusuf Daneshyar chalked that up to the same problem referenced by Boyd—the finer points of the compromise came together quickly over the weekend—and Green not wanting to “signal that we’re done” before the public has seen the bill’s specific language.
“This is just like any other bill,” he said. “It’s still in committee. It still needs to hear from the public Thursday. Things can change.”
Both the revised version of Sonnier’s bill and the one originally introduced by Boyd are on the agenda for the Housing, Urban Development, and Zoning committee this Thursday at 10:30 a.m.
