St. Louis County Executive Sam Page vetoed a bill to earmark $3.2 million in Rams settlement funds for an urban farm in Spanish Lake yesterday, even as questions swirled about its founder’s ties to the councilwoman who pushed for the funding.
The farm is run by a friend and travel companion of a former legislative aide to Councilwoman Shalonda Webb, who was largely responsible for persuading the county council to allocate those funds.
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Shonte Harmon-Young was Webb’s legislative aide before leaving that role at the end of last year to focus on her food business, multiple sources say. In January, Rustic Roots founder Janett Lewis posted photos to Facebook showing what appears to be a trip to Mexico to celebrate Harmon-Young’s birthday.
In March, Webb introduced the bill to send $3.2 million in Rams settlement funds to Rustic Roots, a 6.6-acre urban farm. It passed with unanimous support from the council the following month. Under the bill, Rustic Roots planned to keep about $2.5 million and distribute the remainder to other urban farm operations in the area.
Also in March, Harmon-Young posted a birthday message to Lewis on Facebook, writing, “A friendship that has turned into a family as she has supported my dream more than I could have ever imagined or asked for and I thank her from the bottom of my heart… She’s hip, she’s cool, but most of all, she’s the one that I wanna be…Happy Birthday Janett Lewis!!”
Councilwoman Webb did not respond to an email or a phone message seeking comment. In a brief phone call, Lewis said she had no comment. Harmon-Young did not respond to a voicemail seeking comment.
Lewis’ connection to Harmon-Young has not been discussed publicly.
Asked about their apparent friendship and the money allocated to Rustic Roots, Councilwoman Lisa Clancy tells SLM, “It could easily be perceived by the public that this project may be about more than community priorities.”
Adds one close watcher of the county council: “There are legal processes in place for a reason, to ensure anyone qualified to do business with the county has an opportunity to do so, not just those in the know.”
Last week, the Post-Dispatch broke the story that three of the five other farms set to receive funds through Rustic Roots had lost faith in Lewis. They said she had misrepresented the project to the Council and didn’t have the capacity to administer a project of such scale.
Page said at a press conference yesterday afternoon that his veto comes because the bill does not comply with the state constitution nor the county charter. He stressed that as a physician, he understands the need for access to healthy food, but that, while the bill came with good intentions, “it does not pass legal muster … Simply put, using private funds for a public purpose is prohibited by the Missouri constitution.”
Page said that any program using county money to fight food insecurity needed to go through a competitive bidding process and that such programs needed to be county-wide—not exclusive to Webb’s district.
Page added that he intended to stand up a new $4.4 million program run by the County Department of Human Services to work towards ameliorating food insecurity. The department will seek competitive bids for the work, he said. The program would be funded in part by the money that had been headed to Rustic Roots.
“We want to make sure all the businesses who work in this industry have a chance to participate,” Page said.
Page said that he has asked the County Council to approve funding for the plan he outlined.
