15thWardSTL.org

Seriously, folks. CDA/SLDC and Jennifer Florida have effed up pretty bad on this one. Yeesh, I just couldn\\\'t pass this one up, even though I moved eight months ago.

This is just a brief post to call your attention to the ongoing fiasco at 3460 Oak Hill. I wrote about this beautiful art deco building almost two years ago. Since then, the project fell through again and yet another developer was selected and the project is in danger of fell falling through yet again (while the building itself is falling down).

I can\\\'t do the same research I did in the past, but quickly:

I received a reply from the Alderwoman today with an explanation of the quote in the South Side Journal. She claims that the writer misquoted her in the article - what she said was that she had not received any critical feedback from neighborhood associations [emphasis mine]. She goes on to say that she has not been presented with architectural drawings of the proposed building.

The System is Broken
What this tells me is that the system is simply broken.

First, valid criticism can come only from neighborhood associations, many of which are dependent on Block Grant funds for operation. I don't envision a whole lot of criticism coming from Dutchtown or Grand Oak Hill (the largest area neighborhood associations) because their funding is dependent to a large degree on the goodwill of their local representatives.

The Wednesday, May 30, edition of the South Side Journal contains an article about Pyramid's proposed South Grand Senior apartments. Reporter Jim Merkel, who also covered the contentious battle to prevent the site from becoming a McDonald's Drive Thru, interviewed Alderwoman Florida and Pyramid VP of Residential Development Desiree Knapp. Unfortunately, he didn't interview anyone who actually knows anything about design or planning!

The image used in the article was the same sketchy perspective, with no detail, posted to 15th Ward Alderwoman Jennifer Florida's now defunct blog in January of 2007. It is impossible to believe that Rosemann Architects and Pyramid have not further developed the drawings five months later.

The St. Louis American Political Eye just published a stunning rebuke of 15th Ward Alderwoman Jennifer Florida. During the recent President of the Board of Aldermen campaign, she was on the short list to join Lewis Reed's staff.

When newly elected aldermanic prez Lewis Reed was getting ready to be installed there was a groundswell within his campaign staff not to give Alderwoman Jennifer Florida the top-paid chief of staff job she had pushed and prayed for. Before Reed was officially sworn in, Florida made the rounds with him, darting in and out of meetings, side-by-side, attempting to accompany him everywhere except to the aldermanic male restroom across from chambers.

Too bad this had to be written as an inflammatory opinion piece and not a true analysis of the circumstances that led to Reed's decision.

Thanks to the tip-off from Christian Herman.

Jake Wagman of the Post Dispatch reports that Board President-elect Lewis Reed is receiving resumes for positions on staff. Rumors have been circulating for months from a variety of sources that 15th Ward Alderwoman Jennifer Florida might be tapped as his Chief of Staff.

If she is offered and accepts the position, she would have to resign her spot on the Board of Aldermen. The 15th Ward Democratic Committeeman and Committeewoman (of the closed organization) would then nominate a Democratic candidate for a special election. This nomination may have to be approved by the Central Committee - anyone out there know for sure?

On January 20, 2007, Jennifer Florida filed a "Statement of Limited Activity" report with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Basically, it states that there were not expenditures or contributions in excess of $500 for the time period.

The ongoing "Citizens to Elect Jennifer Florida" committee is set up to accept donations and spend money on behalf of Florida for the 2009 Aldermanic Election. The previous quarterly report indicated cash on hand of slightly over $19,000.

On December 15, 2006, Jennifer Florida voted with the majority of the Board of Aldermen (there were but two "no" votes) to grant Pyramid a $14 million TIF backed by the City of St. Louis. As I wrote in a previous article, the last and perhaps only other time we did this was for the St. Louis Marketplace strip mall on Manchester. The citizens of St. Louis are now paying $1 million per year to retire the bonds for a failed shopping center.

This type of handout is part of the City's growing epidemic of silver bullet projects - massive and complex public-private "partnerships" where the City takes on risk to ensure developer profit as an enticement to invest. This is being done at the expense of creative neighborhood-based initiatives that would directly benefit local citizens. It is being done without a public comprehensive plan to support the long-term investment. It is being done without adequate oversight, and without time for public input on the deals.

For those of you who don't use RSS to track your blogs of interest, Jennifer Florida has posted two new articles on her blog: an announcement of the new 15th Ward Neighborhood Stabilization Officer (Antonio Passion) and an announcement of a few upcoming events.

This is definitely a start, though it's not exactly breaking news. The NSO news has been floating around the neighborhood e-mail list since he introduced himself at the recent Block Captain meeting. A more effective use of the blog and the insider information, of course, would have been to announce the appointment of Antonio as NSO several days in advance so that interested parties could attend the meeting!

15th Ward Alderwoman Jennifer Florida co-sponsored a Resolution calling for the Missouri General Assembly to issue a moratorium on executions. Evidently, the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis has started an investigation into the possible wrongful execution of Larry Griffin.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the Board of Aldermen for the City of St. Louis that we support the intent of HB 1496 and we call upon the members of the Missouri General Assembly to reconsider this legislation as well as consider a permanent moratorium on all executions in Missouri.

According to David Sifry, founder of Technorati (a blog tracking web site), over 100,000 blogs are created each day. Fifty-five percent of all blogs are considered "active" with at least one post in the last 3 months. [Note: I just created 15thWardSTL.org's Technorati Profile]

One month ago, the first articles were posted on Alderwoman Jennifer Florida's wordpress blog. After the first public notice was posted as a comment on 15thWardSTL.org by an anonymous reader, I wrote an article announcing it to my readers. That article has had over 260 unique visitors, many of whom I assume also followed the link to the blog. It has also been documented on Urban Review St. Louis (which gets a much higher readership).