Who will lobby for less transparency now?

Special Tax District lobbyist Bill Kuehling terminated his lobbyist registration at Missouri Ethics Commission last month. Kuehling was first hired by St. Louis City’s Senior Citizens’ Services Fund Board while working at Thompson Coburn. He helped create the Senior Fund’s special property tax.

After he left the firm, the Senior Fund Board hired him to lobby the Missouri General Assembly to eliminate the statutory requirement that the Fund’s budget be approved by the Board of Alders.

Kuehling was successful in 2021 with an amendment added to House Bill 271 to remove oversight of the City’s Senior Fund. Senior Funds in all other counties must be approved by their county council or county commission.

The Senior Fund Board later honored State Rep. Donna Baringer and accused rapist State Senator Steve Roberts for handling the change.

Tax districts in St. Louis City- such as Senior Fund and Metropolitan Parks & Recreation (dba Great Rivers Greenway)- go on the ballot with promises to voters that Board of Alders have oversight over their budgets. Then they hire lobbyists to work with legislators to change state laws they are governed by, make them independent of local government.

Maybe Alex Kuehling at Rosenblum Goldenhersh will follow in his father’s footsteps and become a lobbyist as well as corporate welfare attorney.

Alex wrote the Fiscal Note for Board Bill 165 to create special tax districts for the hot mess known as Jefferson Arms. The sales and uses taxes created by Jefferson Arms Community Improvement District and the Jefferson Arms Transportation Development District are pledged to the redevelopment’s TIF.

Why are developers via their agents allowed to prepare the Fiscal Notes for their corporate welfare? A government office prepares the Fiscal Notes for legislation everywhere else.

For State legislation, the Missouri General Assembly’s Oversight Division prepares Fiscal Notes.

But Ordinance 70404 (Board Bill 63 sponsored by Alder Antonio French et al) requiring Fiscal Notes by the Board of Alders was poorly written or intentionally vague. Unlike the State’s Fiscal Note law, the City’s law does not specifically say who can shall and shall not write the document. Foxes are left to guard the henhouse.

Soulard Taxation Without Representation

There’s a 6:30 pm Tonight Soulard Special Business District Board Meeting at Soulard Station, 1911 S 12th.

Soulard SBD is the property tax district, for part of the Soulard neighborhood, that funds privatized policing, off duty police via TCF, and so-called security cameras.

This is also the tax district that held the extra super #TransparencyFail meeting last month. Not giving proper notice of meetings is just one of many problems with the Board.

Over 70% of Soulard residents are renters who pay property taxes via their monthly rent. Tonight’s meeting will be conducted without a required residential renter Board member. It’s companion sales district district- Soulard Community Improvement District– requires all Board members to be property owners.

The previous residential renter Board member was Molly Dougherty. In March 2021, She bought a home in Soulard but was allowed to remain on the Board repping renters. She now serves as a homeowner Board member. Dougherty is a landlord attorney at Sandberg Phoenix and serves as treasurer for 7th Ward Alder Jack Coatar’s campaign committee for St. Louis City Board President. Coatar served on the Board before he was elected Alder.

The due diligence made by Soulard SBD Board to fill the residential renter Board seat is found in the July 2021 Minutes. They posted a notice in the St. Louis Daily Record, a subscription service for legal notices, a publication read by likely less than a dozen residential renters in Soulard.

Additional transparency issues with Soulard SBD:

They post skeleton, generic agendas with meeting notices on their website and a year in advance to City’s Public Meeting Calendar. And, as happened with the last meeting and a number of other times, they change meeting times, dates, places but never update the City Calendar notice.
They are always behind posting Meeting Minutes. July 2022 are the latest Minutes posted. You regularly see “forgot to approve Minutes” in Minutes.
There’s no Budget or anything resembling Financials posted to the District’s website, only a 2016 pie chart.

These special tax districts represent the worst of government- poorly run private clubs providing inefficient parochial responses to citywide concerns. Instead of stopping this trainwreck, Alders continue to rubberstamp creation of new ones. As the 2023 elections for Alders and Board President approach, who will run on a platform of getting rid of special tax districts?

Further Reading

St. Louis’ Private Police Forces Make Security a Luxury of the Rich by Jeremy Kohler, ProPublica, September 8, 2022

A Private Policing Company in St. Louis Is Staffed With Top Police Department Officers by Jeremy Kohler, ProPublica, September 9, 2022

More Shady Soulard Tax District Goings On

September’s Soulard Special Business District meeting wasn’t the only Transparency Fail going on in the neighborhood.

It turns out, Soulard Community Improvement District- special sales tax district for dog poop bags, bulk trash pick up, traffic calming- met right before the SBD did at the same place- Molly’s, a venue owned by Luke Reynolds, Chair of the SBD and Vice Chair of the CID.

But it failed to post a meeting notice and agenda to City Public Meetings Calendar and gave less than 24 hours notice on its own website. Instead, the CID posted a notice on the City Calendar for a Labor Day meeting, which it never cancelled or held.

The most recent posted Minutes for Soulard CID are from August.

Soulard CID meets 5 pm Tonight, Monday, at Soulard Station, 1911 S 12th.

Monday Meeting of Soulard Tax Board for Private Police

UPDATE: Sometime after 8 am Monday, September 12th, Soulard Special Business District posted a notice to its website for the 6:30 pm Monday, September 12th Soulard SBD Meeting, less than seven hours notice for a public meeting on public tax money. That Notice says the meeting has been moved to Molly’s, a venue owned by Soulard SBD Chair Luke Reynolds (also Vice Chair of Soulard Community Improvement District, sales tax district). As of 10:30 am Monday, September 12th, the meeting Notice on City’s Public Meetings Calendar had not been changed to reflect a different meeting place. That notice says the meeting is at Soulard Station. Notices and edits to City Public Meetings Calendar get time-date identification. Notices on most special tax district websites only get a date first posted.

Original blog post below.

Or not.

Soulard Special Business District is one of St. Louis City’s special tax districts that fund private policing and part of last week’s two part investigative report by Jeremy Kohler for ProPublica.

We know that as a part of their response to the ProPublica investigation, Soulard SBD’s Board voted in November 2021 to hire Husch Blackwell as legal counsel for $5,000 “to ensure the Board complies with an ongoing Sunshine request and fully complies with the Sunshine Act.”

We know that before Jack Coatar was elected to the St. Louis City Board of Alderpeople, he served on the Soulard SBD. In May 2022, as Alder, he gave the welcome and introductions at Soulard SBD Neighborhood Safety Forum. Secretary of the Soulard SBD Board is Molly Doughtery, also Treasurer of Coatar’s campaign finance committee. Coatar is on Tuesday’s special election ballot to fill the vacancy caused by resignation of Board of Alderpeople President Lewis Reed, a friend of Coatar’s.

We know there’s a meeting notice for Soulard SBD on the City of St. Louis Public Meetings Calendar. We also know that a year’s worth of meeting notices and generic skeleton agenda’s were posted by the SBD Board to the City Calendar on Dec 7, 2021.

We also know that as of 5 pm Sunday, there was no notice for a September Soulard SBD meeting on the SBD’s website.

It doesn’t matter whether they’re having a public meeting without a notice on their website or failed to cancel the meeting notice on City website. It doesn’t matter whether they don’t want questions relating to the ProPublica investigative reports or Coatar’s involvement in tax districts before Tuesday’s election. It’s all Transparency Fail.

The Soulard SBD Budget includes $18,000 for Communications Management, $50,000 for Advertising/Promotion, $25,000 for Communications, $50,000 for Marketing/Branding. You would think that one of those line items includes competent online posting of public meetings notices at both their website and the City Public Meetings Calendar.