This Week in Gardening & Nature

Photo of two yellow Patty Pan and two green Acorn Squash

Order Cover Crop Seed Mixes online from Seed St. Louis for pick up from their office. $1 per packet covers 4’x10′ bed. Mixes: Winter Kill (sow now), Winter Overwintering (sow up to mid-Oct), Spring Mix (sow mid-Feb to early March if you aren’t planning on Spring crops). Learn more about Cover Crops

30 for $17 Brightside St. Louis Annual Daffodil & Tulip Sale. Order now for pick up Sept 30 or Oct 1st at Forest Park Greenhouse

1:30 pm Wednesday Leaf Walk at Bellefontaine Cemetery. Master Guide led walking tour. Register

2 pm Wednesday Seed St. Louis and St. Louis County Library Virtual Workshop: Season Extension and Winter Gardening. Register

4 pm Wednesday Missouri Prairie Foundation Webinar: Prairie & Native Plant Careers. Panel includes Sarah Kendrick, Migratory Birds Biologist; Ronda Burnett, Community Conservation Planner; Jerod Huebner, Director of Prairie Management. Register

For Kids ages 3-6. 6 pm Thursday Missouri Conservation Department’s Conservation Kids, You and Me under the Canopy: Becoming Bears. Tower Grove Park. Register

6 pm Thursday Seed St. Louis Webinar: Getting the Most From Your Harvest. Register

10 am Saturday Missouri Conservation Department Workshop at Forest Park Hatchery: Fall Butterflies and Monarch Migration. 10 Seats remaining. Register

10 am to 2 pm Saturday Missouri Conservation Department event at Powder Valley Conservation Area, Kirkwood: Protecting Our Pollinators. Info Booths & Presentations.

1:30 pm Saturday Missouri Botanical Garden Workshop: Pollinator Conservation Begins at Home. South Auditorium, Visitor Center. Register

Sept 19th Missouri Conservation Department’s Monarch Tagging at Columbia Bottom Conservation Area. Register

Sept 30th Missouri Prairie Foundation’s St. Louis Area Native Plant Sale at Roeslein & Associates, 9200 Watson, Crestwood

Oct 1 Deadline to enter Missouri Department of Natural Resources Photo Contest. Categories: Natural Resources, State Parks & Historic Sites, People Enjoying Mo Outdoors

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.

School Privatization at Neighborhood Level

How does your neighborhood association support the public schools within or near its boundaries? In Lafayette Square and Soulard, they don’t. They do, however, support private charter schools*.

This weekend was Lafayette Square Neighborhood Association’s Patriot Day Run. It was a fundraiser for LSNA, BackStoppers®, and Charter Athletic League, founded at Lafayette Preparatory Academy.

Lafayette Prep is a private charter school located in Lafayette Square. The school is considered an important neighborhood asset and is on the agenda for monthly LSNA general membership meetings.

According to LSNA Board Meeting Minutes, fundraising for Charter Athletic League is not the first time LSNA financially supported private schools. In March 2021, they donated $250 to Lift for Life Academy fourteen blocks away in Soulard/Kosciusko neighborhoods. In March 2022, Lift for Life asked for $1,000. The Board approved $333 and then asked members at the next general membership meeting to donate and reach the $1000 goal.

I looked at LSNA Board and General Membership Minutes for 2021-2022 and found no mention of their closest public schools: Peabody School (it is mentioned on their website’s resources for residents page), seven blocks east, and Sigel School, seven blocks south.

Humboldt School, St. Louis, 19th Century
Humboldt Public School, St. Louis, 19th Century

Soulard has a longstanding relationship with the neighborhood’s two private charter schools- Lift for Life Academy and Soulard School. Some examples. In February 2022, the SRG Board voted to buy a table ($250) for the Soulard School Trivia Night. In May, there was a pitch for the fundraiser at the SRG general membership meeting. Lux Living SoHo Apartments says it will donate $100,000 to Soulard School. Mardi Gras Foundation awarded a grant to Soulard School for landscaping.

There is no relationship between the neighborhood and Humboldt School, Soulard’s remaining public school. aside from Trinity Lutheran, which adopted the school for school supplies, special events, volunteers. Humboldt is five blocks from Soulard School and eleven blocks from Lift for Life.

*Charter schools are private schools funded with public tax dollars taken from public schools.

This Week in Gardening & Nature

Photo of vegetable harvest: four yellow, red, green roasting peppers, a green bell pepper, an Italian zucchini, green and purple pole beans lying on newspaper on wood kitchen table

Pro Tips from Seed St. Louis: Controlling Cabbage Worms/Caterpillars on cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, collards, kale

Pro Tips from Missouri Botanical Garden: Gardening by Month- September Tips & Tricks, Pests & Problems

Tuesday Deadline to order native Missouri plants online from Missouri Wildflowers Nursery for pick-up Saturday at Kirkwood Farmers Market.

9 am Thursday Horticulture Hike at Bellefontaine Cemetery. Horticulturalist led walking tour focusing on trees, shrubs, and flowering plants. Be prepared to walk on uneven terrain with moderate slopes. Register

7:30 am – Noon Friday Workshop at Lewis & Clark Community College, Edwardsville, Illinois. Native by Design: Successful Gardens for Pollinators and People. $25 for Grow Native Missouri and Missouri Prairie Foundation Members, $30 non-members, $15 with student ID. Register

1:30 pm Friday Leaf Walk at Bellefontaine Cemetery. Master Guide led walking tour. Register

10 am to 2 pm Saturday Grow Native Missouri’s St. Louis Area Native Plant Sale at World Bird Sanctuary, Valley Park. Order in advance from four vendors to pick up or shop at the sale.

10 am – 9 pm Saturday Astronomy Festival at Tower Grove Park. Lots of activities including Noon Lunch & Learn Astronomy Talk: Urban Light Pollution and Bird Migration.

7 pm Saturday Missouri Conservation Department’s Harvest Moon over the Confluence at Columbia Bottom Conservation Area. 1 Seat remaining. Register

Sept 14th Seed St. Louis & St. Louis County Library Virtual Workshop: Season Extension and Winter Gardening. Register

Sept 14th-24th Missouri State Parks Fourth Annual Picking Up Pawpaws Contest at Bennett Spring State Park, near Lebanon, a little over a three and a half hour drive from St. Louis.

Annual Tulip & Daffodil Sale. Order now from Brightside St. Louis for pick up Sept 30 or Oct 1st at Forest Park Greenhouse. 30 for $17.

Oct 1st Deadline to enter Missouri Department of Natural Resources Photo Contest. Categories: Natural Resources, State Parks & Historic Sites, People Enjoying Missouri Outdoors.