Tag: development incentives

Delmar’s Corporate Welfare for Rich People

There are a lot of great things happening in St. Louis City and I credit hard work by many people, including activists and Mayor Tishaura Jones. Unfortunately, there is also the ongoing epidemic of corporate welfare, which started forty years ago and is now fecklessly rubber stamped by Alders, and pretty much the City caving to the public school privatization movement.

Among the awful things that happens in St. Louis is making public school kids pay for rich white people’s projects. Today, I’m writing projects on Delmar: Maxine Clark’s Delmar Divine, a home for privatization nonprofits, and billionaire Jim McKelvey’s Delmar Makers Place.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some really nice places owned by good people and good organizations are also now on Delmar because of Clark and McKelvey. That’s what rich people do. They drape themselves with good to ward off criticism. If these rich people were good themselves, they would pay for these projects on their own instead of burdening taxpayers and public school kids.

Maxine Clark is the welfare queen of Build A Bear. We used #WelfareBears on Twitter back in the day.

Clark has a net worth of $22.1 Million and makes $1,370,260 a year as a director on the board of Build A Bear. The City gave the company 50% of its earning’s/payroll/income taxes and 75% tax abatement (money taken from public school kids) to move fourteen miles from St. Louis County to Downtown St. Louis.

Millionaire privatization activist Rex Sinquefield’s Dimensional Fund Advisers owned 6.4% of Build A Bear stock at the time.

Alder Cara Spencer took a walk on that vote and then Alder now Board President Megan Green voted Yes. Voting No were Alder Shane Cohn and former Alders Heather Navarro and Dan Guenther.

A 200 jobs figure was tossed around by everyone during the process but the TIF agreement only required maintaining the 170 jobs. Information was highly problematic during the process and generally a #TransparencyFail, as we called it on Twitter.

Meanwhile, as public school kids pay for the Build A Bear move, Clark spends her retirement as godmother of public school privatization in St. Louis. Reminder: charter schools are private schools funded by tax dollars meant for public schools.

Clark’s Delmar Devine is a nonprofit campus that focuses on all sorts of privatization schemes and got all sorts of corporate welfare, including tax abatement, of course. It is home to:

Opportunity Trust, hell bent on using public dollars to open charter schools

WePower (an arm of Opportunity Trust), which wants more public money to expand child care at charter schools, not being content with a sales tax grift ridiculously adopted by voters to fund training and marketing of child care at charter schools but not public schools

United 4 Children, part of the early childhood education grift which doesn’t actually fund child care but rather funds training, marketing, information

KIPP charter schools

Clark-Fox Family Foundation, supporting various anti-public school and anti-union teacher efforts and I believe working on the funding child care at charter schools initiative

Teach For America, the anti-union, anti-teachers as a degreed profession group

All of them have well paid staff and public relations budgets that most of the small noprofits the rest of us are associated with will never see. It’s really stretching the definition to use “charity” on some of them. They are nonprofit arms of political agendas.

Then there’s Delmar’s Jim McKelvey, of Square fame. He could well afford to do anythign he has in St. Louis without making public school kids pay for it.

I meant to write a lot more on all this but I need to run. Just search McKelvey’s name for the millions and millions in tax abatement and other incentives he has benefitted from.

STL City Budget Hearing Fail, Public Denied Opportunity to Speak

Old black and white photo of St. Louis City Hall

The Budget Committee of the Board of Alders (BOA) had a public hearing today, June 5th, 2024, on the 2025 Budget for the City of St. Louis. The hearing, per its City Calendar Notice, was to include public testimony both in person at City Hall and by Zoom. At least two Alders participated by Zoom.

6th Ward resident and local government transparency advocate Gerry Connolly planned to testify by Zoom. He confirmed his participation with BOA staff. He wrote his notes. He logged on to the hearing.

The hearing began with Mayor Tishaura Jones presenting on her office’s budget. Then it was time for public testimony. But Budget Chair Cara Spencer announced a recess. People who had taken time off from work to make their voice heard were told they would have to wait 39 minutes.

When the Budget Committee reconvened, Alders heard in person public testimony. Then it was time for testimony by Zoom. It was Gerry’s turn. I’m not sure how many others had planned to testify via Zoom.

But Gerry was not allowed to speak. No Zoom testimony was taken. No explanation was given. It was yet another Sunshine Fail, Transparency Fail at City Hall.

Gerry was told he could submit comments by email. He was angry, and rightfully so, but he hurridly transformed his notes for three minutes of testimony into written, expanded comments.

Since Gerry’s testimony is not available as a part of the online public record, and while the Budget Committee Chair may not be interested in what he has to say, others may be interested. I asked him if I could publish his testimony on my blog and he agreed. I have made a few edits for formatting purposes and add links.

Below is Gerry’s testimony on 2025 Budget for City of St. Louis which he submitted by email.

———-

Gerry Connolly.
6th Ward resident
38xx Botanical Ave
St. Louis, MO 63110

June 5, 2024

Honorable members of the Budget and Public Employees Committee,

I had planned to provide this testimony via Zoom at today’s Budget Committee meeting. However, due to the fact the committee failed to take any public testimony today via Zoom, I am submitting my comments in writing. 

Public Testimony in opposition to Board Bill 1

I am testifying against Board Bill 1. The City should allocate financial resources from within the budget as recommended by the Board of E and A necessary to implement the policy recommendations described in items 1 through 7 below.

  • 1) Fix the City’s “Sunshine portal, The Public Records Center, which hasn’t been consistently functional for 6 months. Make the responsive records of all city government bodies available in the Public Records Archive. The St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) and St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) currently do not make records available to the general public in the Public Records Archive. Only requesters may view responsive records via their portal user accounts.There may be additional City entities that do not make records available to the general public.
  • 2) Open government and transparency must be consistent across city government. The Board of Aldermen (BOA) must update the decade old transparency ordinance:
    1. Post meeting recordings to Youtube for government entities currently missing. These include the Airport Commission, Affordable Housing Commission, Mental Health Board and Senior Fund.
    2. Standardization of meeting notices, both physical and online. The official agenda (not just the text) must include the resolutions to be voted upon. The meeting packet must include the draft minutes of prior meetings, if applicable. All other documents utilized during a meeting should be posted online. The BOA’s posting of many budget presentations on the BB 1 webpage should serve as a model for all departments.
    3. The following city bodies do not operate consistently in a transparent manner: Board of Estimate and Apportionment (E and A); Charter Commission, Reparations Commission and Detention Facilities Oversight Board. The persistent violation of Missouri Sunshine Law by the Board of E and A is cause for alarm. The Board of Aldermen’s silence on the Sunshine violations by the Board of E and A has been noted.
  • 3) Continue to reform of how development incentives are awarded. Ordinance 71620 was a step forward in the system for awarding tax breaks to development projects. However Ordinance 71620 (BB 64 in the 2022-23 BOA session) had major flaws that subsequent legislation has only addressed in part (See BB 98 and BB 236 in the 2023-24 BOA session). More changes to the ordinance are needed.  All provisions in Ordinance 71620 must be enforced by the BOA. SLDC did not follow the mandated procedures for the 15 projects, with development costs over $10 Million, that were approved in the 2023-24 BOA session. The non-compliance included a failure to consult St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) and affected tax districts. Every effort must be made to shield SLPS from the impact of tax breaks.
  • 4) All development incentives must be authorized by an ordinance approved by the BOA. Incentives that presently do not require approval by ordinance include, but are not limited to:

    1. Bond issuances authorized by the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (LCRA), Planned Industrial Expansion Authority (PIEA), Industrial Development Authority (IDA) and Port Authority.

    2. Certain tax abatements authorized by the Port Authority Commission (PA) and Enhanced Enterprise Zone Board (EEZB).

    3. New Markets Tax Credit (NTMC) program, currently authorized by the SLDC board of directors.
  • 5) The Land Reutilization Authority’s lot sales policy must be modified. In 2023, the Land Reutilization Authority adopted new sales policies for LRA-owned property, per the recommendation of SLDC staff. In the category of sale of lots for the purpose of building one home, a lot whose area is less than 4,000 sq. ft. is ineligible for sale under the new policy. LRA eliminated the opportunity to provide housing, strengthen the fabric of a neighborhood and grow the city’s tax base.

    The LRA sales policy must be modified in order to restore the ability of homebuilders to purchase lots under 4,000 sq. ft. and construct much-needed housing.

    The Jones administration, SLDC and the Community Development Agency (CDA) frequently cite the Economic Justice Action Plan (EJAP) as a guide for City policy and program spending. SLDC included citations from the Economic Justice Action Plan (EJAP) in the LRA board resolution adopting the new sales policies.

    It is noteworthy that the EJAP planning process, conducted by consultants to SLDC, did not include the participation of the general public or Board of Aldermen. Only narrowly focussed public outreach was performed.

    I have not heard an explanation of the rationale behind the new sales policy in any setting- SLDC website, development board meetings or at BOA committee meetings. The BOA should investigate this matter.
  • 6) All fee revenues from SLDC’s Sales Tax Exemption Fund should be transferred to the City’s General Fund and included in the annual appropriation to the Affordable Housing Commission
  • 7) Eight reforms for the BOA to enact for Local Taxing Districts (LTDs). It is possible that changes to Missouri law will be necessary in order to accomplish some of the recommendations.

    1. The budgets of the 100 plus LTDs in the City likely exceed $50 Million with taxes and/or special assessments imposed on the public. The vast majority of LTDs operate routinely in violation of Missouri Sunshine law. Enact all recommendations of the 2019 Missouri Auditor’s report on LTDs. Read the audit report here (See pages 9 – 18 for recommendations)

    2. Place all policing duties funded by LTDs under the command of SLMPD.

    3. Extend community oversight of surveillance technology to all LTDs.

    4. A representative of the following must be appointed to the board of all single site LTDs: Mayor, Board of Aldermen and Comptroller.

    5. Prohibit developers from controlling single site districts.

    6. Document all City of St. Louis resources allocated to the LTDs. Such resources include:

    (i) City funds expended on projects of the LTDs.
    (ii) City staff attending LTD meetings.
    (iii) Work performed by City staff to support the activities of LTDs. (Examples of City staff: SLMPD personnel when working for the City; Neighborhood Improvement Specialists).

    7. Establish robust Conflicts of Interest regulations for people serving on the boards and committees of LTDs.

    8. Establish a limit on the number of LTD boards on which one person can serve. (Some individuals serve at least five LTD boards).

    I would be happy to discuss the above recommendations by phone, in-person or at a committee meeting. My contact information is below.

    Thank you for your consideration.

    Gerry Connolly

    cc Honorable members of the Board of Aldermen
         President Megan Green
         Clerk Terry Kennedy
         Mayor Tishaura O. Jones
         Comptroller Darlene Green
         Budget Director Paul Payne