ST. LOUIS 鈥 The city鈥檚 top fiscal body on Wednesday endorsed Mayor Tishaura O. Jones鈥 pandemic aid plan after a heated exchange between the mayor and Aldermanic President Lewis Reed on the issue.
Jones was joined by Comptroller Darlene Green in voting at the Board of Estimate and Apportionment for the mayor鈥檚 plan for spending $81.4 million in federal pandemic aid.
Reed, the third member, was strongly opposed, arguing that the estimate board shouldn鈥檛 take up the issue until after the Board of Aldermen gives its own version preliminary approval.
In the end, a compromise will likely have to be worked out between the two boards before the money can be spent.
Jones again criticized Reed for not getting aldermen to quickly approve her plan, which was based largely on work done by an advisory board of Jones appointees that held hearings and gathered other public input.
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鈥淧eople are dying, President Reed,鈥 the mayor said in the teleconference meeting. 鈥淓ighty percent of new cases in the city of St. Louis are African Americans, yet they are only 20% of the people being vaccinated.鈥
The mayor鈥檚 plan includes $6.7 million for public health initiatives, including mobile coronavirus vaccination clinics.
Reed in response said the time crunch wasn鈥檛 the fault of aldermen and that Jones and her advisory panel had taken about 45 days to study the issue before the mayor鈥檚 plan was submitted to aldermen June 15.
鈥淲e are moving as swiftly as we can, but you and your administration burned up all of the time,鈥 Reed said.
Jones when she submitted her plan had urged aldermen to act by Thursday. Reed said the board needed more time but that he plans to get the bill finished by July 16.
Jones also complained that Reed had refused her invitation to be a member of the advisory group or assign an aide.
鈥淚 invited the public to participate in a process that you 鈥 didn鈥檛 even take time to show up for,鈥 Jones said.
Reed said it would have been inappropriate for him to do so because the aldermen, a separate branch of government, must do their own review and hearings.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 need any more public hearings,鈥 Jones said. Reed in response said, 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do the job of the Board of Aldermen.鈥 Jones then told Reed, 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do the job of the mayor either, honey.鈥
Reed also said that aldermen had worked cooperatively with Jones鈥 predecessor as mayor, Lyda Krewson, on a previous pandemic aid bill passed earlier this year.
鈥淣one of these antics, none of this stuff happened,鈥 Reed said, referring to Jones鈥 insistence that the board was moving too slowly.
Jones said, 鈥淭his is a new day, I鈥檓 a new mayor and Lyda鈥檚 not here anymore.鈥
When Jones, the estimate board chair, called for a vote on endorsing her plan, she and Green voted in favor. Reed said he wouldn鈥檛 vote on something he contended shouldn鈥檛 be before the estimate board at this point.
鈥淚s that an abstention?鈥 Jones asked.
鈥淵ou can call it what you want to call it,鈥 Reed responded. The mayor then said she鈥檒l count it as a no vote.
Jones鈥 plan also includes millions to help people pay rent and utility bills, aid the homeless, boost youth job programs and expand violence prevention initiatives, among other things.
The board on Wednesday also voted to use $200,000 from unspent sales tax funds to continue paying the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis and the United Way to process applications for previously allocated rent and utility aid through the end of July.
Jones earlier said if aldermen didn鈥檛 pass her plan by the end of June, the city could no longer continue those two contracts.
The move Wednesday allows the two nonprofit groups鈥 work for the city to continue. Reed last week suggested using previously budgeted but unspent funds for that purpose while aldermen reviewed Jones鈥 overall proposal.
The board also approved tapping $200,000 in unspent previous federal aid on hiring the St. Louis Community Foundation to oversee canvassing of areas to promote the COVID-19 vaccine.
Later Wednesday, the aldermanic Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee held its third and final hearing on the pandemic aid money.
The Rev. Darryl Gray, a civil rights activist representing the Missouri Faith Leadership Council, and some other speakers urged the panel to adopt Jones鈥 plan.
鈥淭his is urgent,鈥 Gray said.
Meanwhile, Ann Crenshaw of north St. Louis asked aldermen to use some of the money to increase police presence in the city. She said more and more residents will move out of the city if they don鈥檛 feel safe.
Jeff Mazur, executive director of the LaunchCode Foundation, proposed assigning $450,000 to train 90 city residents from low-income neighborhoods for software development and data engineering jobs.
Other speakers urged the committee to use some of the money to distribute gun locks and to aid child care centers, early childhood education and nursing home residents.Committee chairman Jeffrey Boyd, 22nd Ward, said his committee will meet again Tuesday to work on a proposal to send to the full Board of Aldermen. He said he鈥檚 asked all aldermen to submit ideas to him by 5 p.m. Friday.
Reed questions City Foundry deal
Reed also voted against a measure on the City Foundry project at the estimate board meeting, while Jones and Green passed it without comment. Criticizing the tax incentive package the Jones administration and Alderman Tina Pihl, 17th Ward, recently negotiated with City Foundry developer Steve Smith, Reed said he plans 鈥渄ig into it quite a bit鈥 at the Board of Aldermen.
Pihl and the Jones administration pushed for an 鈥渆quitable development fee鈥 as part of tax incentives offered to the $160 million second phase of the Midtown entertainment and office complex.
Before they took office, Smith had proposed the second phase with $17.3 million in tax increment financing, which lets developers use increases in property taxes generated by new construction to finance projects. In a deal with the new political leaders, Smith agreed to put $1.8 million into the city鈥檚 Affordable Housing Trust Fund while the TIF increased to $18 million.
Reed pointed to that increase as well as a sales tax exemption on construction materials not previously mentioned in the financing package to argue the 鈥渆quitable development fee鈥 just came out of a larger tax break.
鈥淲hy would we give additional incentives just to turn around and make it look like we鈥檝e negotiated something and that developer just passes it back through to the city,鈥 Reed said in an interview with the Post-Dispatch after the estimate board meeting. 鈥淚t鈥檚 clear that an additional incentive was not needed. And the developer himself said that.鈥
The sales tax exemption is valued at $2.8 million in a fiscal analysis included in the board bill, which Reed said increased the project鈥檚 total tax breaks by $3.5 million.
Jonathan Ferry, who runs incentive analysis for the St. Louis Development Corporation, said that, after accounting for fees, he estimates the sales tax exemption value to City Foundry is closer to $1.6 million.
Sales tax exemptions are now commonly granted to large city development projects. Though the City Foundry sales tax exemption wasn鈥檛 previously mentioned in project materials, Ferry said SLDC staff and the developer were planning on it before the affordable housing deal was struck.
鈥淚t had been negotiated and discussed long prior to this administration,鈥 Ferry said.
Nick Dunne, a spokesman for Jones, said the City Foundry deal was a 鈥渘et gain for people who need funding from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.鈥
Pihl responded that the 鈥渟ales tax exemption was there before鈥 the deal and that the amount of TIF as a percentage of project costs actually decreased compared to the earlier proposal. The extra affordable housing money will help people 鈥渟tay in their homes,鈥 she said.
鈥淭his is a win-win for the city and the developer,鈥 she said.
Jacob Barker of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
UPDATED聽at 7 p.m. Wednesday to include details from the aldermanic HUDZ committee hearing.