Donnybrook is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Hey, it's Alvin Reid sitting in for Charlie Brennan this week.

And hey, I want to give a personal uh shout out to all the people who came up and said hi to me yesterday at the Herb Alpert concert at the Blanch Touhill.

It was an absolutely fantastic night.

And I know that some of you are really worried about us and say like, "Hey, are we going to be all right?"

Look, it's my promise.

We ain't going nowhere despite what is being discussed in Washington.

We're going to be right here.

We're going to be serving you.

Trust me.

And you know, my mouth is writing a check that uh you all are going to have to help me cash, but we'll talk to you about that next week.

All right.

Joining me tonight, of course, is Wendy Whis, media veteran, Bill McClelllan, Post Dispatch columnist, another Post Dispatch employee and great writer, Joe Hollemann, and Sarah Fenske from St. Louis magazine.

Behind me we have some new art this week and that is art by Peggy Bay and you can find her on Instagram at Peggy Bay Artist.

Now one reason that we have been on the air so long and doing the great things we do is a young lady named Anne Marie Burgerer and uh we love her and so does the Mid America Emmy Silver Circle.

She's going to be honored for 25 years of service.

And uh she's in there smiling.

I know because we did not tell her we were going to do this.

And we love you Amy very much.

Amy and I got I got a lot of A's around.

Yeah.

A lot of A's.

Amy's the boss.

So we love Amy, too.

But no, for real.

All right.

And Marie and uh one of the best parts of the show is I could hear and she says, "I'm going to get you."

So congratulations.

Congratulations.

Hey, one thing.

Brian Williams wants to get that county executive seat as a Democrat.

He's currently a state senator.

And uh Joe, I you know, the word came out that it's official.

Uh I word on the street is he was going to tell you first and word on the street was he was going to tell me first, but there there was a lot of people who were going to get this first.

Um, in what what ended up being one of the worstkept secrets, uh, Brian Williams announced that he will be running as a Democrat uh, for a county executive, which if Sam Page, who said he's seeking re-election, would set up a race between Paige and Williams.

Brian Williams name really popped up back when uh, they were looking at running someone against Cy Bush.

And a lot of people thought it was going to be Brian Williams, who had worked as an aid to Lacy Clay uh, some years ago.

and Wesley Bell jumped in and and filed for the office and the rest is history.

Wesley Bell's at the US House.

After that, it seemed to shift that Brian Williams was going to run for county executive and today he indeed announced that he would.

So, we have a a Williams Page race possible in the primary.

Wait, I think this is trouble for Sam Page.

I think it would have been trouble even before uh the indictment from Andrew Bailey's office, which as we discussed last week, I think is a croc.

But I think that's going to be this huge distraction.

Sam Page is going to be having to fight this, have to explain why it's a croc.

Let's face it, not everybody pays as much attention to the news as we do.

Um, and Brian Williams would have been a formidable opponent even without the spectre of that happening.

So, this seems like it could get ugly.

Well, except that Andrew Bailey is so unpopular with Democrats that this might actually help Sam Page a little bit because when people go, "Well, if Andrew Baileyy's after him, I'm really supporting Sam."

And Brian Williams, I don't think he has the name recognition.

Yeah.

I mean, but he is a formidable guy.

I I think in in the county, I think he does.

Brian does in, you know, in the county, especially in North County.

Uh, I'll also say that um, you know, Brian said that the indictment had nothing to do with his running and and I would believe that because it was out there that he was going to run long before that came out.

But I don't think Sam Paige is going to run for county executive.

See, really, I I think that from the get-go, he has been the nonpolitical politician.

you know, he's he's a doctor.

He's the anesthesiologist.

He was right there at COVID.

You know, he was he was the county's doctor.

I don't think he processes things the way the rest of us do.

I think he will I think he will stay in.

I think he will absolutely stay in.

I don't think this indictment is going to I don't think it's going to curtail his plans at all.

I just think losing will could Well, that could I think he'll read a poll or the early tea leaves and say like this.

You think he'll just do that?

I think I I do.

I do.

Now, I think he'll beat this rap.

I I I think this Well, he might stay in just because of this rap.

You know that he doesn't want to look like, "Well, I'm a guilty man, so why don't I slink away?"

Well, I think he could withdraw after this all goes away.

Yeah.

I don't know.

The timing of that is kind of weird.

If he's in it, he has to promise that he's in it to win it because he's got to go out and raise a bunch of money and nobody wants to give money to somebody who's about to drop out.

So, I think he he'd have to give some assurances here.

I do think, you know, Brian Williams, um, I think is well known, but I'd be surprised if the polls right out the gate show him on top because I think he is well known and very well respected in North County, but he's going to have to now talk about what he stands for and present himself as the alternative to Paige.

That's going to take a while.

So, these things are going to have to play out over the next couple months.

It it seems like he can't drop out quite this early.

Well, Sam Paige has a I I think he has a very solid and very loyal base.

And I think you just have to ask Mark Montavani who by anybody's, you know, by anybody's metrics, he was a very attractive, appealing candidate.

And he couldn't get the job done.

What that was a very different years ago now.

A lot has changed since then.

I know.

And and a lot of people still want Mark Monavani to run.

So, well, and there was also with the Monavani, is he a Republican?

Is he a Democrat?

He had a Republican running as a Democrat.

Here you have a well, I think it's an interesting race all the way around because you have a bonafide Democratic opponent to St.

Page and you have a bonafide Republican candidate, Dennis Hancock, who said he's going to run for county executive.

So, I think you have at least races where nobody's confused about what party anybody's with.

True.

You know, I mean, it's like you're either for him or you're a ginham.

And I I think either argument could be made that Sam Page I think first of all you know most politicians like most uh journalists have a greater than average ego for the lack of a better word.

And to just drop out because someone challenged you is like somebody telling you quit asking questions about that story.

It just makes you want to ask more.

So I I don't know.

Okay.

I I just think that this this Andrew Bailey thing will go away and that'll be perfect time to ride off into the sunset.

And ladies and gentlemen, bet between you and I, Sam, first official poll comes out, I I say Brian Williams is leading Sam Page.

I am going to look forward to see All right.

But I said official poll now.

Oh, he's going to work the St. Louis American.

There you go.

Me carbon in the dog bell.

Okay.

Well, Don Brown is not officially on the police board yet because he has to be um approved by the state senate.

That would not happen until January.

But Mr. Brown, who is a vendor with the St. Police Department is on the board of police commissioners and he was or maybe was at least going to be considered to be on the budget committee, but at the um request of Mayor Cara Spencer, he has now been told he cannot be on the budget committee.

So, Bill, uh good move by the mayor.

Yeah, if I move by the mayor, but I mean it just brings again up what a strange choice Don Brown was.

I mean, you know, he's a big vendor to the police department and in what universe do you want to put a vendor on the board?

like what if if someone uh wanted to give give give away their cars to the police department and they went to the board to try to get the bid and and realized, oh, I'm bidding against one of the board members.

It was just an odd choice and and uh certainly he he shouldn't have anything to do with the budget.

I I'll go with I I a lot of this because it all boils down to really do you think there should be a state police board and I was for that.

I was for a state police board and and and but I agree that that Mayor Spencer made the right call in you can't be on the budget committee because you're a vendor, you know, even if it's a non voting position that he has on the police board.

To me, it's crazy that we have a smart mayor, a mayor who's off to a good start, and she has to go sit in these committee meetings with like a guy who owns a bar and a guy who's trying to sell uh SUVs to the police department and has to sit there and deliberate and talk about how should we manage the police chief.

It makes no sense to me.

We've taken this process that made so much sense.

Okay, yes, you have to report to the mayor and keep her happy if you want to keep your job.

and we've made this so cumbersome and put people on this board who absolutely don't make Let me make one uh correction to you here, Sarah.

The city used to be run by people who own bars.

You know, there used to be the old joke in the court of all that if somebody came to the alderman and said, "Your tavern's on fire, they wouldn't have a quorum."

Right.

That's right.

And and the and you know, Joe Wulmer was the last of the group.

and and the idea that poor uh Mayor Spencer has to sit there with bar owners.

Well, look, I love bar owners.

I actually really enjoy Joel Vulmer and his salute.

So, nothing against bar owners, but just the very idea we can have a competent chief executive who's working full-time to manage the city and instead we're going to bring in all these people who are kind of like going to part-time it when they can find an hour to look over the agenda right before the meeting and maybe sell some police cars to the department while they're at it.

It just seems needlessly messy.

I think this is just yet another example of like this is not the right board and the structure doesn't make sense.

Is it just the is it just the particular players that No, I mean this whole because it's a nod to business owners clearly I'm I like business owners, but I just don't understand why we would take something that makes a lot of sense, a very simple structure that answers to the voters and clunk it all up with getting the governor involved, getting all these people who are going to cycle in and out.

I just don't think boards are as effective as having a chief executive.

Now, I understand it that I guess the lawsuits are going to be heard later on this month.

Okay.

But it what would be the straw that would break the camel's back as far as the mayor is concerned for her to join in or file her own lawsuit to try to stop this or do you think that she has I think she's actively looking into what the best argument.

I wonder and there's there's talk there's talk with different lawyers about okay did the lawsuit filed by Megan Green did they actually choose the most winning case against this state board and there are people who think they did not and so if Mayor Spencer gets in and files a lawsuit of her own it will be because they have identified some different better strategy or she gets lawyers that she thinks could do a better job.

I can see the one thing that Mayor Spencer I think has shown is is that is is a a healthy dose of pragmatism.

Uh, and president of the board of Alderman Green is always good about aspirational and theoretical, but I think uh, Cara Spencer has taken a look at what can work and and so the idea that she's not jumping out in front of every issue and taking a look at it to see what's the most prudent way to approach this, I think is is a good situation.

And I think that's what she's doing here.

Instead of coming out and saying, "I'm against this police board," she said, "I'm against Don Brown being on the budget committee," which is so blatantly obvious that that's a great idea, whether you're for this board or not.

Like I said, I'm for it.

I think she made the right choice.

I think she's looking at it in a logical, let's just not talk about theory here.

Let's actually see what we can do.

So, okay.

All right.

Well, it's not a theory that SLPS was a little bit out of control with the former superintendent.

The official state audit came out and it showed that there was reckless spending and people were given bonuses which basically was in violation of the state contract and that the whole shebang might be broke by I guess 2031.

Now that really wasn't news because the district itself the new board had said yeah we will be out of funding here in another six seven years.

So uh Wendy what do we do?

Uh, you know, we can't take it all out on the former superintendent, but uh, how do we rescue SLPS?

Um, well, you only have five minutes.

Well, first of all, that the state auditor said that it didn't meet any kind of criminal uh, conspiracy level.

When does gross incompetence, and I'm not being smart, when does gross incompetence reach the criminal level?

Because when you look at the children uh who tra you know in terms of transportation their transportation nightmares the parents who were hamstrung uh in during cold winter months and then you've got this and then you have you have the acting school superintendent Millisent Borisade who is being paid $40,000 more than she should have been when she was a deputy to Kesha Scarlet is she's the one who's telling us.

You know what?

We're just going to have to tighten up.

What?

What?

And and then and then Matt Davis, the former school board member, saying that, "Hey, you know, this is very dramatic.

This is really over the top and, you know, very uncalled for because as soon as we saw a problem, we acted on it."

That's not heroic.

That is not heroic, uh, Mr. Davis.

That's that's what and then he was, you know, went went even further to say I wasn't getting paid.

It's a mess.

The children deserve better.

The city deserves better.

But until we start making some kind of I I think this is this is gross misconduct.

And I think it eventually has to reach a criminal level on on the part of somebody.

Well, well, Wendy, when you talk about Matt Davis's remark about this is overblown and as soon as we real, you know, that's not exactly what did not happen.

I mean, Ble Burnernhard, the Post Dispatch reporter, who was the hero of this, who kept bringing up all of these spendings, and Tony Cousins and Matt Davis wrote an op-ed in the Post Dispatch that their opponents were racist and sexist and classist and just fought BL every step of the way.

And now there's Matt Davis saying, "Hey, as soon as we saw a problem, Yeah.

No, you didn't.

Right.

Right.

And what then it was is like well you know the administrators did wrong.

Okay.

Yeah Matt you the administrators and I think and you really hate to say this but I think because schools and especially public schools have this sort of you know we've talked about it's sort of a sacred or dear place to us.

There was nobody here thinking about kids.

Let let's just put this aside.

When you're at the 801 chop house you are not thinking about kids.

When you're going over to the far east with truck you're not thinking about kids.

So, quit using that as some excuse of, well, what about the kids?

They should have been asking that for the last 10 or 20 years.

And you're right, the auditors didn't turn up anything we didn't know.

But, I mean, think about where you say we're broke and there's no plan to fix it.

How do you let that go that far?

Yes.

Should you blame administrators along the way?

Absolutely.

And the school board.

Everybody gets a piece of this pie of blame.

And and so just stop with your trying to shade it off on somebody else.

You didn't think about the kids.

You thought about you.

You thought about the easiest way to avoid solving a problem.

And now here we are.

Well, I got to say, you know, they say there's no plan to fix it.

There actually is a plan that would go a long way to fixing it that has apparently been pitched to the board and now they have to decide what part of it to go with or how fast to go with it or do they have the guts to go with it.

We know a huge part of the problem in addition to we had these terrible administrators who were apparently uh funding all their entertainment with the tax dollars.

We also have way too many school buildings and we cannot continue to maintain all of them and the staffing that they need.

So what I hope is that what comes out of this audit is instead of looking backward at these things that thanks to Bleice we all knew about six months ago that we can look forward and say okay what are the hard choices that need to be made here and can we find a way to come together on them as opposed to just tear each other apart fighting over whose school gets to stay open when this district could collapse if we get if we all get our way and get to keep our neighborhood school open.

Yeah.

and and as the you know husband as a teacher and son of a teacher I know the teachers go out of their way and supply their own classrooms with probably half the stuff that they need so they're not thinking about the teachers either when they're at the chop house absolutely yep sad story hopefully it will improve okay Bill um in in in trying to rather I guess maybe say be safe than sorry uh Mayor Spencer has ended all the minority contracting goals we don't have set, you know, numbers that say any project has to have this many of uh minority suppliers or contractors involved, but the aspirational goals, as uh Megan Green points out, uh that you don't have to fill.

Anyway, those have been ended.

Uh four black aldermen are not very uh happy with the mayor on this one, as are many uh minority contractors, as you may have guessed.

So, Bill, right thing to do?

Are we jumping the gun or where we at on this one?

Well, I I thought that the mayor did the right thing.

I you know, I I support the programs to help minority contractors, but I think that right now what the mayor and the city need is money from the feds for the tornado damage.

And I think that the mayor is reading President Trump correctly to think that he is petty enough and vindictive enough to find any excuse he can to stop the aid.

And if you remember in his first term when there were people in California when they needed respirators and uh Jared Kishner was uh in charge of it as he was so many things uh he told Governor Nuome who asked for some respirators said well you're going to have to talk to my father-in-law personally you know and beg for him.

And I think that any president who would, you know, when citizens are literally gasping for breath, you can't trust that president to overlook anything.

And so I think that the mayor correctly has decided that first let's get the money for the tornado help and then we can go back to the minority program and its aspirational goals.

I think that goes on I'll chip in again with we talk about Spencer being pragmatic about the situation.

You could have said, "Well, I'm gonna fight him hammer and nail and the feds hero and the feds would go, okay, no more money and and she'd be a hero a national hero standing up."

Yeah.

But all the the people who needed things in St. Louis wouldn't get it.

Would have been on the short end of the stick.

So, you'd have won that great philosophical battle, but the people in your city that you were elected to represent would have gone wanting.

So, and it it's not like we're killing this program forever and it can never come back and we can never do No, it's not saying let's make some changes here.

Let's get this money in and then we take it from there.

Once again, a pragmatic solution and I'm sure that she knew that she was going to get grief over it.

So, I'll also applaud her for sometimes making that tough decision and say, "I'm going to get smacked around for this, but this is what I think is the most prudent way to go down like Bill said."

So, I applaud her for Yeah.

I mean, she's definitely getting some grief for it.

There are people who are very upset and, you know, she's just jettison the whole thing, which is not how I'm reading this.

My understanding is they want to find a way to make a program that they think can pass muster.

And there's a lot of smart lawyers who think that they can do that with this, that they just need to come back.

The board of alderman will be back in session in September.

They can come in with a consensus bill.

In the meantime, the contracts that have already been given out are continuing.

They're just saying we're not going to do new ones under this framework.

Okay.

All right.

I I I will say this.

I just think that at some point people have to stand up to the president.

And quite frankly, this is to me this comes down to race.

Again, not in the good or the bad of the program, but this is why it is being targeted.

And I mean, I just kind of feel like black people are here to just fend for themselves.

And these are people that are doing right.

You know, they have a business.

I think that most of I will I won't be say every contract is on the up and up, but I will say that they're legitimate and they're doing right and I do feel for all the tornado victims, but let's help the people that have actually accomplished something and at least keep them in mind.

I I don't want the whole city to be held hostage over this tornado money.

That's basically what I'm saying.

So meanwhile on the other side of the state, Joe, uh they're trying to gerrymander Reverend Emanuel Clever's district to try to hold on to the House.

Uh Texas state Democrats have fled the state.

Some are up in Chicago.

Uh Governor Prrisker says like, "Hey, we're going to go, you know, tisk for task and jerrymander some districts over here.

It's a whole mess."

But how do you see this?

Oh no, they're going to jerrymander districts in Illinois.

No way.

No way.

I can't believe it.

I mean, not I get that there's some legitimate concerns pulling and we're going to do this as opposed to doing it when the census comes around, but in a general sense, I just love when either side, Republican or Democrats, just become morally outraged about gerrymandering, you know, because what happens is the party in power, it's called judicious redrawing of lines.

It's the other side that calls it gerrymandering, you know.

So I mean you what's happen you you look let's take Illinois for example 80% of their congressmen are Democrats 40% of their state voted Republican and you find states like that all over the place.

There's hardly a state in this union that you could point to and said oh these districts all make logical sense.

No, they're drawn for political purposes to get an advantage for a political party.

Right.

But but as you referenced, Joe, that's usually done when the census every decade.

Okay.

And the and what's going on now is, you know, well, we're going to try to beat the midterms by redistricting and knocking uh Cleaver out.

And I I just think that that's too much.

Yeah.

It feels like changing the rules sort of midame that that is just it's so reprehensible.

And we all know that Jerry Mandering goes on.

I mean, you're right about that, Joe.

I'm not going to argue with that.

I can't tell you how many times I've had a hot shot young reporter run into my office and be like, "I've got this great story.

Someone's redrawing these districts."

I'm like, "We are not going to run this.

No one's going to read that."

But guess what?

I'm hearing the news right now and I'm going, "I am morally offended about this."

I mean, Wendy's just telling me that Trump has just announced today that he wants to hold a new census so that they can speed this through and these are going to use all the modernday techniques.

That to me sounds like he's gonna chuck this into chat GPT and say, "Uh, AI, draw me a new district that favors Republicans."

And that's how clumsily we're going to do this.

I don't like this.

It stinks.

And I think that, you know, the districts that are targeted, they're they're kind of separating a black voting block in Kansas City.

The same is true uh in Texas.

So, I mean, I understand that it's desperation.

they feel like they're going to lose the house.

But once again, here we go.

Why are you targeting, you know, these districts?

And I wish more people would stand up and say like, this is not right.

Now, also, there are some Republicans that are a little wary in Missouri that this 71 could turn into 53 in a number of years.

We got some letters.

Speaking of Governor Pritsker, maybe Illinois billionaire Governor JB Pritsker can spend a nickel south of Chicago to get the East St. Louis pool running instead of people from Missouri that from JC Johnson in West County.

The outdoor city pools I have been familiar with are open while the high schools in their area are closed for the summer rather than open when according to the calendar outdoor temperatures are expected to be high enough to swim outdoors.

That is because they have mostly high school and college age staff.

That from Jane Brink.

You want a wow for St. Louisans?

Offer free internet for everyone that lives downtown specifically.

Want a wow for visitors?

We have so much culture in St. Louis.

There is so much history that locals do not know and visitors would be intrigued to know more if we presented it.

Our historical society should be working with tourism and the mayor.

That from Don Schaefer.

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Turo at the airport and when's the last time you caught a Greyhound bus.

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