>> Donny Brook is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.

>> Thanks so much for joining us for another edition of Donnybrook, the last for July.

And it turns out another St. Louis County executive has been indicted, the second in a row.

We'll get to that and other topics, but first let's meet the panelist.

Starting with the media veteran herself, Wendy Wiese, along with tanned and rested and relaxed, back from vacation, our founder, Mr. Bill McClellan from the Post Dispatch.

She hosts the 314 podcast and sends out the daily newsletter and is with St. Louis magazine as its editor, Sarah Fenske.

And we welcome Alvin Reed from the St. Louis American.

Sarah, so Sam Page, the county executive, St. Louis County, was indicted by the state attorney general, Andrew Bailey, this week.

Bailey insists that um uh County Executive Page did a number of things.

He sent out a mailer and incurred some election law misdemeanor violations, but also he's accused of stealing from the county when he used 25 or was it $35,000 to send out this postcard to people telling them that he opposed Proposition B.

That was the measure that would have allowed the county council to remove his department heads or his cabinet.

So, what did you think of I mean this big story in what is otherwise a slow new season generally?

>> Yeah, I mean this dropped like a bomb.

You know, felonies against the county executive.

Here we go again.

And yet, if you look at the actual charges, this is not corruption.

This is not stealing.

Even though Andrew Bailey tried to charge it as stealing, you know, talking to lawyers, they're saying, "Okay, wait a minute.

So, this guy authorized sending out a postcard to educate voters."

And I think there's a real question of did he go too far in that?

Did it veer into advocacy versus education?

If it was advocacy, I think there's a really good civil lawsuit against it.

There's not a felony charge of stealing.

This in no way benefited him financially.

It's not like he's helping himself to this money or enriching himself.

Andrew Bailey has had some suspect legal moves in his time as attorney general, and this to me seems like another great example of that.

>> Yeah, I was going to say this is just some more Andrew Bailey stuff.

And and which of these are felonies?

I thought these were misdemeanor.

>> Two felony stealing.

>> All right.

The stealing.

Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> I you know I mean and and what I one article I didn't bother to read it but the headlines said like comparing it to Steve Stinger.

That's like comparing me to Willie McGee.

I play we both play baseball, you know, like come on.

I this is just it's utter and complete nonsense.

But I will say this St. Louis County nose meet face.

Don't spite it.

this whole thing.

We're like, see, we told San Paige if we don't like Sam Page.

You're embarrassing yourselves.

Don't fall into Bailey.

>> You're talking about who's we we we count.

Don't fall into that trap.

Don't Andrew Bailey is Andrew Bailey.

Don't embarrass yourselves any further than you already have.

Quite frankly, I will be so glad about a year exactly from now when we'll be having the primaries where we can move on from these folks that are on the county council.

Well, I I remember supporting Dennis Hancock on that nepotism charge saying, "Oh, you know, once he said, "Okay, it's wrong."

It's this is just a technicality.

And and here Dennis Hancock is, you know, waving his fist about, you know, what Sam Page has done, which is also just a technicality.

I mean, and and Andrew Bailey, he wouldn't go after those private Christianmies.

You remember there was one in Wayne County, uh, Lighthouse Christian Academy or something, and one in Ston where children had were allegedly being abused.

>> And Andrew Bailey said, "No, I'm not doing that."

And then the torch electronics, you know, the gambling devices.

He said, "Well, I can't do that.

I'm taking money from Steve Tilly."

But so suddenly here he is kind of conjuring up a stealing charge.

Like you say, Sarah, it's hard.

When I saw the headline, I thought, "My gosh, stealing."

Exactly.

And then you read it and go, >> "You didn't steal anything."

>> Well, and and kudos to our colleague Sarah Finsky and Ryan Crawl because it was a brilliant story this morning because you talked to government watchdog Tom Sullivan who probably his postage I mean his postage bills have to be, you know, pretty excessive because he constantly watches these things.

Apparently, according to your story, for the first time, you know, he he he he has results.

You know, he was I think he was more surprised than anybody.

What really kind of shocked me just a little bit was Scott Rosen Bloom comparing another one of the the sources for your article this morning, your newsletter, uh comparing this to a secretary using a postage meter at work um to send wedding invitations.

I want them to be as close to the line as they possibly can, them being elected officials.

So, good for Tom Sullivan.

I do think this is an overstep.

>> I I I think it is.

But don't forget, we lost Attorney General William Webster in the 1990s because he used an office copier for uh think we removed an attorney general and he was found guilty.

>> But that was also the second William Webster.

That that really gets uh complicated.

It does.

It was the second injury fund that really got him.

And when and it's like taxes when they couldn't get the second injury fund, they got whatever they could.

>> And I said on this program, they got him for spitting on the sidewalk and they did.

And maybe they'll get Sam Page for spitting on the sidewalk.

We don't know except I think Sam Page has a benefit here and that is that uh Andrew Bailey is not Hal Goldmith.

>> If this was Hal Goldmith at the US Attorney's Office, I would be very afraid if I was Sam Page.

And I do want to give some credit to Tom Sullivan because I don't think this was squeaky clean.

I don't think it's felonious.

I don't think he should lose his job or go to prison, even though that's how it's being reported.

But I do think that, you know, Sam Paige was told by councel, don't put two of these points on your postcard.

And he ignored that.

And so he wasn't sending anything out educational.

And Sam, we're not dumb.

That was not educational.

It was not in the least bit balanced.

It was completely against Proposition B. I happen to agree with them on that point.

I think >> Proposition B was ludicrous.

It was >> I mean, it would be hard to write something about Proposition B and make it seem like fair and balanced.

>> Well, you could you could say the county council would have more leverage over the goings on of government.

>> Yeah, we we could we can invite chaos into the county government.

>> It's already there, Bill.

Well, it is now.

I do I do think and you know we disagreed about Hancock back in the during that little chapter and I was all about the statute and if if Bailey can make if he can somehow beef this up and make it appear to be a little bit less a little bit I know you're making faces.

>> No, I know.

No, I I was going to say like the one thing I disagree with uh we are dumb.

So >> Oh, no.

I >> no I I I I stand by what I said.

I do want our elected officials >> to tip I I want them to dance on that line.

I don't want them to go over >> I agree and I I give Tom Sullivan credit.

I I love putting the politicians on their toes.

>> No, I'm not I'm not arguing with Tom Sullivan what he did.

I'm I'm just saying that or put it this way.

I would tell you know the county executive, hey, that dog wasn't going to hunt, dude.

So it was going to lose anyway.

So you made bad judgment in even putting lifting that much weight to get this thing mailed out because it was going to lose anyway.

>> He didn't even need this.

>> He didn't even need, >> you know, Tom Sullivan has been fighting the good fight on this issue for so long.

He can tell you chapter and verse of all the complaints he's filed, various government agencies that are using government money to advocate for bond issues and to advocate for >> Metropolitan Sewer District.

They're all so bad at it.

And Tom has been right that it is a problem.

And I do not like this at all, but I think the one good thing that is going to come out of this is people are going to think twice before they do this.

I think you're going to see fewer uses of government resources for this.

I think that's great.

I don't see them successfully securing a conviction here, but at least it will make people think, >> you know what I see?

Okay, so this is Andrew Bailey's third St. Louis official he's gone after.

The first was Kim Gardner.

The second one was Alfred Montgomery.

The third one is now Sam Page.

And a lot of people think that our area is just very dysfunctional.

I think some of us agree with that to some extent more than others.

And uh I think Andrew Bailey stock is going to rise.

No, it isn't.

People are going to say, "You're going after the corruption in St. Louis.

We applaud >> because he's going to go one for three.

He's not going to get the sheriff removed.

He's going to lose this one.

One for three and you're the state attorney general."

Oh, yeah.

That's good in Republican land.

But in reality, that's terrible.

That's a waste of the taxpayers money.

>> You know, he's certainly elevating his profile.

You see his name everywhere.

So, it's successful on that.

What's sad is we get tips all the time from these small Missouri counties that have like wildly corrupt sheriffs and public officials there that are doing some insane stuff.

They can't get the attorney general to pay attention.

He's going where the bigger down there on that.

>> Speaking of stock rising, how about Melissa Price Smith?

That was some very deaf uh very very deaf prosecutorial conduct in my opinion.

I don't explain that.

Well, she recused herself, but then sent it on down the line and make made it possible for all of this to happen >> because she's no Sam Paige fan.

Tom Sullivan, the self-appointed government watchdog.

We should identify him.

He's a university city resident who just uh spends his time watching the county council.

They even have a chair with his name on it at the county council.

And he uh >> he watches everything >> and and he is to count the county and local politics what the late Rick Hmel was to the Cardinals.

He he has a great institutional memory.

>> So he sends this complaint to the county prosecutor.

She punts and gives it to the attorney general.

>> He sent it to the secretary of state and as a matter of policy, they seem to always send them to the county prosecutor.

And he said routinely county prosecutors will just sit on these things.

They won't take any action.

Melissa Price Smith uh maybe cleverly uh passed it on and she passed it on to the presiding judge who then uh kicked it right up to Andrew Bailey.

Right up.

>> All right.

Hey, let's move on to our second topic of the evening.

We'll start with you, uh, Wendy, and that is that, uh, the president called the senior senator from the great state of Missouri, Josh Holly, a second tier senator.

They had a clash this week, um, because Senator Hawley wants to prevent members of Congress and their families from buying and owning and selling stock.

And in the original bill, it said that the executive department, the president, would be included in that.

and the president was really upset.

Uh they did change it so that he will not have to devest of his holdings until he leaves office and then he won't have to do it.

So apparently there's been a kumbaya right there.

But overall, do you think that Hawley is right on this matter and that members of Congress should not be buying and selling stock?

>> I would prefer that they that they not buy stock.

they're just a little bit too close uh to the to the force field, if you will, in terms of Capitol Hill and all the laws that are being made.

Just makes me a little nervous when you see uh at the end of someone's political career how much uh many of them are worth when they leave office.

Um so so yeah but um what was what was really kind of staggering was during this quarrel uh if you will between between Josh Hawley and the president uh the president was informed by some of the senators that he would have to sell Mara Lago and and that was Josh Holly's when he had his conversation uh with the president he he informed the president that the president had been misinformed by the seniors who told him that he would have to sell everything.

So, somebody doesn't know what they're talking about.

And I don't know if it I don't know if it's the senators who, you know, who marched into the White House and informed him erroneously of what was going to happen, but that alarms me just as much >> there.

There's no rhyme or reason to this.

Like, you got something that said like whatever the president wants to do, he could do it.

Okay?

And that anybody who even takes the slightest step up that path is now the enemy.

And it's just a joke.

Now, if if Hawley wanted to do something, back it up.

Keep keep making this play.

I said they'd kiss and make up by Labor Day.

It took like eight hours for for the people.

Yeah.

We trade emails and whatnot.

I said it'll be Labor Day before they kiss and make up.

It wasn't a day before they kissed and made up.

>> Well, Josh Hawley is too ambitious to, you know, get on Trump's bad side.

If if you remember uh in the Senate race when Josh Holly endorsed Vicky Hartz >> Hartsler, right?

>> Uh and Trump almost immediately said anybody but her, you know, she's weak.

That's like slapping Holly across the face and he just, you know, didn't say anything about it.

>> But I think this I and I know that he doesn't have a lot of friends and fans on this panel.

But I think in terms of political, you know, just politically being politically savvy, I think the guy is political.

>> Oh, yeah.

Very, very smart.

>> And I think, you know, in voting with the Democrats on this, it's like, you know, and that was one of the things that made President Trump go ballistic was you're siding with Nancy Pelosi, taking a you know, a target out on the billionaires.

But he I think he astutely knows that, you know, in the the next general people are going to be really tired of this partisan stuff.

And so here he's got all of these little kumbaya moments with the Democrat.

>> That's true.

>> Yeah.

I mean, I have been so critical of Josh Hawley.

I He's done some pretty good stuff in the last couple weeks, even the last month.

Like what he did with getting RA passed that was very smooth and strategic.

And this I I respect this, you I think for younger people, uh, you know, just the idea that Congress could be cashing in on the inside knowledge they have, it really sort of destroys their faith in the process.

It makes them cynical.

And I love the idea of taking that off the table.

Why don't we just ban this?

So, for him to join together with Democrats, I get why President Trump would hate that.

But for me, I'm like, I love when people break with their party.

>> I do, too.

Right.

And the first and probably biggest partis nonpartisan thing that he did was he ran off and left uh Republican, Democrats, and women on January 6th is he fled the capital and they're counting for the lines.

>> But before that, >> I I I I don't think this is a very good law in the sense that you already have reporting reporting requirements when it comes to stock.

You have to announce what you have and what you buy during your term.

I think it's every year or so.

And there's also all sorts of rules against insider trading trading.

Uh 60% of Americans own stock.

Are we saying that 60% of Americans can't be in Congress?

>> No, but I think to maybe I'm too cynical about this, but the peop the politicians who want to cash in on this.

They're just going to have a third party buying all this stock for them and not getting it themselves.

I mean, I I I just think you have to elect better.

Can I quickly got to move on?

If you work around like sports or something like that, you have knowledge that other people don't have.

And it might not be called insider trading, but you do have some knowledge.

If you use that to your benefit, that would be illegal if you were gambling.

Thus, I have no problem with a law that says, "No, y'all just cannot do any stock."

>> Well, maybe they have to put in a blind trust.

But there are disclosure requirements.

Um, Bill, I want to ask you about a report that came out from the Cara Spencer administration.

Of course, she's the mayor of St. Louis.

It said that um we need a wow moment for downtown St. Louis so that people will come back and enjoy it once again.

>> Well, sure.

I mean, you but what we generally have is a oh wow movement.

Oh no.

You know that that's frequent for us and and those you can't plan how to stop them, you know.

Well, I mean, things just happen.

But, you know, the idea of we're going to orchestrate a oh wow m, I'd love to see it.

I'm not sure how.

I mean, if we can just handle better the oh wow moments, I think we'll be fine.

I think this transition committee report uh that my colleague Ryan Krull broke the news of this week, it's interesting because it gives us sort of a guide to what the people who are closest to Cara Spencer and who she respects the most, what is on their mind and what would they like to see happen.

And I think one of the big things is that Byzantine bureaucracy over at city hall makes it really hard to get things done.

Developers are very frustrated with it.

Even people who are trying to do things as simple as replace their windows in a historic district are very frustrated with it.

And I think you're going to see a concerted effort to cut through that red tape and some of like the bigger, more eye-catching items.

This kind of feels like the conventional wisdom.

Yes, downtown needs a win.

You know, consultants have been saying this for a long time.

Are we going to get it?

I guess we'll be lucky to just avoid the negative.

>> Well, but it I have and I don't know if I'm the only one at the table or the only one of, you know, with our viewers who feels this way.

I really do suffer from advanced like post-traumatic uh committee disorder.

I mean it's like if I one more blue ribbon panel, one more, you know, transformative committee do the job that and I I adore her and I I probably shouldn't say that, but I adore her and I I really really >> Well, Wendy, I don't I didn't say anything >> as a human being.

Oh my god.

Um, no.

I think she I I just am very encouraged about about her her being in office and I think a lot of people are, but I'm just tired of them kind of assigning these, you know, feelgood things to committees.

It's like we elected you to do something.

Pull the trigger.

Just pull the trigger.

>> And there's this fallacy out there that said like, oh yeah, okay, Cara Spencer is the first mayor in a thousand years that would like to hire 200 more police officers.

Oh, they didn't do it.

We They could have hired 200 20 years ago, >> 200 more police officers, you know, a year ago, but you know, the previous mayor didn't want to do that.

Well, no.

Like, so they make these pronouncements like they're like new knowledge, like, yeah, I'd like to hire 200 more police officers, right?

Let's do it tomorrow.

You know, like these suggestions and all that, great.

Do it.

>> Well, I don't know.

I don't know about a big wow moment.

I guess I'm going to like Bill, but I do I am encouraged that uh the Olafland family at Union Station is putting in some three additional rides this week.

And if you think about it, if you wanted to take your kids to downtown St. Louis, you have the city museum.

You got the aquarium and the rides in the ferris wheel at Union Station.

City Garden is fun for kids in the summertime.

And then there's the arch.

>> I mean, maybe we should market ourselves as a great place for a family to come by.

>> Well, I think we try that and I think it's the truth.

Now, quit hating on We've had this conversation before.

We all in a in an in a way because we do it here on the show.

Quit hating on St. Louis so much.

I don't I don't think we really are excessive at it, but we are we're our own biggest.

You got to point out the warts.

You got to live in reality.

I mean, it's like if a guy is very ill, you can't say, "Hey, everything's going great, Joe."

You have to say, "Hey, you really have to Oh, yeah.

But, hey, I think you should have to have a lock box in your car for your gun.

Oh, no, that's illegal.

Oh, no.

We can't do that."

Those are the kind of things where we all need to get on board with.

Okay.

>> Well, we all have friends who come here and they're always happily surprised at what a cool place.

>> Well, I will say wowed.

>> Good.

Well, >> hey, Elvin Reed, your paper had a story this week that was pretty darn depressing.

And that is that there is a uh park in East St. Louis, Lincoln Park, and the pool there was supposed to open in June.

It didn't.

Um, in fact, it hasn't been open for a decade.

So, the kids in that community haven't had a swimming pool for 10 years.

I mean, I think that's just outrageous.

And so outrageous, I would say that the city of St. Louis, St. Louis County, they should take some of their cranky money and say, "What we're going to do in a gesture of regionalism is help you open that pool.

We'll get the management together.

We'll make sure it's a state-of-the-art quality pool for the kids of East St. Louis using Stan Kronke cash.

>> Okay.

One, James Ingram eye on uh East St. Louis.

I I almost don't want to say this because somebody try to take him from the American, but man, he really his column is dead on about East St. Louis.

Has been for years for the St. Louis American.

Shout out to James Ingram.

I agree with you.

But you can't send the Stan Kronke money across the river.

What you got to do is you got to forge a deal.

I want water in that pool.

said developer, said whoever, and I'll get some ARPA money to you for something else, or I'll get some money to you for something else.

But I need little black kids swimming in the swimming pool over there 48 hours from now.

And by the way, and this is the truth, if you teach a black kid how to swim, the chances of them being successful in life shoot up to something about that.

I don't know what it is, but that's a that's a fact, >> you know.

And and they have the money already.

I mean, that's what things I was writing about.

It isn't like they're looking for money at the pool.

That money has been appropriated.

The question is, how come it hasn't been used?

So, I'm not so sure, Charlie, that your idea about sending Stan Kraki money over there.

I'll be good stewards of money.

>> Well, here's what you do.

You farm it out to some organization like Midwest Pool Management or somebody else.

Get it off the hands of East St. Louis.

Uh actually most people in the region don't even know that the premier pool builder and operator in the world is our own backyard.

It's called Huner Councilman and they've installed the best pools at universities in every 50 all 50 states and around on every continent and they're right here in St. Louis.

So we have the resources.

We could put this thing together in three weeks.

>> We have the resources.

They apparently have the resources to do this.

And what they need is not our cranky money.

And I hate to be like, take your hands off my cranky money, but the city has so many needs right now.

The tornado has caused so many needs.

I want to see East St. Louis figure this out.

And I love that the American brought attention to this.

And hopefully now there will be pressure for them to figure it out without the money that we desperately need for a million other things now that the heat wave has subsided >> pretty much by the end of summer.

that and if we mysteriously get invited to a pool party at Charlie's house next spring right >> now who who built this pool hey a little shout out to Chris Hayes of Fox 2 who has covered this story too Sarah Fenske um about 10 months ago first form which makes all sorts of supplements for exercise and whatnot had its founder on a podcast and he blasted female police officers and since then the unions in both the city and the county divorced themselves from first form.

They don't take their products anymore.

They they can't be second duty police officers.

All that and more.

But now there's talk about maybe rapro.

Maybe there should be a cooling now between the police officers and first fora.

Is it time to let bygones be bygones?

>> I think it might be.

You know, my colleague Ryan Croll once again broke this story.

I keep dropping his name on this show, but the man's a machine.

Um, you know, he talked to the police union and it seems like there's just not much anger about this at this point.

People were very upset last September.

At this point, the rank and file cops seem to say the donations that this company gives us are higher than our outrage is.

We're ready to move on.

If that is truly how the female officers feel about that, then I support them.

>> Second go.

>> I don't think that's how the female police officers feel about that.

I just I I refuse to believe that.

That's all.

That was a pretty dark fantasy that Mr. Fcella talked about uh violence against the female officers.

I don't know.

>> Well, I think I think fantasy versus the reality that they face every day pro maybe they have a a more healthy outlook about that kind of thing.

I I I don't know myself, but if they say they're they're with it, then I'm with >> Yeah, the chief hosted a meeting with these officers and it doesn't appear that there's bubbling dissent saying don't open this door.

The other thing that was crazy about it was uh Friscella talked about all the times that he's been stopped by women cops and I thought how often do you get stopped that he's in authority on the difference between being stopped by men and women.

>> All right, we talk about being put face down.

>> Bill, thank you.

Your comments will be the last ones for the first segment.

Anyway, let's go to the old mailbag and see what people had to say about last week's show.

Alvin hit the nail on the head when he passionately spoke about Washington University's digging into its own endowment in the face of Trump administration cuts.

University officials appear to be hoarding wealth rather than dispersing it in a time of need.

That from Brian Elser of Leoo.

We also heard from Janie Smith of Ballwin who wrote, "It's my understanding that money donated to endowments has been designated by the donors for particular causes such as scholarships.

You can write us care of 9PBS.

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And in just a moment, tune in to the Nine PBS YouTube channel.

We call it Last Call where we discuss more topics this week.

Metal detectors at the Amtrak station, which do not work, and the cost of a fishing license is going up, we think, in Missouri.

Today is the last day to comment, so we'll get into that on Last Call.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Stay cool and we'll see you soon.

>> Donnybrook is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of NinePBS.