By Antonio D. French
Filed Tuesday, December 26, 2006 at 9:00 AM
In January, the local chapter of the ACLU announced a plan to arm northside residents with video cameras to protect themselves from police attacks.
A few weeks later, the beating of 33 year-old Edmon Burns by Maplewood and St. Louis City police officers was caught on tape by local television helicopter cameras and became national news.
Alderman Phyllis Young (D-7) took a page from the Bush Administration's playbook and counted on ignorance as the best defense of stupidity in defending why the city picked Nov. 3 to send a local Muslim group a letter notifying them that they had to shut down the house of prayer. That date just happens to be the day of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan.
"No one is familiar enough with their religious holidays to purposely send a letter at that time," said Young.
Shortly before Mardi Gras, Alderman Ken Ortmann (D-9) introduced a bill to lessen the penalties for public urination. The bill was co-sponsored by Alderman I.P. Freely.
At the beginning of the year, State Sen. Maida Coleman was looking for a new job -- any job! After forming a committee to run for state auditor, Coleman said she was then thinking about about running against Mike McMillan for license collector. Neither panned out and she was happy to be re-elected later in the year as the Democratic leader in the senate.
On Jan. 18, former Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich spoke before the full body of the Missouri Senate during regular session in the Senate chamber.
With Mayor Francis Slay, President Jim Shrewsbury, and senior Alderman Phillis Young out of town, Alderman Fred Wessels was briefly acting mayor of the City of St. Louis.
The campaign for school board quickly got nasty with the circulation of a flier which depicted then-school board president Darnetta Clinkscale as "Aunt Jemima" and recently-appointed board member James Buford as "Uncle Tom". The leaflet claimed to be paid for by an organization called "St. Louis for Kids Too!", but there was no such committee registered with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
The organizers of the nearly 100 year-old Annie Malone Parade decided to move the annual event from its north St. Louis home to downtown. Mayor Slay joined Annie Malone's new CEO Richard King in saying the move would "promote unity." Nearly a year later, do you feel more united?
The bill to create a civilian review board moved closer to a vote by the full Board of Aldermen. Here's our video (Can you appreciate how much better these videos have gotten?).
On Jan. 24, a phone call from PUB DEF to Kay Gabbert, VP of The Roberts Companies, was the first that Mike and Steve Roberts had heard of the news that they had just lost their UPN network. "I'm in the middle of everybody that owns TV stations," Mike Roberts said on his cell phone at a TV convention in Las Vegas. "Nobody knew."
Statistics released in January by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department showed violent crime in the city increased nearly 20% -- Coincidently, that nearly matched the proposed raise in pay for the city's top cop, Chief Joe Mokwa. Hmmmmmm.
In response to those crime stats, Mayor Slay said only "a few neighborhoods" are unsafe (wink-wink).
Also in January, PUB DEF published letters from Sister Mary Ann McGivern written from the Middle East, where she observed firsthand Hamas' victory in that region's historic elections.
Alderman Craig Schmid sponsored a bill that sought to make it illegal to own large speakers -- not just play loud music, but simply owning the equipment! To add injury to insult, the law allows the police to take a citizen's car (before being found guilty) and force them to pay a fine of $250 to $500.
Check out our full January 2006 archive.
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