By Antonio D. French
Filed Wednesday, September 26, 2007 at 9:05 PM
ST. LOUIS — According to Missouri State Auditor Susan Montee, CPA, there WILL be an audit of the City of St. Louis. State law requires that a citizens' petition for a municipal audit have enough valid signatures to equal 5% of those who voted for governor in the most recent election. For St. Louis, that would be 7,192 signatures. Montee's office counted 10,842 signatures that were turned in and determined that 7,715 were valid. A press conference announcing the successful petition effort will be at:
11:00 am, Thursday, September 27, 2007, St. Louis City Hall, Tucker entrance
Members of the Green Party of St. Louis began collecting signatures in late 2006, when they reported that the City had not given full disclosure of where childhood lead poisoning prevention money was being spent.
"The issue has now gone far beyond lead poisoning dollars," says chief petitioner Daniel Romano. Along with other City residents Susie Parker, Percy Green II, Cris Mann, and Jerry S. McCaleb, Romano signed the July 25 letter submitting the petitions that requested an audit.
"In addition to lead remediation work in homes, we are asking the auditor to investigate how much is being spent removing lead from public schools," Romano adds. "We would also like to know how federal grant money allocated to build a recreation center on 12th Street near Peabody School was used, since the center never went up."
Susie Parker is Outreach Coordinator for the Green Party and collected several hundred signatures herself. She is concerned that block grants were made so that businesses would create jobs for low income citizens. "But I don't see the jobs that were created from those grants," Parker observes. "I want the auditor to tell us where the grant money went, how many jobs were created, and how much people earned on the jobs. And we need to know how much money was spent in each ward so we can know if all areas of the City benefited."
Both Romano and Parker want the audit to shed light on people who have lost their homes through eminent domain. "We've heard that HUD grant money should have been used to repair homes that were later blighted and taken from their owners," charges Romano. "We want the audit to tell us how much HUD money was supposed to be spent for repair and how much was actually spent."
Parker added, "And we need the HUD grant expenditures broken down by ward. Are all areas of the City being treated the same?"
The Greens say that the audit should begin with a specification of sources and expenditures of all Departments, Divisions and Commissions of the City of St. Louis, all "County" offices (i.e., Sheriff, License Collector), the Police and Fire Departments and the airport.
In late October, Romano, Parker and several other petitioners will meet with Thomas Kremer, CPA, Director of Local Government Audits for the State Auditor's office. They will indicate their interests for issues to be addressed by the audit. Residents with suggestions for what the audit should examine can e-mail fitzdon@aol.com or call 314-727-8554. Tips may be left anonymously.
3 Comments:
I hope the audit looks into the Fire Dept. bond issue money and overtime.
Those results would be interesting.
9/27/2007 1:35 PM
Under state law, the audited entity picks up the tab. The last city audit cost $350K.
9/27/2007 2:22 PM
Wait, appointed Chief George is incompetent? No way.
You're racist! I am calling FIRE! Maybe they will post some slanderous posters about you at your work place or they could come to your house and act the fool.
9/28/2007 10:34 AM
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