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St. Louis Aldermen Vote Down Bill to Ease Process for New Shelters

Published

1 year ago

April 5, 2024

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A contentious debate that took up more than two hours of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen meeting today led to a tie vote that effectively killed a bill that would make it easier to place shelters for the unhoused in the city.

Board Bill 227, sponsored by Ward 7 Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier and co-sponsored by Aldermanic President Megan Green, would reform the city’s plat and petition process for approving shelters.

After a lengthy discussion at today’s meeting, seven alders voted in favor of the bill, seven against it, with one person voting present. This failed to send the bill to perfection and it didn’t pass, effectively killing the legislation this session.

No votes came from Aldermen Bret Narayan, Joe Vollmer, Tom Oldenburg and Michael Browning and Alderwomen Anne Schweitzer, Sharon Tyus and Pam Boyd, with Alderwoman Cara Spencer abstaining.

Those in favor of the legislation argue that it is necessary to help the city’s unhoused, pointing out the impossibility of the city’s current platand petition process, which has led to no new shelters being built in the city in 15 years. They say it would provide more opportunity for public comment.

The alders in opposition to the change hurled comments attacking Sonnier claiming she didn’t adequately listen to their wards and accusing the bill of taking away residents’ voices.

“In the United States of America, last time I heard, it takes a democracy of 51 percent in a vote,” 5th Ward Alderman Joseph Vollmer said, bungling an explanation of the city’s current plat and petition process. “To have 33 percent of a petition to create something different in your neighborhood sounds a little communistic to me.”

Sonnier fired back saying it shouldn’t be considered“communistic” to vet facilities meant to help people in need.

At least one alder opposed to the bill referred to unhoused people as “these people,” which drew pushback from another member, and others seemed to regard themas nuisances. The alders in opposition didn’tseem to acknowledge that the bill would require public hearings and grant temporary shelter operation licenses that could be revoked and reviewed if problems arose.

Ward 12 Alderwoman Sharon Tyus says she is concerned about the level of crime a shelter might bring to communities.

“Don’t act like there’s not crime associated with a lot of these things, because it is,” Tyus said after ranting about Covenant House, a youth social services organization in her ward. She then spoke in support of the mayor’s controversial decision to remove a camp of unhoused individuals from City Hall.

Tyus frequently mentioned another controversial topic during the debate — moving the unhoused to the site of the city’s former jail, known as the Workhouse. The Stakeholder Steering Committee commissioned by the mayor vehemently opposes the idea of putting tiny homes on site, citing location and environmental concerns. Tyus says she thinks the tiny house encampment is a great idea and says people shouldn’t talk about the environmental concerns without producing the report — which is publicly available on the city’s website.

Tyus worries that shelters will continue to be predominantly in north St. Louis and will negatively impact Black and Brown seniors who own homes in the area, based on the desires of St. Louisans who don’t live in north city, a phenomenon she calls “plantation politics.”

“Which is you put [a shelter] someplace where you don’t have to put up with it. And then, when you have problems, they don’t have enough police to address those problems,” she said.

Ward 14 Rasheen Aldridge, whose ward includes north St. Louis, voted for the change, along with Aldermen Shane Cohn and Alderwomen Daniela Velazquez, Shameem Clark Hubbard, Laura Keys and President Green.

Some of the alders who voted no argued that there wasn’t enough time to fully vet the bill so that the concerns of their wards could be heard.

Aldridge pointed out that discussions on this topic date back to at least September. He said Sonnier has done the work, fostering community discussions in various wards including his own, and done a good job of collaborating with the alders who actually responded to her attempts.

“We have to do something, we have to figure out how do we make the process a fair process that works for community,” Aldridge said.

“If we continue to do things how we are doing them now, we may go another 15 years where there isn’t a shelter opened or a special residential facility when we do know that we have raising rents and we’re probably going to see an increase in population,” Sonnier added.

Sonnier voiced her disappointment with her fellow board members in closing statements, mentioning that a member of the unhoused community asked to be her guest as they discussed the bill today, but later backed out saying they couldn’t stand to hear themselves debated and dehumanized by elected officials.

“I could not be like, ‘Yes, come anyway because I can promise you [it will be fine].’ I knew that might come up in the conversation so I want to apologize to those [unhoused] members,” Sonnier said.

By the end of the discussion after nearly two and a half hours of grueling rebuttals, Sonnier became emotional and wiped away tears as she gave her closing remarks.

“You all would not categorize me as someone who has a drug addiction or somebody who has a serious mental health issue, but I have struggled with housing insecurity myself,” Sonnier said. “Not for being any less of a human being […] but for being someone that’s born into society that doesn’t have the best safety nets. For having a mother who got involved in a domestic violence incident, and we had to relocate instantly and we didn’t have the first and second months’ rent available.”

The fight to reform the city’s shelter approval process is not over, Sonnier promised.

“As long as I have a seat and I’m alderwoman of the seventh we are going to be having this conversation, we are going to get something done,” Sonnier said. “If that’s not today, it’ll be in a month, it’ll be in two months, but it will happen.”

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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