Local News
Neighborhood’s Long Parking Permit Nightmare Is Over (They Hope)

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It has taken nearly two years, but the residents of a small corner of the city’s Forest Park Southeast neighborhood are again able to get permits for parking — and if that doesn’t sound like cause for celebration, perhaps you have not lived in St. Louis long enough.The saga began in the spring of 2022, when the nonprofit Park Central Development relinquished administration of the parking permit program to the treasurer’s office for the City of St. Louis. The timeline of when Park Central notified the city it wanted help with the program is a matter of some dispute, but what’s clear is that when permits for the 10 districts in Forest Park Southeast and the Central West End came up for renewal that June, no one was fully prepared to process them. The treasurer’s office was acquiring new software to prepare for the task, but it wasn’t yet up and running — and the employee at Park Central whose primary purview the permits fell under had left. The upshot is that residents who wanted to renew could not, nor could newer neighbors get permits in the first place. And with the neighborhoods’ streets being overrun with Wash U medical students looking for a cheap place to leave their cars all day, not ticketing wasn’t a solution.So the city ticketed. And then the treasurer’s office voided all tickets given to the actual residents, because everybody agreed that the inability to issue new permits wasn’t their fault. When I wrote about the situation last February, the residents were pretty fed up, but the city promised that help was on the way. Treasurer Adam Layne declined to say just when, but said, “We’re in the final stages of testing, and we hope to have applications open in the coming months.” Of the period without a working system, he added, “We’d hoped it wouldn’t go through February, but we knew it could.”Layne tells the RFT the new permitting system was finally up and running by last September/October, six months after my story. There was just one problem: The online system didn’t allow residents in one of the 10 parking districts previously administered by Park Central to get the free permits they were owed.Yes, by city ordinance, residents of one smaller area — the Chouteau/Newstead parking district — were entitled to free permits, while employees of businesses who wanted to park on its streets were required to pay twice as much to compensate. And the way the new software was set up didn’t allow for $0 payment. So the beat went on, along with the dance of the city ticketing and then the city refunding the tickets. One resident, exasperated, broke down and paid for the permit even though she didn’t have to. Her neighbor, Zen Harbison, says the others held the line: “We refused. I’m not going to pay it.” He instead continued to send his parking tickets to the treasurer’s office to be canceled. Earlier this week, when Harbison’s tally had reached four needing to be voided, he emailed the city CCing multiple neighbors who’d also been ticketed, as well as the RFT. “If the ticket people come out a third time we will have to escalate this issue, because everyone knows our particular district still is not functioning yet you all persist with blanket coverage,” he wrote. “Not hard to skip our streets until it works.” Yesterday, residents finally received the news that the system was fully operational — and even the Chouteau/Newstead district can now obtain new residential permits. Layne confirmed the fix to the RFT. Harbison says it’s looking operational.And so, one year, 10 months and countless emails and voided tickets later, it’s a St. Louis happy ending. But not everyone is fully satisfied just yet.Now the neighbor who went ahead and coughed up the $20 for an annual residential permit has emailed the city to ask for a refund. Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

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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

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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

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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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