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St. Louis’ Residential Permit Parking System Collapses in Key Neighborhoods | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

February 15, 2023

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click to enlarge Forest Park Southeast, which sits in the shadow of the Grove and Wash U’s med school, has been locked in a permit parking quagmire.

For just about a decade, Celia Shacklett paid for a residential parking permit. “I balked at first because I didn’t want to pay for street parking,” Shacklett says. Then, like her neighbors, she got used to it. At $12.50 per car per year, it was pretty cheap.

Shacklett lives in Forest Park Southeast, just a few blocks south of the Washington University Medical School. The neighborhood had mobilized to get the permits, which kept med school students from monopolizing the spots in front of their houses. Her neighbor Zen Harbison describes it as a game of “Whac-A-Mole” — once one block started requiring permits, visitors would invade the next, and then that block would lobby the alderman for a permit district of its own.

The interlopers were easy to spot. Says Harbison, “Anyone who drives up in the morning, gets out of the car with a backpack and starts walking toward campus, duh.”

Ultimately, Forest Park Southeast and the neighboring Central West End ended up with 10 districts. And it all worked well enough until last June, when the 1,000 or so permits in the area were set for renewal — but no one was capable of renewing them.

Park Central Development, the nonprofit community development corporation, had long been in charge of the 10 districts, but, faced with a departing employee, decided it was done. It announced on its website last spring it was handing over administration to the city. But the city — perhaps surprisingly — has not administered any residential parking permits for quite some time. It simply wasn’t ready for the handoff.

The result? It’s now been eight months since residents of Forest Park Southeast and the Central West End have been able to renew or obtain new residential parking permits. And that means people like Shacklett (who lost her permit after she bought a new car) and newcomers to the neighborhood are out of luck.

And even though it’s the city treasurer who will be administering the permits, that hasn’t stopped the treasurer’s office from ticketing. Treasurer Adam Layne says he’s had to send in parking enforcement officers — residents were again complaining that med school students were using their streets as a free parking lot. Layne’s staff has urged people to continue to use their expired permits as a stop-gap measure.

Shacklett, out of luck, says she got ticketed five times in October. Since she teaches music lessons out of her home, she previously purchased permits for people visiting, too. Three of her students’ families were ticketed in October, too.

Shacklett found a solution, kind of — at the direction of Alderwoman Tina Pihl, she now sends her tickets directly to Layne. One by one, he voids them.

“I send it to him, and then I yank his chain two weeks later to remind him,” Shacklett says. But she can’t help but marvel at the inefficiency: “What a roundabout way to deal with it!”

Layne won’t estimate just how many tickets he’s personally voided. But, he says, “It’s happening less and less” as enforcement officers in the area learn which cars belong. “They know them now.”

Layne says there are plenty of reasons for the lag in a new permitting system: The software cost $20,000, and that meant issuing a request for proposals and getting multiple bids. Rather than put a temporary system in place, and delay even further the actual rollout, he wanted to get the permanent system up and running. He also wanted to set up a system that could work for neighborhoods around the city, should they opt in.

He declines to hazard a guess on when the office will be ready to issue new permits.

“We’re in the final stages of testing, and we hope to have applications open in the coming months,” he says. Of the period without a working system, he adds, “We’d hoped it wouldn’t go through February, but we knew it could.”

Once the permit system is up and running, Layne says his office would be interested in taking on residential districts throughout the city, which have turned to a hodgepodge of options in the absence of the city’s supervision. Some are apparently administered by their alderman. In other cases, Layne says, an individual neighbor has taken on the responsibility.

It doesn’t always work well. Layne says he’s heard of one district where someone was unable to get a permit due to a personal grudge on the part of the person charged with administration.

He sees his office as being a good solution for districts in need. “I anticipate people coming to us,” he says.

But first, they need to get the program going — and eight months after the handoff, he’s asking for patience. “I understand the frustrations in Forest Park Southeast,” he says. “We are doing everything we can right now to have this program up and running as fast as possible.”

Shacklett is one person who’s ready.

“I just think it’s total dysfunction,” she says. “There are so many dysfunctional facets of our city. I’m sorry to see it. I’m sorry for people who come in from out of town and have to deal with this. It’s not the image I wish St. Louis was projecting.”

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

7 months 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

7 months 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

7 months 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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