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St. Louis Switch to Corrugated Signs Was Unrelated to Flood, City Admits | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

September 11, 2023

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click to enlarge SARAH FENSKE A corrugated stop sign gets bent in the city’s Shaw neighborhood on September 6. Last month, St. Louis officials explained away their move from aluminum to corrugated cardboard street signs by saying that flooding in the Street Department print shop had necessitated the change.But now the city says it never used corrugated cardboard, only a “hardened plastic corrugated material” — and that said switch had nothing to do with the flood. Oh, and it actually switched in the last year to a totally different material — and that was because of the flood.Got all that? It turns out the flood didn’t compel the city to start using easily damaged signs. It actually got them to stop using them.I started looking into changes to St. Louis street signs in early August after getting reports that some stop signs around the city had seemingly been bisected. Presuming the signs were made of a classic metal, I wondered who’d gone to such lengths. “Does St. Louis have a serial stop sign slasher?” I asked in a headline.As I would soon learn, however, the city’s signs haven’t been metal for years. In answer to my inquiry a few weeks ago, the city confirmed as much, saying it had switched to corrugated cardboard after flooding rendered the Street Department’s facility in Ellendale inoperable. click to enlarge DWIGHT JOHNSON JR. Dwight Johnson shares this photo — time-stamped July 2021 — to show that the city switched to cardboard long before the flood. But after the RFT published that story, I heard from a Street Department worker. Dwight Johnson Jr. said it was absolutely false that the flooded-out city building had led to the move to corrugated material. He said it had happened nearly three years ago, and that he complained bitterly at the time. At the time, his job involved printing and then pressing vinyl onto what he says was corrugated cardboard. He says it was immediately clear the new material was far inferior. It would bend in the machines they used.”The vinyl keeps coming off,” he remembers telling his supervisors. “It’s not going to work.”Confronted with Johnson’s account, the city acknowledged that its initial timeline had been incorrect. Jamie Wilson, commissioner of traffic, said in a phone interview on September 1 that the city actually made the switch from fiberglass to a “hardened plastic corrugated material” two or three years ago — at least a year before the flood. Wilson said the city’s fiberglass sign supplier had stopped making them, so “the department explored other options.” But, Wilson insisted, the signs are not actually cardboard (again, “hardened plastic corrugated material” was as descriptive as he was willing to get). Despite the various bent and bisected signs that have been spotted around town, he says the city has had no problems with the lighter material. Instead, he says, they switched to a third option last summer because of, yes, the flood that ravaged Ellendale.”It destroyed the Street Department where we applied sheeting and lettering,” he says. “We weren’t able to occupy the building.” Needing new signs, they switched to aluminum ones purchased through the Missouri Department of Transportation.Even so, Wilson believes the city’s use of a corrugated material — whether cardboard or a “hardened plastic corrugated material” — was a success. “I’ve never had a complaint given to me about plastic signs,” he says. He also says he received zero allegations of increased sign vandalism. Johnson, however, tells a different story. He says the change in quality from fiberglass to what he describes as cardboard was noticeable.”It was the wrong kind of material,” he says. “That’s why you get people cutting them in half.” Before the switch to corrugated signs, he says, “It worked. It wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t expensive either. Cardboard signs are $6 a pop. You get what you pay for.” He estimates there are up to 2,000 cardboard versions out there on the city streets, and he’s not the least bit surprised that they’re bending on their posts (and being bisected). click to enlarge COURTESY DWIGHT JOHNSON JR. Dwight Johnson Jr. Johnson acknowledges that he is plenty annoyed at the city. A St. Louis native and military veteran, he had dreams of working for his hometown and took a job back in 2011 as a utility worker hoping to put his degree in graphic design to use. It took years, but he was finally formally promoted in 2020 to become a traffic arts technician.But his years working for the city were frustrating in the extreme. He ended up filing a grievance over an unsafe work situation, which was substantiated, and ultimately went on leave due to the stress of the job. On August 30, he officially gave two weeks notice. “In all, this department needs to be investigated thoroughly, but it’s highly unlikely. I do wish that success does come in the future for the city employees that continue to work hard but smart like myself,” he wrote in his resignation letter. “I hope the incompetent, and inconsistencies that work in management are replaced with transparent individuals that can turn that department around. What’s going on in my city is truly heart breaking and all I can do is wish for the best. “I also did not want to take the responsibility of creating defected or lazy signage that has been displayed on the City of Saint Louis streets,” he continued. “That is also a safety hazard for the communities as a whole.” Wilson declined comment on all personnel issues. Perhaps the only thing Johnson and Wilson agree upon is the St. Louis Street Department is extremely short-staffed. Wilson says, “In general, we’ve been operating with one-fourth to one-third of our positions vacant. For the Street Department overall, that’s consistent.”Wilson notes that a new change to state law removes the residency requirement for city workers, and he’s hopeful more people will now apply.In the meantime, he asked the RFT for coordinates on one of the bent signs we reported on in August. Through a spokesman, he later reported that the department investigated the sign and that it is indeed plastic, not cardboard.The spokesman said the city has since replaced it with a metal sign. click to enlarge SARAH FENSKE This cardboard sign, spotted in the Shaw neighborhood on August 23, has since been replaced with a metal version. 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

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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