The St. Louis Observer: August 13, 2021
Remembering Michael Brown and the birth of the Ferguson Uprising; rental assistance and direct relief coming to St. Louis City; Medicaid coverage expands in Missouri
Editor’s Note
Not a lot has changed in Missouri over the course of its 200 years. Missouri served as the western frontline for Emancipation during the American Civil War. Today, Missouri remains the frontline of the fight for civil rights in the United States, as well as the epicenter of the COVID-19 Delta variant that has ravaged the state's rural and Black communities.
Mask mandates are being repealed as the Delta variant rages through North St. Louis County. Hundreds of men and women remain held without bond or trial as Delta begins to tear through city jails. Rent relief was only just approved this week, as thousands in the City and County face eviction, slipping through the cracks of the limited federal moratorium extension. The COVID pandemic has and continues to magnify the disparities in institutional breakdowns that have plagued our City for the last two centuries.
While the fight over Modern Reconstruction is only just beginning, St. Louis continues to reckon with its own failure to undergo the first Reconstruction following the Civil War. White middle-class families have organized into angry mobs, storming council meetings to demand public schools be barred from teaching the accurate histories of slavery and racism, while simultaneously opposing mask mandates and vaccination orders to protect children, elders, and other at-risk persons. White Republicans, allies and representatives of the white police, teamed up with Black Democrats to repeal the County mask mandate at the expense of Black residents. Conservative Black and white aldermen in the City have used the looming eviction crisis to leverage $33 million for economic development to be administered by the embattled St. Louis Development Corporation.
The fight over pandemic recovery, like post-Civil War Reconstruction, makes strange bedfellows in the ultimate aim to keep Black communities surveilled, sick, powerless, and poor. As St. Louis faces questions about a regional pandemic response as Delta surges - how to spend relief funds to rebuild our City and how to wrestle with the structural violence that the City has inflicted on its Black citizens for centuries - we must keep our history in mind.
The moment may be different, but the factions remain very much the same.
In the News
On the 7th anniversary of Mike Brown’s murder, Black activists’ work to reimagine public safety continues
Monday marked the 7th anniversary of the death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, and the activist community gathered in front of Ferguson Police Department to honor the young man and other activists who have died since the beginning of the Ferguson Uprising. The day began at the Canfield Green apartment complex, where Brown was murdered by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, and ended at the department, where activists shut down the street for approximately two hours. [St. Louis American/Sophie Hurwitz; St. Louis American/Dana Rieck]
The City of Ferguson’s new city manager, Eric Osterman, says he plans to use the DOJ’s consent decree as an opportunity to pilot new investments in housing, economic opportunity, and other alternatives to policing as part of his public safety strategy. Osterman previously worked as assistant city manager for a small town in Oregon. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Taylor Tiamoyo Harris]
St. Louis City Municipal Court’s Warrant Amnesty Day will take place on August 27 and August 28 and will include an on-site vaccination program. Individuals who are vaccinated will receive a credit toward court fees and those with warrants in the St. Louis City Circuit Court are advised to call 314-641-8214 to confirm amnesty eligibility prior to appearing at the court. There are more than 138,000 outstanding municipal warrants in the City of St. Louis. [The Riverfront Times/Jenna Jones]
Impasse lifted as City E&A approves rent assistance and direct relief to St. Louisans
The Board of Aldermen voted to approve the Board of Estimate + Apportionment’s amended allocation of federal ARPA funds for direct relief, rent assistance, and economic development in North St. Louis. Concerns remain regarding the alignment of economic development spending with US Treasury guidelines [St. Louis Post Dispatch / Jacob Barker]
Mayor Tishaura Jones announced that two in-person rental assistance clinics are now open to assist tenants in anticipation of the expected eviction crisis. St. Louis City presently has 3,000 pending eviction cases, with thousands more to be filed when the CDC’s current eviction moratorium ends October 3. [The Riverfront Times/Jenna Jones]
COVID Delta variant rages through Missouri as elected leaders fight mask, vaccine mandates
Missouri passed 10,000 official COVID deaths Thursday as the Delta variant continues to spread across the state [Missouri Independent / Rudi Keller; St. Louis Public Radio / Alex Smith]
The St. Louis County Council voted against implementing a mask mandate for the largest county in the state, going so far as to block a roll call vote for the seven-person council. North St. Louis County particularly has been disproportionately impacted by the Delta variant of COVID-19. [St. Louis American/Editorial Board; St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Nassim Benchaabane]
Medicaid Expansion proceeds without funding from GOP-controlled state legislature
A Cole County judge has ordered the State of Missouri to expand its Medicaid program in accordance with voters’ election of the expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Effective immediately, the expanded MO HealthNet program is now required to cover adults aged 19 to 64 and who make at least 133% of the federal poverty level, or $12,880 for one adult. [St. Louis Public Radio/Sebastián Martínez Valdivia]
The Missouri Department of Social Services began accepting applications for the state’s expanded Medicaid program this Wednesday, but application processing times are expected to take up to 60 days without funding from the legislature to hire staff to process applications and manage the expanded program. The expansion remains unfunded, and Governor Parson has indicated he will not call a special session to debate program funding. [Missouri Independent / Tessa Weinberg]
Further reading
A federal lawsuit against the City of Bel-Ridge, alleging that the municipal police department falsified reports related to politically motivated retaliation by an ousted alderman. The city has since voted to eliminate its police department and recently came under state scrutiny for financial mismanagement and repeated violations of the Missouri Sunshine Law. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Robert Patrick]
Interim Public Safety Director Isom outlined a request to allocate $20 million for improvements to the City Justice Center (CJC) to the Citizens Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations for the city’s Capital Improvement Plan. Repairs would include locks, a new cell control system, and other improvements identified by Corrections early this year. [St. Louis Post Dispatch / Taylor Tiamoyo Harris]
The EleVATE Coalition, a group of Black mothers, healthcare professionals, and community organizations in St. Louis, has launched a program focused on reducing the high maternal mortality rates in the area. The Coalition provides extra support, trauma-informed care, and education to Black mothers through “group prenatal care,” an intervention that has been shown to significantly improve birth outcomes. [St. Louis Magazine/Samantha Stevenson]
A Black contractor discovered a noose outside of a Benton Park home, owned by an Asian American woman. The incident is part of an overall increase of hate crimes committed against Asian Americans and is being investigated by police as a hate crime. [St. Louis Public Radio/Chad Davis]
Recent increased flooding along the Missouri River, which runs north of St. Louis City and St. Louis County, poses a risk to flooding coal-fired power plants situated next to the river, including the Labadie Energy Center in Franklin County. Environmental advocates have raised concerns about contamination from coal ash pits of drinking water and groundwater for agriculture. [Missouri Independent/Colleen Wouters]
Quote of the Week
“[T]he DOJ has kind of forced [the City of Ferguson] to defund the police,” Osterberg said. “So now it’s up to us to prove the model for alternative public safety.”
-- Eric Osterman, City Manager for City of Ferguson
Legislative & Legal Update
City of St. Louis
The St. Louis Board of Aldermen remains in summer recess, with regular sessions to resume on September 10, 2021.
State of Missouri
The Missouri State Legislature is on recess until January 2022.