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Thank you so much for joining us for Last Call.

Well, Bill, if we had a nickel for every time we talked about the use of Rams money, we'd be rich people.

But we're going to talk about the Rams money again.

As you know, in November of 2021, the NFL and Stan Kroenke wrote a big check to the city of St.

Louis and the county, blah, blah, blah.

St.

Louis still hasn't spent the money that it received.

It has about $280 million.

So at the Board of Aldermen, people are discussing, finally, what should happen.

Donna Beringer, she believes that more money should be spent on water repair.

And she also mentioned that the money going to water repair was just a loan and not a grant, which kind of surprised me.

There's a guy named Michael Loynd.

He heads up the Sports Commission.

He wrote an op-ed piece in your paper saying that more money should be used to lure major sporting events to the St.

Louis area.

And one gentleman, whose name escapes me, would like to take that Port Cochere on the riverfront and turn it into a marketplace.

That's the old place where the President Casino used to be docked.

The Admiral.

Yeah, and the Admiral.

Was it the Admiral?

Yeah, and the Admiral and both.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, they're the same thing.

Close.

Do it.

Nonetheless, sorry for talking while you were interrupting.

Sorry.

I'm so sorry.

Take it away, Bill.

Bail me out, will you?

Okay, all right.

Well, first of all, I think Donna Berenger is a very smart woman.

And I think that she's in charge of the money.

She's the comptroller.

And if she says that it should be an outright gift rather than a loan, I say we should listen to her.

As far as the thing on the sports, I think we should give more money to the Sports Commission.

I think that they bring money in and money spent with them is money well spent.

The idea of the market on the riverfront.

Initially, I was impressed with it, but I thought, what would happen in the Soulard market?

Wouldn't that hurt that?

And I thought, that's not the way to be.

I should be more forward thinking.

But the problem with stuff on the riverfront is we have floods.

And it's why our riverfront seems so underdeveloped.

Because every now and then the river rises up and goes over Wharf Street and gets on the steps of the arch.

And it would be just our luck to say we're going to take a lot of the Rams' money and have this really cool vegetable stand and other sorts.

And then the water comes up.

Does anybody else have a feeling, the flood of 93, does anybody else get the feeling that we had this transformative or transformational amount of money that was going to change everything?

And now I just get the sense that we're a region paying bills that are past due.

It's like, you know, seriously, we've allowed so much of the city just to fall into a state of disrepair.

And it sounded like the market was going to need $2 million in renovations before he could even start the process of turning it into a venue.

It's a city-owned property.

And, yeah, the city has not maintained it.

There's a lot of things we haven't maintained.

And then on top of that, we were hit by a massive tornado.

I think this conversation looked a lot differently before we were like, whoa, there's an immediate, like, billion dollars worth of needs in North City.

That's an act of God that I don't know we can blame the officials for.

But the water thing, you know, somebody should have raised those water rates decades ago and didn't.

And now they've gotten us into this jam.

I get where you're coming from.

I was hoping for something transformative.

I like that this is kind of this product of compromise.

Like, we're not just spending it on dumb stuff like the St.

Louis County Council has done, like, let's just do this because we can't balance this budget or let's just use it like a slush fund.

It's like, no, let's think about what are our community priorities right now.

What do we really need to focus on to get this city back to good?

I think there's some good ideas.

Well, and I love what you said about sports because sports, we are identified around the world for sports and beer.

And so I think I think you're right.

Indianapolis is an example.

I mean, they get all sorts of sporting events.

And that brings in money and people.

And our sports commission has done a fine job.

Sorry, guys.

I mean, there are people living out of their homes in North St.

Louis.

And I just feel that that's our number one priority.

And the water mains, man, we have a $400 million problem with those water mains and we've got to give them more than $25 or $40 million.

Well, I kind of agree with you.

But I'm going to back what you guys said because, you know, being around it, we shine brightest, you know, on television and in many publications when we host the final fours and things like that.

The sports commission is the one thing they can say, like, if we had more money, we could attract more sporting events and those bring money into the city.

That's proven.

Missouri Valley Conference Tournament just now when we had the NCAA Tournament.

So that's kind of proven.

But I am kind of like the thing on the riverfronts of others.

I did know that people would start jumping out to woodwork when this money was there.

They'd say, like, oh, money, right.

They'd say, like, I got a good idea.

And that might be a good idea.

But I think we've got higher priorities.

You're very right, Sarah.

If the tornado doesn't hit the north side, I think that money, about $100 million, could go into one big, giant project.

Unfortunately, that big, giant project is trying to transform or not transform but to rebuild parts of north St.

Louis.

That's part of the math problem that was not there when the money was first allocated.

And rebuild it in a transformational way.

I just don't.

I don't know that you can do that.

We need $3 billion for that.

You can't do that with 100%.

How much money is enough?

Look at what Steinberg is doing in Chesterfield.

That's a billion dollars right there.

Oh, by the way, Stan Kroenke is after the city of Inglewood for $400 million, which is about half of what he had to give up in that settlement.

He's still working it out there, let me tell you.

Hey, Alvin, let me ask you.

Sarah mentioned that some parts of St.

Louis haven't been taken care of, maybe St.

Louis County as well.

St.

Louis County has got some problems.

It's got the animal shelters a mess.

The jail is a mess.

We now are finding out that the special school district, which is a separate governmental body, is $83 million in the hole.

So the folks who head up that district, which includes about 5,000 workers, 23,000 kids in 22 districts, they want to freeze the pay for the employees.

What do you think?

Well, okay, I'm not answering to the deficit because that's a problem that needs to be taken care of.

But special school district of St.

Louis County is a lot of reasons that people stay in the St.

Louis metropolitan area.

They will move from the city to the county.

They will move into St.

Louis County for the special school district.

Jason Roosevelt.

There you go, right.

It's very important.

You cannot unilaterally walk in and say, like, hey, nobody's getting a raise because those teachers will find someplace else to do their craft.

They have studied this.

They don't just pick people to be special education teachers.

They have to study it.

They have devoted their lives to it.

My retired wife is one.

You can't just walk in and say, like, nobody's getting a raise and we can't tell you when you are.

That is a bad idea.

That's a horrible idea.

And then that will lead to people disrespecting it and then people will want to pull out and say, like, well, we'll just do our own special ed.

Disaster.

Let me tell you.

So that's just a bad idea.

You've got to find some way else to address that budget.

Well, and the financial crisis in the special school district, as you said, that's been a can that's been kicked down the road for a while.

And what I don't understand is the point that the union is making, I think, is a solid one.

They've got an emergency fund, tens of millions of dollars.

I understand they've got a deficit, obviously.

But you can't say that the special school district is in dire straits if you're sitting on top of those reserves.

And as you said, that sort of domino theory, if you start losing the teachers and then you start losing the students, we don't have the technology yet to, you know, equal the sound of the whooshing of people leaving the St.

Louis County.

Well, you know, the problem with St.

Louis County is the population is flat and you have to grow to increase revenues and the policies at the state and at the federal government, even locally there.

They're not bringing people in.

And then we do tend to abate, like every organization that wants an abatement.

Boeing hundred fifty five million dollar abatement.

Seniors get an abatement.

You know, this isn't is not just a fiscal issue, though.

This is a moral issue.

I mean, every parent who has healthy children has to think I'm so grateful.

And anything we can do to help people whose kids need special help, we ought to be doing.

And I think the problem is that's not how parents that have kids tend to feel about those who have kids with disabilities.

And you also have a lot of retirees who are like, well, I don't benefit from this.

Why would I want to vote for more money for this?

You have the state of Missouri and many communities that are starving school districts right now.

And that's the root of all this.

Wendy, I want to ask you about speaking schools.

There was a program called the Imagination Library.

I think it is still in session.

Dolly Parton started it and it gives free books away to kids between the ages of zero and five years old.

Well, the state government cut its budget from $6 to $2 million.

What do you think?

I thought it was free.

And so when I heard that the state cut its budget from $6 to $2 million, I thought, wait, I must be really bad in math.

Because I thought free meant free of charge.

But obviously the state of Missouri administers it.

That's something, you know, that $4 million gap, they're going to send out the books as long as they can with the money that they have.

They just can't get any new kids into the program.

So that seems to be, this is such an important part of their lives and learning how to read and getting excited about learning.

That it's, I know we have some fantastic corporate citizens in the state of Missouri.

And I hope that they somehow can step into that gap and pull the two ends together.

Well, you know, the state is always talking about we've got to do something about education.

So what do they do?

They cut the budget for, you know, universities and colleges, cut the budget for a free book program.

You know, no, pay the $6 million.

Keep the program going.

It's important to have books in people's homes.

We've got libraries, though.

It's important to have a book in a home.

It is.

But you can go to the library.

What if the kids don't have a way to get to the library?

I know that sounds silly, but they might not have a way to get to the library.

There's libraries all over.

And, you know, also, I walked down Cornell, which is a street in University City, and they have two of those little free libraries on the same block.

We have tons of them, but they're in areas where people read already.

Well, let's expand that program.

Well, but people just do that on their own.

You know, Abe Lincoln was able to get books in a log cabin.

What's wrong with modern man and modern woman?

They can't find books.

Get rid of electricity.

Yeah, well, they're trying to keep the swimming pools open, Charlie.

He had no Amazon, okay, and he was somehow able to get books.

They're trying to keep the swimming pools open.

All of us, we probably, our family probably got magazines, got the newspaper.

We didn't have to go to the library.

They came right to our house.

Yeah, I mean, I love the library, and I'm always amazed every time I go to the library.

It's like serving on jury duty.

It is like a slice of everything in St.

Louis, which is wonderful.

I think they do a great job of, like, serving the entire community.

But it does, to some extent, take a slightly more motivated parent than maybe every kid has, and I think that's why it's a good thing.

If there's a way to distribute books directly to some kids who are in need, that doesn't rely upon parents making that trip in whatever downtime they may not even have.

Thank you, Sarah.

Your comments will be the last ones for this edition of Last Call.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We'll see you next week at this time.