Category: News

In Bel-Ridge, a combination of the municipality and a rent-seeking developer are contributing to blight in the area.

First, of course, the municipality promised the developer land backed by seizure:

A couple of years earlier, Bel-Ridge had approved a redevelopment plan for a 78-acre swath of the city. The developer, Clayco, can acquire property by eminent domain.

The developer isn’t moving on the development because of the economy:

Matt Prickett, a development manager with Clayco, says the Bel-Ridge project is on hold because of the soft economy. It was envisioned as a major retail center, and retailers aren’t in an expansion mode.

“The market is what it is,” Prickett said.

Funny, I don’t expect a company that relies on seizure by force of private property instead of messy, meddlesome purchasing through, I don’t know, the market, understands what the market is.

As a result, a landowner who wants to renovate his property is in a bind:

A year ago, the Hood’s store on Natural Bridge Road was an eyesore. The windows were boarded up, the roof leaked and the parking lot was full of potholes.

Mike Hood, the owner, candidly says the city of Bel-Ridge probably could have condemned the building years ago, or at least cited it for multiple code violations. But it didn’t, and Hood launched a major renovation after buying the discount home-improvement store in January from his father, Ernest.

Three-quarters of the way into that $1 million project, Hood’s has a new roof, new glass, a repaved parking lot and new bathrooms. A shop being built in one corner will cut countertop materials to customers’ specifications.

Assuming he’s right about the market for discounted cabinets and flooring, Hood’s investment should assure the store of a long and prosperous future. But, three months into his renovations, Hood learned of a complication: A couple of years earlier, Bel-Ridge had approved a redevelopment plan for a 78-acre swath of the city. The developer, Clayco, can acquire property by eminent domain.

That means Hood, like owners of other businesses along Natural Bridge and the homes to the north, could have his property taken by force. A court proceeding would determine the property’s market value, but Hood might not get back the money he’s putting into the store. In all likelihood, he also wouldn’t be compensated for what he sees as the store’s potential.

Advice from the Clayco mouth:

As for the wisdom of investing $1 million in a store that Clayco could buy and tear down, Prickett said he’d impart the same advice he gives to homeowners: “We encourage them to make the necessary investments to maintain the health and safety of their property.”

That’s just precious. Of course, anyone on that land right now is just a squatter with actual responsibilities, according to Clayco and Bel-Ridge.

Meanwhile, the area in question will go to seed because macroplanners prevent individuals from sprucing it up. As a result, Bel-Ridge makes its own blight. As do many of these private/”public” deals.

UPDATE: Thanks to gimlet for pointing out I called Bel-Ridge Bel-Nor in the title and intro paragraph. Crikey, what’s with the municipalities naming themselves similarly? Bel-Ridge/Bel-Nor, Vinita Park/Vinita Terrace, etc.

In a four color insert into the Suburban Journals (online here), Metro continues its apocalypse now threats should it not receive a new tax-backed slush fund.

No service west of 270! No Metrolink trains after 8pm (spooking the suburbanites who would go to a ballgame, I suppose)!

Take heart, citizens! Even if you don’t pass the taxes, not one executive phony-baloney job will be lost and no budget will be spared on preparing promotional items for future tax increases!

Metro has its priorities, after all.

Courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in this article:

As police investigated at the scene Friday night, groups of neighbors and teenagers gathered in the neighborhood of winding streets and newer homes northwest of Interstate 55 and Lindbergh Boulevard.

Except:

View Larger Map

That looks to be due north to me, not northwest. Green Park does not even extend west of Lindbergh, but given that I’m a county resident who traverses these small communities daily and not an insular Post-Dispatch The-City-Is-Back intern, I know these things enough to check them out.

Charlie Dooley burns the midnight oil to get a tax increase proposal on the ballot:

St. Louis County Executive Charlie A. Dooley submitted a last-minute request to the County Council on Tuesday to put a proposal for a 1.85 percent tax on out-of-state purchases on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Article goes on to describe all the good things the money would do and how the municipalities in the county want the extra money. No space, as expected, is wasted on all the tax money already collected by the municipalities and the county and what they’re spending it on instead of the good, necessary things.

Additionally, Metro is telling us about the coming skyfall if its proposed tax increase does not pass:

The Metro public transportation system has warned that service would be slashed on the Missouri side of the region without a new source of money.

Now the transit agency is offering a worst-case scenario: No MetroLink trains after 8 p.m. Bus service in effect nonexistent outside Interstate 270. Twenty-eight of 60 current bus routes disappearing.

“This is going to be shocking,” Metro President Robert Baer said Friday. “We pray that doesn’t happen.”

Metro is preparing for the outcome of a Nov. 4 vote in St. Louis County on a half-cent increase in the transit sales tax. If the tax passes, the service cuts would be unnecessary.

As you recall, Dooley moved this particular tax proposal from a spring ballot since that ballot was too close to revelations about Metro spending profligately on a lawsuit against consultants that built or managed its recent extension.

Half of the money would be spent on maintenance:

County Executive Charlie Dooley has told county residents that if Proposition M passes, half of the $80 million in revenue that is projected to be raised each year would go toward transit operation and maintenance costs, while the other half would go toward a MetroLink expansion from Clayton to Westport Plaza.

Awesome logic no doubt gleaned from public policy courses at the university. You cannot afford to run what you have, so raise taxes and then spend the money to not only run what you have, but to build more. Which you then won’t have enough money to run in an ongoing basis. Rinse. Repeat.

Over on my Software QA blog, QAHatesYou.com, I once noted that some drop-down lists have not yet recognized Kosovo’s independence.

To this list, add the petition to revoke the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Fortunately, Georgia and the Ukraine remain listed for the time being, and South Ossetia and Abkhazia are not.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

We live next to an interstate highway, and the front yard is pretty loud; you need to speak up to be heard. However, I used to say that in 20 years, we wouldn’t hear that highway because the internal combustion engine would be out of style.

Fortunately, the government is working to save the endangered Noise Pollution:

Electric and hybrid vehicles may be better for the environment, but the California Legislature says they’re bad for the blind.

It has passed a bill to ensure that the vehicles make enough noise to be heard by visually impaired people about to cross a street.

Thanks, guys.

(Link seen at Porch Girl‘s.)

Government making life more expensive for us in today’s Kirkwood-Webster Journal.

UPDATE: The link above is stale, so here’s the article for your reading pleasure:

In 2007, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. If you heard about this bill at all, a televised news bit might have said that it would help end American dependence on foreign oil. Maybe you read about the bill in the newspaper’s political sports pages as a box score in the perpetual pennant race between the Republicans and Democrats. Somehow, as it often happens with 300 page omnibus bills, you probably missed some costs that Congress has passed onto us without our notice.

In 2012, instead of going into your local store and picking up four 100-watt incandescent bulbs for $1.00 or $1.50, you will spend $4.00 for a single compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb, $16.00 for four. The Energy Independence and Security Act bans the common incandescent bulb. With that simple action, Congress effectively raises the price of a light bulb from $.25 to $4.00 or more for every light, lamp, and ceiling fan in your home. The cost of replacing the 53 bulbs scattered around my home will go from $13.25 to $212.00 or more.

To be accurate, the Energy Independence and Security Act doesn’t explicitly ban incandescent bulbs. It only bans bulbs that use as much electricity as incandescent bulbs and allows only bulbs that are as energy efficient as CFL bulbs. If Congress outlawed cars with MPG ratings of lower than 30, it wouldn’t explicitly outlaw SUVs, trucks, and luxury sedans, but that would be the result.

I don’t oppose CFL bulbs; as a matter of fact, I use a couple for exterior lights that are on for long periods of time. However, CFL bulbs have additional costs and risks over incandescent bulbs. Since they contain mercury, breaking them can lead to toxic spills and death. Disposal is problematic, as you shouldn’t throw them away. Instead you should recycle them, but not with your recycling bin. To be responsible, you have to look for somewhere to drop them off or to send them. Some people probably won’t be responsible, dumping CFL bulbs and their mercury into landfills. CFL bulbs promise long lives and energy savings over several years, but you’re supposed to leave them on for more than five minutes at a time or risk shortening that lifespan. I don’t leave bathroom lights on for five minutes every time or spend five minutes minimum in my store room. Each short visit reduces the longevity of a CFL bulb and its value over its incandescent counterparts.

Congress often passes laws that provide immeasurable and possibly negligible benefit for the environment. With many of them, the costs to us remain indirect and somewhat obscured since they don’t impact sale prices. In 1995, the National Energy Policy Act mandated that toilets could only use 1.6 gallons per flush instead of the 3 to 7 gallons used previously. While that saves water, it also can lead to more drain blockage and quicker corrosion in household pipes since the lower flow of water doesn’t carry waste or sediments away as effectively. The Energy Independence and Security Act mandates that new washing machines and dishwashers use less water per washing cycle which also means less water carrying away the dirt and food particles and, potentially, leaving clothes or dishes dirty. Congress is not alone in making costly rules for us. In July, the Environmental Protection Agency released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that calls for emissions regulation on lawnmowers. Catalytic converters and other emissions equipment will make lawnmowers more expensive, will increase maintenance costs, and cause the more complex machines to break down more easily.

The federal government has put most of these regulations into effect without attracting much attention. Since we consumers don’t see the costs directly, we’ve let this pattern continue without asking or debating whether the rules most effectively protect the environment and whether the total costs of the laws or regulations outweigh the anticipated, and sometimes measurable, benefits. Hopefully the coming light bulb shock of 2012 will draw some attention to the practice and spur debate in addition to sticking us with higher costs and prices.

In a story about a home invasion of Noah Herron, running back for the Packers, the journalist gives in to cliche and renders a judgement on whether the bedroom is actually the right place for you to be:

No, there was no message in this, only the fact that anyone can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For Herron, it was innocently enough in his own bedroom one May evening while two burglars ended up pushing Herron into a corner, giving him no option but to fight back for his own life.

Brothers and sisters, the bedroom in your own home is not the wrong place at the wrong time.

The absolute right place to be in this situation is where your home defense weapon is. Unfortunately for Herron, this ended up being a bedpost, but fortunately it was enough.

James Durbin gives perspective on what the AB-InBev merger means to St. Louis IT in a post entitled The Effect Of The Anheuser-Busch Merger On The St Louis Staffing Market. He takes it from a macro approach, but let me tell you what it means to you, the individual IT drone: There are going to be a lot of former AB contractors chasing a smaller number of IT jobs in St. Louis.

But never mind that, let’s talk about the real impact on the rest of us: The commercials are going to suck. I mean, I’m not a fan of Budweiser, having only drunk a single Bud Light in my lifetime and only as part of Mardi Gras in Soulard where that’s all that was available from Red, the bartender from the Venice Cafe who was moonlighting on some balcony in Soulard proper. My dislike of the product aside, the commercials were often funny. I mean, almost ten years later, I say, “Willie, it’s go time,” and that’s from a non-campaign spot:

I watch a lot of sports, and this means I watch a lot of Bud and Bud Light commercials.

Have you ever seen a funny European beer commercial? Ever? They’re all so earnest at best, at worst they creep me out. Dudes, I have nightmares about this one:

Forget the local economy tanking. This is really where it’s going to hurt.

Story‘s lead:

A Lebanon man has been arrested for sexually assaulting his neighbor after bounding her in a filthy camping trailer on Monday.

What’s next? Making hurdling a woman a sexual assault?

(Memo to the Post-Dispatch Journalists with English as a Second Language program: bound is the past tense of bind.)

Instapundit links to a story about falling oil prices:

Oil prices plunged to a three-month low Monday, briefly tumbling below $120 a barrel in another huge sell-off after Tropical Storm Edouard seemed less likely to disrupt oil and natural gas output in the Gulf of Mexico.

Brothers and sisters, this is why Congress must act now! It’s not important what action they take, whether it’s foolish rule against oil speculators or more sensible plans to allow off-shore drilling or oil exploration on public lands.

What is important is that our ruling political class realize that unless it acts, citizens might get the impression that market forces alone can cause declining gas prices, and that sometimes the rain falls without the dances of the rainmakers on the floors of the House and Senate.

Wellston police scuffle; guns drawn:

A brawl between the newly chosen city police chief and his ousted predecessor resulted in guns being drawn on Friday and the mayor requiring medical attention for trying to intercede, police said.

The new police chief was named about four days ago, said Pine Lawn Police Chief Rickey Collins, whose department is investigating at the request of the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office.

The two men began pushing and shoving each other about 3 p.m in a meeting room inside Wellston’s City Hall. Collins said he did not know what they argued about, though he said the former police chief recently had been demoted to assistant chief.

Guns were pulled during the scuffle, but no shots were fired, Collins said.

Respect for law and order takes another hit.

Another month, another Critical Mass event includes beating a four wheeler, this time in Seattle:

According to Jamieson, as the Critical Mass group moved down the street, blocking traffic, some riders got in the way of the Subaru and prevented it from leaving. Some bikers sat on the car and were banging on it, he said.

“The driver was pretty fearful that he was about to be assaulted by the bicyclists,” Jamieson said.

The man tried to back up, but bumped into a biker. “This enraged the group,” Jamieson said.

Several of the bikers bashed up the Subaru, shattering the windshield and rear window, Jamieson said.

The driver tried to drive away, but hit another bicyclist, Jamieson said. Still, he drove about a block, to the corner of Aloha and 15th Avenue East, before the Critical Mass riders cornered the car again and started spitting on it and banging against it.

One bicyclist punched the driver through his open window, and another used a knife to slash the Subaru’s tires, Jamieson said.

The driver got out of his car, and was hit in the back of the head, opening a large gash.

Wow, just like San Fransisco.

You know, if they keep at it and this spreads, eventually cities will ban these events. More oppression for the poor, poor bike lovers everywhere, especially the leftist thugs who like any excuse to damage the straights with “cause.”

(Link seen on Ace of Spades HQ.)

In case you didn’t know it, Missouri is almost on par with the third world, or so this dynamic and purposefully frighteningly colored map would have you think.

What is food insecurity? Probably something less than distended bellies and dead children in the streets. But it’s a interpretive metric, so those who want more government money in programs designed to combat bad feelings will always have just cause to spend more money. Except, sometimes, I suspect that it’s just ’cause that they have.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch uses the AB-InBev merger as a springboard to launch a series of “damaging” fatuous questions at John McCain, whose wife owns an AB distributorship.

The head of the Washington Bureau “asks”:

John McCain’s Straight Talk Express is far less talkative when it comes to beer.

McCain’s campaign is unwilling to directly address questions flowing from InBev’s purchase of Anheuser-Busch Cos. in light of his wife, Cindy’s, ownership of a large Anheuser-Busch distributorship in Arizona, Hensley and Co.

— For more than 20 years as a legislator, McCain has abstained from taking positions or voting on measures related to alcohol. As president, would he act on beer-related legislation — or continue to abstain, in effect casting a veto?

— InBev does business in Cuba, designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism. As a candidate, McCain has been tough on the Cuban government. Will his wife now sell the products of a company that does business in Cuba — or even expand her business to include InBev’s other products?

McCain’s campaign is unusually tight-lipped on those questions, and wouldn’t say whether the candidate’s wife plans to separate herself from Hensley.

The paper’s really making an effort here to springboard from a rather touchstone local issue into casting aspersions onto McCain’s ethics. Particularly creative is trying to cast his recusing himself from voting on things that would benefit him through his wife’s company and complaining about how a parent company would do business in Cuba. We’re really stretching here.

I mean, for crying out loud, Barack Obama drives a Chrysler 300, and DaimlerChrysler does business in Cuba. Shouldn’t Barack have rented a Ford? And what about his publisher’s parent company, guilty of using Nazi slave labor at one point? Will Barack abstain from signing legislation in favor of slavery or Nazis?

I mean, I’m just a crackpot backwater blog making sarcastic remarks about Obama here, but the story and the leading questions in the paper is from a “credible” periodical with a (declining) metropolitan audience.

Forget this story, Post-Dispatch. If you need to try to gig McCain based on a narrative of local concern, investigate why he’s tight-lipped about trading for a good middle reliever for the Cardinals. Sure, it’s not his job, but you can still blame him for with a couple of bullet points.

(Full disclosure: I am actually a citizen columnist for a sort of sister publication of the Post-Dispatch.)

When he agrees with the journalist’s point of view:

A rising number of uninsured patients are going without necessary care and are raising medical costs for those who have insurance coverage, according to a report released Tuesday by the Missouri Foundation for Health.

The report, “The Significance of Missouri’s Uninsured,” took several recent studies from health care think tanks and federal agencies, located data relevant to Missouri and added analysis. The report was prepared by the foundation’s Cover Missouri project, which began earlier this year.

“I think there is an increasing understanding among Missourians that we’re reaching crisis,” said Ryan Barker, a health policy analyst for the nonprofit foundation, which conducts health research and advocacy. “This is a problem not just of a few people but of almost 800,000 Missourians.

Spending money on health care for the poor? Not when there’s a study to conduct to bolster allocating tax money to a cause!

When it’s a special interest group that the paper likes, it’s not lobbying, it’s advocating, and the special interest group-funded study isn’t suspect, it’s news.

I know, it goes without saying. But I’ll say it anyway because it’s as important to make a mystical chant out of the truth as it is the less-than-true that you want to stick in people’s heads.

Michael Williams endorses Steelman.

No doubt he’s getting a flurry of hits from the House of Representatives since he quotes the magic Google term “Kenny Hulshof” in his post. I hope you fellows there in Kenny’s office are doing official government work on those computers and not campaign work because I’m under the impression that’s naughty.

But Washington naughty doesn’t count, right?

When Obama says fix the economy, I expect he means neuter.

PS, Time-Warner: I sort of accidentally resubscribed to Fortune, and your love of promoting service to Mother Gaia and pimping politicians in a “business” magazine reminds me that when this year-for-ten-bucks subscription ends, I ought to go with Forbes.