Category: News

Letter to the editor in the Webster Kirkwood Times:

On Mother’s Day about 2:40 p.m., I was driving west on West Lockwood Avenue. As I went under the railroad trestle just past Sherwood, I came upon a large tree that had blown over, blocking the westward lanes. The only people there was a crew working to clean it up.

I swung over to go west on one of the two eastbound lanes. Very quickly flashing lights from a police car came up behind me. I don’t know where it had been. While I was waiting for the police officer to get out of his car, a woman going east went by and said she was going to court. She had gotten a ticket too.

The officer told me to pull onto a side street. He followed me and after he got out of his car ran back to hail another car going west on the eastward lane. The officer said I should have turned around. When I said people go around obstacles all the time, he said it was dangerous and I could have had a head-on collision.

I wonder how the police chief would assess the situation. The road must have been blocked for some time before I arrived, since a woman had gotten a ticket, done her business and was on her way back, and a clean-up crew had to be assembled and brought to the location. I wonder how many tickets the officer managed to write.

Shouldn’t the police be helping drivers get around the obstacle rather than waiting (where?) until drivers get into a “dangerous” situation so they can give them a ticket?

Law enforcement not as concerned with public safety as with writing tickets and generating revenue? Say it ain’t so!

Granted, all we have here is the letter-writer’s version of events, but the story too easily falls into an anecdote supporting a cynical mindset that couples red-light cameras (sometimes with shortened yellow lights), rules allowing law enforcement to seize assets easily, and ticket quotas.

I’m very disappointed that the Webster-Kirkwood Times didn’t see this as a lead on a story, because either there is some dereliction of duty or behavior that’s not in the interest of public safety here, or there’s a letter writer spinning his tale of woe for all of us to see. Maybe signs were clear that the road was closed. Maybe there were even detour signs up. Hard to say. The paper only presents an allegation and lets it go.

But we’ve got a letter and our own cynicism that keeps us cold at night.

On May 10, I posted the picture of the LOL gas price sign on Clayton Road.

On May 23, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch posts a picture. Sure, it’s clearer, but it’s theoretically a professional photographer and he or she was not driving a temporarily unionized wife to the hospital.

Kudos to them for not explicitly blaming Bush in the article (unlike this “article” in the neighborhood paper, where the newspaper editor takes four short paragraphs, 10 short sentences, to lay the blame at George Bush’s feet. On the front page of the paper, no less. Good work, activist!). However, I wonder who told someone that LOL means “Lots of luck.”

Funny bit from the Post-Dispatch story, though, in the semi-mandatory, tout light rail section:

“I just started riding it a couple weeks ago, and I love it,” said Richards, of St. George. He said he finds riding the train so relaxing that he’d probably keep doing it even in the unlikely event that gas prices plummet. “I guess I’m hooked.”

I guess he doesn’t work downtown. The fundamental problem with the light rail system is that it has two lines: a main line from the airport to downtown, and a spur down to Shrewsbury. If the guy in St. George works downtown, a highway commute looks like this:

View Larger Map

His ride to the Metrolink station looks like this:

View Larger Map

That’s a fourteen minute ride to the Metrolink station and then a ride on the train downtown or about a 20 minute ride on the highway. When I lived in Casinoport and worked downtown, I could drive 30 minutes to the Metrolink station, wait for a train, and then ride downtown on the train, or I could drive 40 minutes to downtown.

Light rail proponents will yap that that explains why we need a bunch more rails and stops, but it took 10 years to build that one spur I mentioned above. To this day, Metrolink bleeds money. More rails mean it would bleed more money. Light rail and those fixed transit systems make no sense in a widely distributed, low-density area. But they’re BIG THINGS, and elected leaders get their names on buildings, so they continue to support it. The right-minded busybodies who tend to move downtown anyway continue to push it because it makes sense for them and the population should fund their pet projects. For the rest of us, time and tax money are wasted.

That’s a long way from pointing out I had the photo before the Post-Dispatch did. I’ll stop now.

Crestwood tax increase expected to keep city running:

About $7 million ought to cover it.

That’s what the Crestwood Board of Aldermen thinks will be needed over the next six years to maintain city services.

And to cover losses from declining sales tax and property tax revenues from its shopping mall, the board wants to place a 35 cent property tax increase proposal on the August election ballot.The measure will be on the August 5 ballot once it is approved by county election officials.

Here’s a little hair petting to calm you, citizen:

How much of an increase is that to the average Crestwood taxpayer?

Ward 3 Aldermen Jerry Miguel said residents can take the Crestwood portion of their 2007 property tax bill, and then double it for next year.

That’s an opponent of the bill speaking out. Let’s put it into context:

1. Take the Crestwood portion of your 2007 property tax bill.
2. Double it.
3. Add 20% when your property is reassessed next year.
4. Subtract it from your budget, which will be dinged by two county tax increases.
5. Put in an x in all future household budgets, where in x represents the total of all future emergency tax increases for your fire protection district, for your police pension plans, for Forest Park, for the impending museum districts, for the county budget shortfalls, and so on and so on.

When the total is equal to or greater than your income, I guess you can stop. Or keep going, assessing penalties for not making enough to cover your tax liability.

You know, I was going to use the “newspapermen blame Bush for everything except [event related to baseball].”

However, those hard working men and women of the press have found a way to demonize Bush for things related to baseball.

So I take it back. Their creative writing classes have taught them how to blame a Republican president for everything now. Their training is complete.

New taxes never sunset. Sometimes, tax cuts don’t even sunrise:

A state law requiring St. Charles to cut property taxes when the city’s share of Ameristar Casino admission receipts increases may be repealed before it ever triggers any reduction.

At the request of Mayor Patti York, the Missouri Legislature last week approved a little-noticed measure to get rid of the tax cut requirement.

Please, don’t take away her slush money. Think of the poor, bawling, hungry bureaucrats she has to feed.

Variable speed limits set to begin on I-270:

Starting Thursday morning, the Missouri Department of Transportation will begin a two-year experiment with variable speed limits along Interstate 270.

Motorists might have already noticed the digital speed limit signs that began popping up along the Missouri stretch of the highway in recent weeks. So far, those signs have shown that the speed limit is 60 miles per hour.

But by the morning commute, the speed limits on those signs could change to as low as 40 miles per hour depending on traffic flow.

Hey, we’ve already seen the authorities stretching existing laws to cover things that they didn’t. Why not just give the authorities to actually change the rules at their whim?

I’m sure this power will only be used for safety, and not revenue enhancement. So it will only be coincidence when these speed limits drop during nonpeak times when there happen to be a large number of municipal police cars sitting on the entrance ramps.

Suspect, 17, arrested in bus beating case:

The attack occurred about 3 p.m. last Wednesday, when a masked male boarded the bus near N. 60th St. and W. Silver Spring Drive and immediately began beating the driver.

The bus driver drove about two blocks north on N. 60th St. before the suspect grabbed the steering wheel and stepped on the accelerator.

The bus traveled about another 50 yards before crashing into a tree near N. 60th St. and W. Carmen Ave.

The suspect got off and ran north. The bus driver suffered minor injuries, but no other injuries were reported.

Ride mass transit, and you ride with a large number of strangers and the occasional felony-minded individual who will attack you for no reason. At which point, none of your fellow riders will come to your aid.

You know, if only mass transit used expensive, inflexible trains instead of buses, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Or maybe the argument should be that trains won’t run in to trees as easily when their drivers are beaten. Keep trying, New Urbanists, and remember what that Urban buys you.

Story from last week: John Burroughs Teacher Arrested For Misconduct With A Minor:

A John Burroughs School teacher is on administrative leave after being arrested for misconduct with a minor.

….

Ladue Police were tipped off by an anonymous call, and a Johns Burroughs’ teacher has since been arrested. Police aren’t releasing his name because he hasn’t been charged yet.

“There was an inappropriate relationship that took place over a 3 year period,” says Detective Andreski. [emphasis added]

Ah, that reliable old anonymous call. Less reliable than the testimony of a cellmate overall.

Later: Burroughs School Still in Shock over Allegations against Teacher:

It is alleged that the teacher had inappropriate contact with a Burroughs student.

Ladue Police said they’re investigating the alleged relationship between the teacher and the student, which could have occured [sic] over a three year period. [Emphasis added.]

Hmm, that seems to hedge a little, doesn’t it?

The story now: Prosecutor: Not Enough Evidence to Charge John Burroughs Teacher:

St. Louis County Prosecutors said there is not enough evidence to file charges against a teacher at a private school in Ladue.

Not that he didn’t do it, but that there wasn’t enough evidence to file charges. Hah! As we’ve seen, there’s often a way to prosecute where something isn’t against the law; is it possible this poor, soon to be jobless teacher actually didn’t do anything?

Of course, if one presumes that one is innocent until proven guilty. However, in the world of law enforcement hemming, prosecutorial hawing, and media rah-rahing, false charges and overeager arresting get footnotes instead of salacious headlines.

Finally, after the initial furor has died down, some creative prosecutor has found a way to bring charges in the Child Commits Suicide In Response To Online Taunting case:

The incident prompted an international cry for action, but Missouri and federal prosecutors here in St. Louis examined the circumstances shortly after Megan’s death, and passed on trying to build a criminal case. No law, they said, applied.

Then, in January, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles began issuing grand jury subpoenas, signaling a new interest in the case.

MySpace is based in Santa Monica.

Prosecutors are said to be seeking a felony fraud indictment under the legal theory that Lori Drew defrauded MySpace of computer time and resources by supplying false information.

In December, St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Jack Banas said that the circumstances surrounding Megan’s death defied a simple placement of blame.

After local and localized federal prosecutors decided no laws were broken, another, more ambitious headline-hungry creative prosecutor has found a way to advance his career get his name in the national papers serve justice.

In twenty-first century America, forget double jeopardy. You’re not safe from prosecution or persecution until everyone in government service has a crack at you.

(Yes, I know that double jeopardy applies to actual prosecution. However, it’s enough now that any act brings the possibility of numerous charges in multiple jurisdictions that make it clear that the principles behind double jeopardy, that the government and its individual executors shall not continuously hound a private citizen, are violated de facto but not de jure.)

Huh, who knew I was suffering from the effects of the Bush economy and endorsing a Democrat challenger in this year’s presidential election?

With the skyrocketing costs of fuel and food, people cite sticker shock as the catalyst pushing them into the garden.

“It’s crazy that we’re spending so much oil, time and money on food,” Staley said. “If we can do it in the backyard, why not?”

Concerns over food safety and the environment are among other factors prompting people to get their hands dirty. And, of course, the bragging rights that come with serving a homegrown tomato.

I mean, if the journalist is going to ignore other reasons for the draw of gardening–that is, of exerting control over the nearby environment and tying down that Gaia wench and making her do what you want for a change, the nesting instinct, the desire to have a food source when the centralized government falls and disorder reigns, or having free seeds come in the mail–and if the journalist is instead going to impute the failing environment story, why not just go right out and say that gardeners are voting for Obama this year?

Brazen robber shot Overland store clerk:

Overland Police Chief James Herron said a surveillance camera showed police what happened next:

The robber pulled a small-caliber semiautomatic handgun and demanded money. The clerk did everthing right, Herron said. He obliged — opening the cash register drawer and stepping back, just as management had taught him to do.

But the robber fired anyway. He shot the clerk once in the shoulder, then reached into the register to grab the money. The robber then jumped onto the counter and tried to fire several more times, but the gun malfunctioned. He ran out the door and down the street. Two customers on the lot saw him. They found the clerk on the floor behind the counter and called police.

Fortunately, corporate training didn’t include the advanced techniques, dying to prevent corporate liability for accidental employee-inflicted wounds during self-defense.

Similar story related at Books, Bikes, and Boomsticks. Perhaps a wave of similar incidents will change corporate policies in this regard, but I’m not hopeful that corporations will ever value their individual employees rights to life and self-defense over their own legal liabilities.

Also, memo to the city of Florissant and to all similar (soon to be simply “all”) cities who lust for surveillance cameras to prevent crime: discounting the British example, wouldn’t common sense indicate that cameras haven’t eliminated bank robberies or gas station hold ups and won’t particularly impact street crime?

Not, I suppose, if budget is on the line. A higher principle than anything stated by government officials.

In this piece about Obamalove in the media, the professional journalist/writer fumbles:

If the wellborn New England Wasp George W. Bush (Andover ’64, Yale ’68, Harvard ’75) could be successfully refashioned as a down-home rustic, why shouldn’t Hillary Clinton (Wellesley ’69, Yale ’73) be talkin’ guns and drinkin’ Crown Royal shots and droppin’ all the g’s from her gerunds whenever she speaks extemporaneously these days?[Emphasis added]

The examples cited, as you well know, gentle reader, are not gerunds at all, but rather are examples of the present progressive tense (often with the form of to be omitted).

Unless, of course, the author truly means that Hillary becomes talkin’ with guns and drinkin’ Crown Royal and that these gerunds are supposed to be used in the predicate nominative sense. However, that does not appear to be the case. But I just wanted to throw in another esoteric grammar term to show that I know what a gerund is.

But we cannot expect our snobbish elites to know their grammar, can we?

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

Let me know if you’ve heard this before: Government meddles in free market because it can. Prices rise. Government investigates price gouging:

St. Louis County officials plan to ask the state attorney general to investigate whether some trash haulers have gouged residents by drastically raising rates in recent weeks.

The county’s chief operating officer, Garry Earls, said some residents in the county’s unincorporated areas have received bills that are almost double their previous rates.

“This price gouging is tantamount to unscrupulous contractors ripping people off after a major storm,” he said.

The county is moving ahead with plans to divide its unincorporated areas into eight trash collection districts. Through competitive bidding, it would hire a single hauler for each district, except in subdivisions that opt out of the program.

The government’s action leads to a rise in prices that justifies, in the government’s mind, more government action.

The commanders of the economy are at it again:

A bill before the Missouri House would prohibit doctors from marking up the cost of certain anatomical laboratory work — such as skin biopsies and Pap tests — that are performed by outside laboratories.

The bill, which has been approved by the Senate and is awaiting floor debate in the House, would prohibit what’s known as “pass-through” billing.

That’s when a doctor sends a patient’s test sample to an outside laboratory for analysis. The lab charges the doctor a discounted price for the work, but the doctor bills the patient’s insurance or the patient a higher amount.

No word on whether the Missouri state legislature will go after mechanics, computer repair shops, construction people, and every other business that uses subcontracting. It’s doubtful, though, because these people are not the current boogeyman that the medical industry is.

However, once that particular Gulliver is bound to earth, watch out.

UPDATE: Legislator corrected to legislature in title and body. Now that someone’s reading it, I suppose I should make it correcter.

A “memorial” park in Lake St. Louis is surprised by criticism that its memorial plaques include sections on “mistakes” and “consequences” of the wars in which the dead fought:

Plaques citing “mistakes” in U.S.-fought wars have been removed from a new Veterans Memorial Park after veterans complained.

Ralph Barrale, head of the veterans group behind the park, said he’s sorry if the plaques upset anyone.

“We don’t want to disgrace the city or anyone else,” he said. “If we offended anyone, I am personally sorry.”

At issue is information on small metal plaques that had been glued atop stone pedestals. The plaques summarized the nation’s wars, with the information divided into sections, including “mistakes” and “consequences.”

In another story, Barrale is quoted as saying:

World War II veteran Ralph Barrale, who is 84, says it upsets him that some in his St. Louis suburb don’t want to read “the good and the bad” of America’s wars. He says they are historically accurate.

However, here’s some of the meat on the plaques:

For example, the “mistakes” portion of the plaque titled “Global War on Terror, 1997-Present” read, in part: “As of 2007, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars failed to enable viable governments leading to continued guerrilla fighting. The Iraqi Army was quickly crushed but the U.S. disbanded the Iraqi Army and removed civilian government employees belonging to the ruling political party leaving no one to help maintain security or run the country, which was contrary to policy used after WWII in Germany and Japan.”

Under “consequences,” it stated: “U.S. was accused of a Crusade against Muslims which caused riots all over the Muslim world. Pakistan became an opportunistic ally of the U.S. in its Afghanistan war. U.S. lost prestige around the world.”

That’s not historically accurate, that’s historical interpretation. The sort of thing that’s up for discussion and controversy. If Mr. Barrale wants to put those interpretation into government-sanctioned metal in a park, he wants them to be known as fact instead of what he and his other elegy composers think.

A co-worker complains about threats made by another:

A 54-year-old doctor at St. Anthony’s Medical Center was arrested after being accused of threatening people during preparation for surgery by allegedly saying he would shoot up the hospital, police said.

Luckily, the SWAT team swooped in and got him before he could get his arsenal from his Lexus:

The doctor allegedly made the threat April 11 and it was reported to police April 23, officials said.

An almost two week lag time before the arrest? It sounds like someone got cheesed off later at the doctor and called the buttons on him.

There’s probably more to the story than the paper lets on, but each of these ill-described incidents leads me to believe that the police might come for me someday on some wisecrack gone awry.

St. Louis Magazine has a in-depth look at the Kirkwood City Council shootings this month with insight that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s coverage sadly lacked.

It looks like the online version has three additional parts not found in the print magazine, too, which means I have further reading to do.