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>> Well, if it's Thursday, it must be Donnybrook.

Thanks for joining us.

We're going to discuss the top local issues in just a moment, but first let's meet our panelists.

Starting with the media veteran herself, Wendy Wiese, Bill McClellan from the St. Louis Post Dispatch from the 314 podcast, St. Louis magazine, and the daily newsletter, Sarah Fenske.

And we welcome Alvin Reid from the St. Louis American.

We also want to thank great local artist D. Janeiro Jones who has supplied the artwork on the mantle behind me and we'll be seeing that for the next couple of weeks, maybe a month or so.

Mr. Jones, thank you very much for sharing your talents and everybody else.

You can find more of Mr. Jones's work at Jones DJ Janeiro on Instagram.

Okay, Bill, we're going to start with you with a real doozy.

The likes of which I don't recall seeing, and that was this week, the US attorney himself, Thomas Albus, who just took office uh three, four weeks ago, went in front of Judge Henry Autry in US federal court and withdrew charges that his office had been prosecuting against two local developers, Sid Shakravertie and uh Vic Alustin.

And uh do I have that right?

I think I do.

I think you do.

>> And as it turns out, these guys were accused of cheating a local program that set aside a certain number of contracts for womenowned and minorityowned businesses.

They were accused of writing sham or scam checks to minorities or to women, but at the same time writing real checks to people who are really doing the work.

So, it was a fraudulent enterprise.

At least that's what the government alleged.

But then this week, Mr. Albus over the objections apparently of his first assistant uh Hal Goldsmith went in front of the judge and said, "Well, that program has been suspended by the mayor of St. Louis and the Justice Department finds it unconstitutional.

Therefore, we're going to withdraw the charges.

These guys did nothing wrong."

What's your take on this one?

>> Well, I found it very unsettling.

First of all, it's hard to give the Justice Department much benefit of the doubt these days when they purged the FBI of agents who were uh working on January 6 cases and firing assistant US attorneys who worked on January 6 cases.

But in this local instance, first it was odd that the new young US attorney went against Hail Goldmith, who has earned the reputation as kind of the big dog over there and has uh Mr.

Integrity and has prosecuted public corruption and uh white collar fraud cases for years.

And then his uh Mr. Albus's reasoning that the Justice Department found this program unconstitutional was really startling because you know we have uh three branches of the government, the legislature, the judiciary and the executive and it's the judiciary that determines what's unconstitutional.

So with uh Mr. Albus saying that the justice department part of the executive found it unconstitutional.

I don't know whether he's >> I I I may have buried the lead and because >> Pam Bondi.

Yeah.

You you know who uh >> her brother >> her brother happens to be the defense attorney.

So I don't know if Mr. Albus was referring to the defense attorney's sister who thinks it's unconstitutional or Ed Martin or Kash Patel or who but it doesn't matter.

It's almost like saying well the guy down the bar said he thought this was unconstitutional.

I you know I've been covering the US attorney's office here for many years and many US attorneys and I've never seen anything quite like this going on the United States >> and the only analogy like my immediate thought was okay let's say a bank is suspicious like there's something suspicious going on at a bank but I decided to rob the bank but if the bank is suspicious then I didn't really rob the bank I mean that that's how nonsensical this this read to to me.

>> Well, you know, just like you said, but nothing that's going on with the United States of America governmentwise now makes any sense.

We can no longer ever look at any country anywhere that that's just not totally, you know, totalitarianistic and say like we're better than that because now it's just anything goes.

Now it's just like I'm gonna hire the partner of the president because they're pals or buddies or whatever and then go in and just do everything is to get the president's attention and make the president happy.

And I mean that's just where we're at.

Is there any possibility that's why the former US attorney left Sayler Fleming >> because she wouldn't agree to this deal?

Again, >> that was what was speculating.

Brad Bondi, the brother of the US Attorney General, represented one of these developers.

And Sarah, the other one was represented by former US attorney Jeff Jensen, who was the boss of both Goldsmith and Albus at one point.

>> Yeah, I mean, I think this is terrible.

I have not heard anyone suggest that this is why Sayler Fleming left.

It's possible there's a story that we don't know.

I do have to give some credit here to our new US attorney, Tom Albus.

fact that he went to handle this himself.

He did not twist the arm of some very young person in the office and say, "You got to go handle this one or you're out of a job."

By him showing up, we knew exactly what was going on.

That the order for had come from on high and it was very clear that the seasoned prosecutor who had handled this case wasn't on board for it.

And so the boss is like, "Well, I guess I got to do what Pam Bondi, my boss, tells me."

At least it was honest.

>> Well, you're you're very generous to give Mr. Albus credit for signing on to it.

I mean, >> I think he might be grandstanding for the guy.

>> I was going to say he gets Look, if somebody's going to shine in the president's eyes, may as well be me.

And, you know, but and not to bring up, you know, the whole Sayler Fleming thing again, but you know, the woman who was in charge of the CDC, she didn't quit.

She stayed and she ended up getting fired or doing her job to the best of her capability.

So maybe there's a lot of people that have left their jobs.

They said, "All I'm going to do is get fired because I am not going to stand for some of this stuff.

That leaves us in a situation that we're >> Yeah.

I I I don't think it's a profile and courage really to be honest with you, Sarah.

But I will say uh Sid and Vic were pretty smart in getting Brad Bondi as an attorney.

I mean, if that's the way the game's played now, >> it used to be rich people would want to hire a great lawyer like Scott Rosen Bloom to do well in trial.

Now you just hire, you know, Pam Bondi's brother and you don't go to trial.

>> It sure looks that way.

Okay, let's move to the next topic.

And Sarah, this is a >> It was very strange in St. Charles City last week.

Yeah.

When uh the peasants with pitchforks rose up and they said no data center, you know, uh these major companies like Ma and Google and Amazon need these artificial intelligence data centers to do whatever they do.

And but they suck up a lot of electricity.

They drive up the price electricity and they also use a lot of water.

So St. Charles said, "No, no, it's not going to work too well."

But you have written that there are a lot of data centers around here.

We know that St. Louis needs money.

What about bringing this mega data center to St. Louis, perhaps North St. Louis?

>> No, I do not want that.

You know, in this story that that we published earlier this week, um we were able to get a list of the data centers already in the city of St. Louis because people kept saying to me, "Well, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they find our cheap real estate."

I was like, "I think they're already here."

Sure enough, there are 17 already in the city of St. Louis.

None as big as this, but one that is a third of the size of it.

I think the city I think there are conversations going on about, okay, we need to do something in our zoning code because we don't want these everywhere.

They're not good for people to live next door to.

They're not good for the environment.

I don't think we should just trash North City just because we might get some money out of it.

Well, there's you got open a lot of open land in North St. Louis and you're going to have a little bit more obviously following the tornado.

So, I can't rule that out.

I think if you make the right deal and I mean it has to be sweet for the city and I and I mean North St. Louis and and North St. Louis and you have to hire people from North St. Louis and you >> But again, there's not many jobs with these things.

It's all about the building of it and then they just sit there and throw it.

>> It It sounds like the Matrix, doesn't it?

You have all these cocoons in the in the building.

I picture this >> and there's a slight little hum sound.

>> I mean, when you're building it, I mean, when you're building it, you like seriously, you have to hire even people don't know construction work and all that.

Well, you're going to teach them and these people are going to make a well-paying job for 3, four years while this thing is being built and make the deal like that and really don't back off.

>> I think Alvin's on to something.

You know, in the southwest part of the country, there's no water.

But do you know there's so much water flowing through St. Louis that uh St. Louis city doesn't even have gauges on the homeowners water.

It's true.

And and they could process more water than they do.

We have the two biggest rivers coming right through.

Plus, we have the need.

And a company like Microsoft is now worth $4 trillion.

So for them to throw a billion dollars at North St. Louis would just be an accounting.

Like I said, if it should be one, make it two.

>> Exactly.

And you know, we love the word transformative around here.

I mean this that was my first thought was it would be transformative and and push it up against the edges of North St. Louis that I mean but perhaps it's worth a look >> I think this would be transformative in a bad way like what we're going to take our most precious resources which is our water.

We've always been proud of our water and as things continue to happen with our climate and with our world water becomes the draw.

It's like oh I could move to St. Louis, they still have fresh water, unlike Phoenix where I used to live.

Right.

That's what's going to keep St. Louis's future secure.

And instead, we're going to sign some zillion dollar contract with one of these giant tech companies that's just going to pillage our land.

I don't like it.

>> No, you're right.

You have to have safeguards, but as you point out, we already have 17 of them.

So, how bad can it possibly be?

>> Well, things could already be getting bad and we're just not even aware of it.

I think, you know, this is something we need to look at what's already here.

>> Can we look at it after we help North St. Louis?

>> Yeah.

I mean, we're not trying to put it in Leoo.

We're just trying to put it 10,000 homes destroyed by the hurricane, not hurricane, uh, the tornado last May 16th in North St. Louis.

You get a billion dollars.

Divide by 10,000, that's $100,000 for each homeowner.

You could create new neighborhoods with that.

I would think >> new safe neighborhoods.

>> Neighborhoods where there'll be a thrming in the background, giving everyone a migraine at least.

>> Clear the brush off the sidewalk so the kids can get to school.

That seems like such a price to me.

Oh, while I'm talking to you, Sarah, uh, what do you think about Sheriff Alfred Montgomery?

As you report, he had a good day and a bad day because the nepotism charges against him were dropped by the new attorney general, Katherine Hanoway.

He had been accused of hiring his brother, but it turns out with the DNA evidence, the guy is not his brother.

Okay.

But he now faces federal misdemeanor charges on a civil rights violation when he had a woman arrested and handcuffed when he had no right to do either.

>> The jail commissioner.

Yeah, >> the jail commissioner.

So, uh, overall, is he, uh, in good shape or bad shape right now?

>> I think he's slightly up right now because, you know, this was sort of exhibit A in the case to get rid of him was the nepotism charge.

Judge Mike Wolf, who I really respect, he said, "This is the case in and of itself.

If they can prove this, they don't have to prove anything else.

Well, it turns out they couldn't prove it.

So now the biggest thing that they had goes away.

We already knew that he did this reprehensible thing to the interim jail commissioner.

It was already part of the removal petition.

Now there's a misdemeanor charge.

The fact that nobody could figure out some sort of felony.

I think the fact that he's gotten this big thing taken care of and now it's just something where they're clearly aiming towards trying to get him to agree to something like resign from office.

I thought it was kidnapping with like a lower case.

>> It's still a misdemeanor.

I was very I I think that uh the sheriff should just hire Pam Bomb's brother and I think that you know the US attorney turn you now that I think about this isn't that big a deal.

>> Very hard to argue with.

>> Yeah, that's a great idea.

>> I thought that whole thing was weak anyway.

And now that Andrew Bailey is, you know, off doing his thing in Washington DC, I think it was a really good week for Alfred Montgomery.

I think he's fine.

Okay.

But how about >> for everybody else though?

>> How about the judge uh John M. >> Bowdenhausen >> who um said to Sheriff Montgomery, "What?

You're smoking marijuana?

You said in your pre-trial disclosure, you smoke marijuana.

Don't you know that that's illegal by federal law?"

And it seemed to me, Sarah, he's the first guy in America who's actually read the law.

>> I just think the feds look so out of touch on this marijuana issue.

Like, this ship has sailed.

Everybody has legalized it.

Nobody's enforcing anything of it.

Nobody's shocked.

Can you imagine if someone thought it was a scandal that our sheriff smoked pot?

Of course, he smokes pot.

Everybody smokes pot.

Probably all the defense attorneys in there are smoking pot the minute they get out of court.

>> Well, TSA, I mean, is federal.

And so I mean if you try to fly from one place where everybody's smoking pot to another place where everybody's smoking pot, you're you know you're in the Huskow, right?

>> No.

>> Well, I don't know anybody who's been arrested yet.

>> Me either.

I think they look at you.

I don't know that like >> I don't even know what Huskow means.

So I'm I'm stuck on that.

>> You know, if if I were Albert McGomery's defense attorney, I would have probably said, "Your honor, yeah, he he he most marijuana."

And you know who owns all of the marijuana dispensaries?

Republicans.

So may you might want to pass on that.

>> Is that factual?

>> I I I would say that great because that whole Steve Tilly and all that action, you know, I do not smoke marijuana >> and I am with Judge John on this case.

I'm just saying >> they call him Bodie, I guess, at the courthouse.

I' I've never met the man, but he's a former uh engineer by training.

And as it turns out, I think he likes detail.

>> I think I was making a joke, Charlie.

I don't think the federal is I don't think the I don't think that federal marijuana designation is going anywhere anytime soon.

>> Well, Trump said that he might actually he he's looking at this, >> right?

>> So, because he even he admits this is idiocy.

I mean, you know, it's not my drug.

I'd rather have my gin than have some marijuana.

But it's like it just come on now, Charlie.

You got to admit.

>> No, I I I like the the the federal law says you can't possess, use, or distribute marijuana.

And you guys are all like everybody else ignoring the federal law.

Just just a housekeeping.

Alvin has actually trademarked Come on now.

So you can >> Okay.

Wendy, I want to ask you um the mayor of St. Louis, Cara Spencer, announced two committees that she's forming.

One will include businesses and residents in North St. Louis who are going to provide input and the other community leaders about 30 of them uh mostly from the nonprofit in the foundation world who are going to advise her on tornado recovery.

your thoughts about uh working by committee.

>> Um I'm really I have said this before.

I am exhausted by uh governing by blue ribbon panels, uh blue ribbon committees, pie baking committees, whatever.

Uh this is this is too important to farm out.

I counted 31 names on this list of people.

I think it might be one of the most politically magnanimous things I have ever seen in my life on the part of the mayor.

So, I know that she's coming from a good place, but this is this is just too important.

Pick the pick the the cream of the crop, the people who are really going to be able to give you I mean, I I just imagine the meetings.

And I think that this is going to be a kind of a a feudal exercise because St. Louis is not known for working well together.

We have way too many chefs and not enough bottle washers in the kitchen.

Yeah, it's it's too many people and I I have great respect for most of really all these people on on this list.

But I will tell you what that this is basically I think to give the mayor's office some cover for some tough decisions that going to have to be made between now and probably, you know, this time next year.

And so you could say like, well, we had this committee and it had a lot of, you know, powerful black people on it and they didn't say that this was what we decided was the worst thing ever.

But a lot of them are beholdened to city hall in many ways.

If you're a not for-p profofit who you're not going to cross the mayor, you're you know you're just not going to it's not going to happen.

And thus another thing is that when you look at what transpired in the wake of let's say of Ferguson and I use this term on the show and I looked at that and I said like man we went down we went from we got to take action and we got to do stuff and we got to do that and at some point it kind of turned into pity party and this is where like it said like no we got too many how can we say community-minded individuals and a not enough kind of staunch look if you do this this is bad for this neighborhood and we don't like it >> I got isn't Millicent Borishade did such a fine job at the schools the unions are trying to get her out >> and the mayor's putting her on the committee they're probably going to meet at the chop house >> going to be ridiculously >> I'll join the committee >> all jokes aside I got to say tornado recovery Y is an immensely complicated thing.

It involves schools.

It involves bus routes.

It involves lots of complicated multiaceted things.

And if she wasn't consulting the people that are in these communities and that represent these different entities that should be working for North City, we would be criticizing her for that.

There is a designated point person within her administration, the chief recovery officer.

That person answers to her.

So the buck stops with the two of them.

If they mess this up, we're we can't blame that on the committee.

But they need the input of the community.

>> I I hate to bring up Chicago again, but when I was a young person in Chicago, Mayor Daly didn't have a 30 person committee to try to figure out what to do on a crisis.

>> And I hardly see him as the role model that we're trying to emulate.

>> Well, it was called the city that did General Eisenhower have a 31 person committee when he was storming the beaches of Normandy.

Let me ask you this, Sarah.

Would you rather have 31 people or maybe go to Chicago and bring in former St. Louis University President Lawrence Biondi and bring him in and say you're the designated benevolent dictator who's going to repair North St. Louis.

>> I can't believe you guys are arguing with me about this when I have been saying we need one person the police chief answers to.

Why do we have the police department answering to a committee and you guys are like oh I'd rather have my committee of bar owners talking four, five, six people.

This is 31.

>> What we have here is we have a white mayor.

We have a a disaster that disproportionately affected the black community and she needs to be hearing directly from them.

This is a way but that's not the black community.

Look a group of a lot of activists on that committee who were not a lot who hold their fire.

Okay.

I can absolutely.

>> All right.

All right.

We Yeah.

Okay.

I just I disagree with you Sarah on this one.

This is this is um like I say a lot of sound and fury.

>> There are a lot of people on that committee who are not beholden to city hall.

I'm somewhat insulted that you are saying that on their behalf and I think they are going to speak out if things aren't >> as opposed to African-American representation.

What if you went with uh businessmen like uh Rusty Keley or um Richard Mark or L Carson by or John Ireland or James Brennan or something?

>> I think she's hearing from plenty of people like that.

But I think her goal is to say I also need to hear from the people who are affected by this and the systems that should be serving them.

>> But the thing is Sarah like if you go to North St.

In the wake of the tornado, you look around and said like, "Okay, it's messed up.

The decisions have to be made aren't that difficult.

How are we going to fix it?

How are we going to pay for it?

Who's going to lose their house?

>> Those seem pretty difficult to be honest."

>> Really?

>> Yes, I do.

>> Paying for it might be.

Yeah.

Especially with everyone at FEMA quitting.

>> Yeah.

The National Guard being useless.

Alvin, let me move on to Ofalon, Illinois, where CityFest last weekend resulted in uh 17 arrests of juveniles, two shootings, and it's not the first time at October Fest, Brewfest, Staint Nick Fest, same things happen.

13 Carnival also on this side of the river, uh kids get into fights and uh they ruin it for everybody else.

Should kids be prohibited from attending these festivals?

Well, I would say that a certain age limit has to be.

That's how one times have changed.

Just like you can't be in the mall without your parent after six o'clock or whatever now in some places 3:00 at the gallery.

>> Yeah.

See, and that's just the reality of where it is now.

I still think people refuse to hire enough security at their events.

They are I don't want to say that they're penny pinching, but they don't want to make the sacrifice and security to make things safe.

If I were going to have an event like that, the one thing I would just just demand if it were going to be open at night was that there's just gonna be so many law enforcement people running around here that people will act like they got some sense.

And if you're a juvenile, you're not getting released if you get arrested.

You're going to jail and you'll be there at least one night.

Let's just quit kiding around.

Well, that's one thing, Alvin, that that you certainly need to be able to do something to the juveniles instead of I mean, as it is now, we've had this story about kids carjacking and being set free, let alone creating disturbances at festivals.

>> Well, in our colleague Glenn Venhouse's story, it kind of sounded like they were happy with the amount, at least the the organizers were were okay with the amount of security that they had.

But I love this because it does make you sad.

This is community building.

You know, you're trying to bring families together for, you know, good clean fun and enjoy the weather and the dropping temperatures and everybody gets together and that's good for, you know, that's good for not just a weekend, but that sort of goodwill I think does sort of it spreads out.

But we have to start holding the feet of parents to the fire.

>> Sarah, do you think we should form a committee?

>> No.

I do think we should not ban teenagers from these events.

I think, you know, we wonder why kids are so isolated and why they spend all their time staring at their phone or going out and causing trouble.

It's because they can't hang out at the mall like we used to back in the day.

You know, we've closed off all these avenues to them.

Well, it just it's unfortunate.

I get where you're coming from.

And I think Alvin makes a good point here that if you have a very sort of visible security presence and they show early on at these festivals that we're going to be super proactive, that to me is much better than to say like, "Hey kids, there's yet another place you're not allowed to hang out with your friends."

>> All right.

I agree.

And but you know as growing up like I said a kid 60s but primarily in the in the 70s there were things that we couldn't do in that you know kids in the 50s and the early 60s could because it had been determined that you know we were a little too loud or a little too this now we weren't violent or anything like that but you know so times changed and it changed as I was growing up and so I don't think it's insulting to say like look if you after 7:00 if you're less than 16 you got to be accompanied by a parent.

Bill, let me ask you this about what's going on uh at the Ferguson City Council where David Williams, a uh council member, apparently gave the single finger salute to a resident.

She's calling for his resignation.

He apologized.

Should he be punished?

>> Oh, I think so.

I think that a public official at a public meeting has to have some sense of restraint.

I mean, giving people the finger or yelling back at them, you know, citizens have a right to be heard and they might not always be courteous, but I mean, I'm not in favor of public officials giving people the finger from the stage.

>> And you, you know, the point that you're making was made by Wesley Bell brilliantly, uh, you know, at that at that recent town hall meeting.

He was restrained.

He didn't lose it.

And you can't he Ferguson he I mean this man represents all of the people who voted for him.

And so that is what you in my mind you have to I know it's 2025 but uh but you're a leader so act like one.

>> Well and you know in all the violence of the National Football League and everything going on like if you you know flag one to a fan in the stands you get like fine.

It's it's not you know really tolerated.

However, I think let those of us who have never run for office and we know why we haven't run for office because I'd end up doing something like this.

I so I don't think the man woman should be thrown off or doing it.

Just be careful.

Don't courts have ruled uh that's a protected form of free speech and you can give the finger to a police officer and he can't arrest you for it.

>> Yeah, >> we >> Well, this good luck with that.

>> That's true.

No, no, that's uh that's true.

Unless you're uh obstructing justice or disorderly conduct.

>> That that is true.

>> I feel bad for these politicians.

Like people say horrible vile things to them and they just have to sit there and take it.

It it doesn't seem fair.

>> Well, no, nobody's making them run.

Sarah, I mean >> that's true.

Brian Cox, great football player from East St. Louis.

One time he was playing for uh Miami Dolphins.

were playing Buffalo Bills and they had had an altercation like two weeks before and they had to play in Buffalo and when he took the field he had both flags fly to the crowd and to this day they said that was the greatest demonstration ever.

>> Well, as Don Meredith once said out of Monday Night Football, maybe we're number one.

Hey, you can write us care of Nine PBS 63108.

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On Last Call, we'll be talking about Sunflowers in St. Peters.

How many are too many?

Plus, teachers in St. Louis vote no confidence with the superintendent.

Thank you very much for joining us.

We'll see you again next week at this time.

Donnybrook is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.