Well, if you don't know what fair is, you can't make it.

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

>> Thank you so much for joining us for another edition of Donnybrook.

Great to have you with us.

As it turns out, the Phantom of the Opera is playing as we speak at the Fox next door.

So, if the chandelier falls, we'll have the usual suspects, right?

Let's get into the topics.

But first, meet the panelists.

Starting with Wendy Wiese, the media veteran, Jessica Rogen, joining us from St.

Louis Public Radio where she's the digital editor sitting in for Bill who's taking a week off.

Thanks, Jessica.

Hello and good afternoon or evening to Sarah Fenske from St.

Louis magazine, the 314 podcast, and the daily newsletter, Busy Gal.

And from the St.

Louis American, Mr.

Alvin Reid, who, as we announced last week, is going to be in the Hall of Fame for the St.

Louis Media History Foundation.

Go to that website to get more details about this event, which will be April the 23rd.

>> Yes.

And a lot of uh people with more distinguished careers than I have are also going to be inducted.

So, I'm I'm I'm low down the totem pole.

>> What I would say is uh I'm not asking for a recount.

>> Sarah, uh I want to ask you about Boeing yesterday.

And it's not every day that the Secretary of Defense comes to St.

Louis, but Pete Hegth was here at Boeing speaking to the workers and part of the celebration announcing that the defense side of Boeing's operation, uh, I think it's known as defense, safety, and security is going to move back from Arlington, Virginia, and make its headquarters here in St.

Louis.

It was here, went to Chicago, then Arlington, and now it's back.

They should put the signs up with Velcro.

But they did announce that it doesn't seem like a lot of jobs, if any, are moving here.

What is your take?

How big is this announcement for St.

Louis?

>> Well, I think it's big.

I think anytime a corporate headquarters moves away, all the naysayers are like, "Look, our golden days are behind us.

This is yet more proof of St.

Louis's decline."

And so if we're going to take that attitude anytime somebody moves away, when somebody moves back, we should celebrate that.

You know, we have more corporate headquarters per capita than most other cities in the country.

It's something that we don't know.

It's something that we like to forget about.

I think this is good.

It's going to just be another thing that raises our prestige.

>> Well, but I I would I want to agree with you because I do want to cheerlead more than I do sometimes.

But what is actually coming to St.

Louis?

like a name.

Uh it if no people and no high salaries and no future that will stay here are coming then then what is the value in it?

I think the value with the Trump administration is we're taking away from Virginia.

Haha.

And moving it to St.

Louis, which is in Missouri, haha.

But then somebody needs to explain to him that you moved it to a place to one of the few places in Missouri that you didn't win.

President Trump, I I have my doubts about this and I still I'm still holding my doubts on jet plane number 47 or what it is.

I doubt e none of those will be built.

>> Oh, no.

That that's going to be I'm glad Elvin brought this up because we've talked about Boeing on the show and Alvin keeps saying he's not sure it'll be built.

And you said, "Oh, this is going to hurt St.

Louis that we have people like Cy Bush railing against Boeing and Josh Holly saying mean things about Boeing.

This is going to hurt us."

It obviously didn't hurt us.

Well, I was concerned about that and I did talk to somebody who seems to know and he said that this has been in the works for two years and that it's a a combination both Boeing and Greater St.

Louis Inc.

and others want to turn this into fighter town USA which is a moniker generally branded for Southern California, you know, Top Gun and all that.

But with the Boeing facilities in Mscuda, St.

Louis County and St.

Charles and the NGA and Scott Air Force Base, they're hoping that this will be part of a regional rebrand.

And Boeing recently signed a contract recently, I think within the last couple of days or a week with Vietnam.

And so that is going to be very impactful for Boeing.

And if it has been in the works for two years, then it is something I believe that it it is more than symbolic.

And I understand your buying situation.

I'm not buying it.

I I'm I'm This is a >> Well, I think Alvin brings up a good point because if if it doesn't mean, you know, we have executives going to fill big homes and spend money in restaurants and all that, if there's no net change there, how big a deal is it?

Is it just changing the stationary?

>> I think that like we are going to get some jobs.

They haven't announced it yet, but I think it's not a coincidence that this happened like not too long ago after Boeing signed this uh uh contract with the machinists union.

>> Um and you know, you just kind of like see the threads connecting there between, you know, one, two, three.

>> And that was only more Boeing.

>> That was a nasty strike, too.

>> Yeah.

And they'll probably somebody else at Boeing will probably be going on strike here pretty soon.

I mean, not because that's a bad thing.

I mean, that's just how, you know, negotiations work.

I'm just I'm sorry, you all.

I I just Not from this administration, not from that Secretary of Defense.

Uh, >> but if this was in the works for two years, >> I don't believe it was in the works for two years.

I don't I don't So, two years ago, they were going to take it away from Virginia, which had a Republican governor at the time.

I ain't buying that.

I'm not.

>> Well, to answer your question about Holly and the others, Sarah, um, >> a question.

I It wasn't a question.

>> Person I talked to, >> I think it was a announcement.

It was it was Thank you for corrupting me in public.

>> Um, apparently Boeing doesn't care if Megan Green or Cy Bush are protesting, but they are concerned about Josh Holly, but they feel that he's got a little bit of attention deficit and he moves from one topic to another really quickly.

And so, while they're watching him, they're also mindful that he might be angry on Tuesday, but by Wednesday, he's forgotten it.

>> All right.

Unlike Unlike the president of the United States.

I was I was going to say I WAS GOING TO SAY COMPARED TO THAT hummingbird >> Jessica Rogan back on the program.

>> Uh Jessica, you and the team at St.

Louis Public Radio have taken a look at Amarind, our huge utility here in Missouri and have discovered that it has some contracts, some big contracts with people who want to develop data centers and they want to add two gigawatts of power to Amaran's arsenal.

two a gigawatt is enough to like uh provide the electricity for about a 750,000 or a million homes.

I mean, it's a lot of power.

So, they'll have two of those.

This is just about uh a week or so after Josh Holly said, "Hey, these data centers are going to have to start providing their own electricity."

So, what do you know about this story?

So just for context the uh Amron right now has 10 gawatts of energy that it's producing.

So this is like you know more than 20% increase.

So this is a huge deal.

Um and people are mad about this because the way that Amaran makes money is that it actually builds power plants.

Um and then regular consumers have to pay for those infrastructure increases through um like adjustments of the rates.

So like when we get those notices being like hey your electricity bill is going up this much um that's what that is.

Uh so basically these agreements um which they say are binding mean that like these data centers um are committed to this energy uh and Amir is going to build uh those plants here and uh I think that people are going to be really mad both because we don't want to be sitting next to data centers for all the like different energy concerns you know like water all that stuff but because like we're really hurting on utility costs already and this is just going to make it way worse.

>> Have the locations or the um clients been announced?

>> So this is confidential at this point.

They will eventually you know announce it when things are more formal.

I think you know these these developers who want to build this stuff and bring in these data centers they have to find a municipality that's willing to take them.

And at this point they're running into some trouble on that.

It's going to be interesting to see.

They may have contracts from companies that are saying, "We need this power."

Well, yeah, you got to build the data center to get the power.

So, I think people still have some control over this, but I mean, man, it's like this ship is starting to sail.

>> Well, and it kind of sounds like I mean, I could easily see, you know, the the smokefilled back rooms where, you know, this looks very appealing for certain smaller, more maybe more rural, you know, regional politicians and they would not, you know, they could they could sort of have a a little play.

they could play footsie with the data centers um and the AI corporations while you know sort of playing it cool with their their constituents and they could you know I I think that's going to be really interesting to watch.

>> I think you're right that like the you know it's very tempting to these small town politicians but I think the people who live in their their constituents are going to come after them and vote them out of office.

I have now sat through several of these meetings in rural Missouri.

people do not not want this in rural Missouri even less than they want it in the city of St.

Louis.

>> I agree with Sarah.

It's like very interestingly the only bipartisan issue it seems like.

Um but you know the bigger thing too is like it doesn't really matter to anyone in Missouri if they build in a rural area because they will still be charged for the electricity to build them.

>> I I agree.

I do think that the the power is that if you do not want it in your municipality or maybe even in your county, people have enough firepower to stop it with the vote and by protesting and showing up at the meetings like, you know, this is not really good for my political career and people will stand down.

There are places I think they could go.

I think if you were going to put it on the north side of St.

Louis, what the deal has to be is, okay, you we are get the permits or whatever, you're going to build it there.

Amarind could do the power for you.

You're going to fix North St.

Louis.

You got to write us a check for $500 million off the top.

This is the price of doing business here in the city of St.

Louis as far as the data center is concerned.

I still think most majority of them that will be built here in the next what 5 years or so will be in rural counties.

I know that the people are standing up, but I think you could put it out in the middle of nowhere and you could then preach the benefit of why it's here and it's not by Well, I mean quite frankly, yeah, you're right.

They didn't want a nuclear power plant there where my daughter who has uh you know a master's degree in electrical engineering worked at the facility and we love it very much but they didn't want it there when they built it.

I know this is years and years ago but it's there.

So I think it if they find a home it will be an outstanding >> I think the people as you said Sarah and you too Jessica people are feeling very empowered right now.

I think we just have to remind ourselves that we live in a state where our state capital overturns the will of the people repeatedly when it comes to ballot when it comes to ballot boxes.

So, >> well, then they'll be I think they'll be replaced uh because they might be >> people don't want the higher electric rates.

They're afraid of the the gas generators in case, you know, the power goes out and they don't want to smell those.

The buildings aren't especially good-looking and people are afraid that AI is going to make us dumb.

it's going to tell our kids to commit suicide.

Uh they don't see the upside to it.

>> I I mean I I agree with you on that.

There are some concerns that have nothing to do with the electricity bill, but I just so happen to get my electricity bill here the last two months has been 14% higher.

And I noticed that so I don't need anymore.

Don't you think if Sam Alman had pulled out his wallet and written a check to the tornado victims in North St.

Lewis by now that there might be a slightly different attitude toward Sam.

Look, I cannot deny that.

That's what I'm saying.

Maybe if you had and if you had been proactive on that, that fee I'm talking about might have been less.

Right.

Hey, you you were out and about this week.

I think it was Monday when the ecumenical demonstration on the Martin Luther King Bridge against the management and practices of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

Tell us about that.

Well, one, when you're standing on the Martin Luther King Bridge and it could be a very, very nice day outside, but the wind is whipping through.

But it was a tremendous event.

Oh, so many fantastic speakers.

And really, it was more of a just look, we as people of faith, we're not choosing sides, but people living in fear and families being disrupted and that they were really speaking out against that.

There was no mention of the administration.

There was no mention of a lot of things.

was just more more ICE targeted which I guess is aimed at the administration.

Um I spoke with Wesley Bell and he was not a speaker at the event and I just I asked him aside about you know the the where we're at as far as government shutdown and he said without ICE reform quite frankly he is his his vote is no and if it comes to partial shutdown of government then government is partially shut down.

All right.

>> Can I jump in here?

>> Sure.

Sure.

>> Because um I happen to agree with him on the issues regarding ICE.

You know, I if I had, if it was my call, I'd have uh the immigrants here illegally, stay here, but pay a fine and then, you know, raise their families and work hard as they seem to have been doing.

But if he shuts the government down over the funding of Homeland Security, that means that the TSA agents are once again going without a paycheck.

And that was 43 days in the fall.

And to put these people through that once again, I'm afraid we're going to lose our baggage and people screeners.

Well, I I hear you, but I mean, if you're going to if you are opposed to what's going on, you're going to have to take a principled stand if you're in Congress and especially in the House, you know, you've got to take a a stand.

And yes, this is the I don't want to say the price you pay, but this is the result, but I'm not going to change my vote because of it.

And I think good things happened uh to those who standed stood against the administration the first go round in the fall.

There was a vote on healthcare.

There were some other things that came out of that.

So I look, if they're making a stand, I applaud them for taking that stand.

And I for those that will maybe not get paid for some time, I I think I would say, and this is a guess, I would say 51% at least side with those that would like some ICE reform.

>> I think it's way higher than 51%.

I think so many Americans are horrified and disgusted by what that agency has been up to.

and Democrats in Congress have to find some way to force some reform because it's obviously not going to happen without them doing something here.

And so it's terrible to think about uh you know the people handling the baggage claim and the TSA and I feel bad for them, but it's like are we not willing to pay that price to see this kind of thing?

>> What about congressmen and women themselves?

Why don't they issue the paycheck?

They didn't do that in the fall.

They they don't do it now.

They still get paid.

They shut down the government and they still consider themselves essential and they keep getting the money.

>> Well, they how many times did the health care go up for people in Congress when they were denying people healthcare in the United States?

This goes back decades.

So, I mean that's nothing new, Charlie.

>> And I'm all for political rhetoric and if Wesley Bell says hell no, you know, without ICE reform, that's fine.

But I think we also have to look at what is happening and the fact that the administration is pulling ICE out of Minnesota.

So, at least, you know, that seems like a baby step.

And so, maybe behind the scenes, cooler heads are prevailing and some things will be happening.

I I'm just being optimistic.

>> No, and I I hear you.

I hear you.

I'm But they're going to go someplace else.

I mean, >> so I don't know.

Do you know they they actually moved uh agents from FEMA, 400 of them, to ICE.

That's one of the reasons why North St.

Louis is not getting fixed up.

Well, you know, I've >> um if you look at what the reforms are asking for, they're so mild, like not where covering their face, like things that normal officers don't want to do.

Like, come on, let's let's just get this very small thing done, I would say.

Um and I think it's easy to think that, okay, we don't have a ground force here in St.

But we are still seeing the effects of um you know increased enforcement, people getting stopped at like for minor traffic violations.

We had a story today about this um and you know getting put in ICE custody like people have been here their whole lives.

So you know I say yeah let's uh shut down the government.

>> And and now the Washington Post reports that um the administration has a memo saying that refugees will be pulled over.

refugees who are legally here and who haven't upped their papers within a year.

We'll continue this conversation in the future, but right now let's move to uh St.

Charles where a couple of lawmakers, Wendy, have filed uh some legislation.

One would say that if there's any money coming out of Lambert Field, out of the revenues, none of it can go pay the expenses for the city of St.

Louis.

That's been a long tradition.

a gross a percentage of the gross receipts tax has gone to the police and the roads in St.

Louis from Lambertfield operations and and the other bills would get more input on boards like the East West Gateway Council of Governments as well as the airport, more input from the surrounding counties, Monroe and Franklin and uh I guess St.

Charles, St.

Louis County.

Do you are you in favor of either of these?

>> I I I you know how I love to sit on the fence.

I I I understand what Steve Elman is saying at this moment.

St.

Charles has 160,000 more people than the city of St.

Louis.

And I understand it's it's also not a it's not solely a numbers game because St.

Louis is our hub and St.

Charles is more of a you know we're a a spoke.

But uh I I don't think that you know Jim Wild they it was it was really very gentlemanly the way they went at each other you know because you know Steve Elman said well I don't think that they're really out to get us or they might be it was very sweet actually and Jim Wild was trying to make the point you know that you just did about eight surrounding counties who are also involved but for for the city of St.

Louis to have three votes on the East West Gateway Coordinating Council and for St.

Charles to have two.

And then I I just I I feel that there's more of a because they tried to get more votes on the East West Gateway Coordinating Council as recently as 2024.

That did not work.

So, it seems to me that we're dismissing St.

Charles.

And I understand also that Steve Elman is in the fight of his life right now with some, you know, some political opponents.

But, um, I I feel for Steve Elman.

I think they should.

They are a huge part of this region and I think maybe they should have a little bit more of a voice.

>> I think exactly what's going on here is that Steve Elman is in the fight of his political life.

He's a smart guy and he knows what plays well in St.

Charles County is to go bag on the city and say they're doing it wrong.

And it's like this is this political play that we're going to see right now.

I don't know that any good comes out of this.

To me, this seems like such a distraction from the sort of like meaningful regional cooperation we should be working on.

>> St.

Charles picks and choose when they want to play ball with the rest of the region and that's no no the airport is a jewel but it's also in a way primarily the cities because it is in the city and a lot has been going on >> own it well okay I I do real I guess the city somehow the other control owns it >> literally own it but those are taxpayer dollars that are funneling back into the city of St.

Louis, right?

>> Yes.

>> It's 5%.

>> 5%.

Terrible.

It's terrible that we should have good roads going in and out of the airport and more policing to keep people safe going in and out of the airport.

>> If No, no.

The money goes into the city of St.

Louis.

They're going into the airport itself.

Well, if if the money is generated from Look, back in 1970, the Post Dispatch editorialized that this should be a regional airport and that a smaller city like St.

Louis should not be the one running it for everybody else.

>> And and 5 years later, didn't they run an editorial that what a stupid idea it is to move the airport to Columbia Water and we would have an Atlanta, we'd have a Dallas, we'd have great things going on.

Now, I'm not holding the post to that, but I do remember there was a lot of talk and I thought was the guy who got rid of that.

>> Yeah.

And and like you know, I'm just saying bad choice as far as the airport is concerned.

And once again, it's >> that makes no sense.

If if if St.

Louisis County is three times the size of the city or bigger than that.

It should have as much if not more control over that airport and the airport's in the county.

>> They build their own airport.

I mean, they got everything else going out there in St.

Charles.

I mean, if that's the attitude you want to take, well, we have more people, so we're just going to have most of the customers for Lambert are out of St.

Louis County.

It's just a numbers game.

>> The thing is the city owns the airport.

You can't just steal the airport.

>> Yes, that's all I'm saying.

And who forged the deal?

Wait a minute.

They're about to expand.

About to have a better airport.

Who forged that deal?

That was the city of St.

Louis.

Did that >> which deal was that >> for the expansion?

The new terminal and all that.

>> Homugi, an employee of the city of St.

Louis.

>> Well, she's still there until chasing her out.

>> When it's done, we can judge it then to see how good it >> Well, well, we know it's going to happen, right?

We know that the airport is going to expand unlike we don't know what's going to go on with Boy, right?

Frankly, Steve Elman with this kind of talk, he is going to make it harder to hire a good person to take over this airport.

I know that that's a huge concern for the airport.

Sure, it is.

>> It's a very busy level of >> Honda Brigy has brought it back to I mean it is in real crisis mode and now it is on the uptick.

So, I could see where they're concerned.

>> I I I think that there's plenty of room at the for improvement at the airport, but I don't see why people in the city of St.

Lewis wouldn't share uh custody of it.

I don't understand.

>> Why?

What are we going to do?

Because it's a regional asset.

>> So, we're going to get a cut of the new Steamboat Museum out there in St.

Charles.

Come on.

>> Who do we go to next?

How about you, Elvin?

>> Fly out of there.

>> I want to ask you about uh a story involving the prevailing wage.

That's what contractors have to pay their employees if they have a relationship like a tax credit or a contract with the government.

And a lot of people building affordable housing in the city of St.

Louis say, you know, with the prevailing wage, what it is, because they're relying on the state prevailing wage, which is higher than the federal, we can't afford to build affordable housing, so give us a break.

Should they be given a break?

>> No, they shouldn't be given a break.

They're trying to say like, oh, we're building affordable housing, so we shouldn't have to pay the that's diametrically opposed.

You should, since you're being a a good person and building affordable housing, how about you pay the prevailing wage to those that are going to build these houses?

There is no other entity in the state that uses this state prevailing wage for housing projects other than the city of St.

Louis.

This is something they did a year ago.

The federal prevailing wage seems to work fine for everybody else.

And so these guys are saying we can't make this pencil out because we can't charge more rent.

If we want to keep this affordable, there has to be some way to make this project balance.

>> I thought I thought you were of the people, Sarah.

I'm surprised, didn't you?

>> Oh, I gave that impression.

>> Alvin, you're right.

Everyone likes high wages, but if the wages are so high that you build the affordable housing, you're going to have to raise the price of the house for the >> No, I don't believe that's necessarily true.

I don't No, because wages are about 60% of the cost.

>> The reason the reason that we don't build more affordable housing is because of what we have to pay the people that build the affordable housing.

>> Factor.

Another factor is you said also reasons, codes, putting sprinklers, whatever the case is.

>> Oh, yeah.

Because we don't need sprinklers in apartment complexes, don't do we?

Yeah.

I mean, but what >> they're not mandated in Missouri.

>> Well, they should be.

>> That's good to know, right?

But you said yourself that these people are already getting a tax break.

If you're getting a tax break, just build the houses and pay the people.

>> But they're saying even with the tax Oh, yeah.

Even with the tax break that Well, if if there was money in it, people would be building affordable housing.

And you see how much affordable housing there is now available.

>> You don't think builders want to build?

They want to build.

And they want to they want to pay a wage to the people that they don't want their workers to be impoverished, I don't think.

But at the same time, they're trying they're not looking at the the affordable housing.

They're looking at their profit line.

And if the profit line is a little less, then I think you could absorb it.

I I just don't think it's an impossibility.

>> They don't have healthy margins, they're not going to be in business.

I mean, it's it is.

>> So, in other words, affordable housing, minimum wage.

It doesn't make any sense to not minimum wage.

Federal prevail.

>> Federal prevail.

It'll be minimum wage.

Right.

>> All right.

Let's see what the viewers had to say about last week's program, shall we?

>> How to save those old schools and other large abandoned historic buildings.

Tell data center builders they can build their centers in those buildings.

That from Robert Rushing, City of St.

Louis.

San Page.

Closing three swimming pools is terrible, but constant tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy have consequences.

That from Bob Stevenson of St.

Charles.

Mike Hoey of St.

Louis wrote, "I thought Alvin and Charlie hit the nail on the head regarding Senator Schmidt.

He's gone off the deep end.

He needs to wean himself off the MAGA Kool-Aid."

Kevin Walters chimed in regarding minimum wages.

I started working at the age of 14, both on and off the farm.

The government didn't tell the neighboring farmer what he must pay me, and I always had the choice to decide if I should accept or decline that job.

Thank you, Mr.

Walters.

You can write us care of 9PBS.

The zip code is 63108.

Don't forget those emails.

Donny Brookbrook at 9PBS.org.

On social media, use Donny Brookst STL.

Thank you.

And you can call the Neline at 314512994.

Make sure you listen to us on your favorite podcast source.

You know, we have a program on YouTube.

It's called Last Call.

And this week, we're going to talk about whether the state of Missouri should drop car inspections.

That's a proposal in Jeff City.

Thanks to Jessica Rogan from St.

Louis Public Radio for joining us and filling in for Bill.

We also thank you everybody for joining us on this program.

Thanks so much.

Don't forget Last Call.

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