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Thank you for joining us as we continue taking a look at this week's topics.

Wendy, the mayor, along with the county executive are in Rwanda, in Kigali, and I guess Kigali has become the 17th sister city for St.

Louis.

How important is that?

I don't know.

Maybe you can answer that.

How important is a trade mission to Rwanda?

Well, the city always got behind Mayor Tushar Jones and her visits overseas.

I'm being sarcastic.

Believe me, I'm being sarcastic.

I mean, I know the mayor's office did a beautiful job of outlining how this particular little country has in terms of, what is it, imports, exports.

They are an up-and-coming player on the world stage.

But 17th sister city, I'm not going to tell the mayor where she should go.

That's her prerogative.

I just don't know that that's the kind of thing that's going to get people talking at Starbucks.

Did you see where the mayor ... God love her.

I don't know.

I think this is really good.

I'm sometimes skeptical when they're like, we're going to Rome because we have to sell St.

Louis.

And Rome doesn't really want to buy St.

Louis.

I get that.

But I think Kigali, like an up-and -coming city, would be flattered by this visit.

They also have a lot apparently happening in that ag tech space that the Danforth Center is so strong on.

And I think Africa's the future.

In some ways, Rome is dying.

Europeans are not having kids anymore, even worse than in the US.

Africa is taking off.

This is where St.

Louis needs to be making connections.

And for them to feel like, hey, St.

Louis was here before all of the rest of the world came knocking.

That's a good thing for us.

Well, you have changed my mind.

I mean, governments and stabilized government and what's going on with the people down there.

Yeah, it'd be great to do trade with them, but 90% of the nation is impoverished and threatened.

I'm leery.

I don't think anything really good.

There's some other, like the NBA, the National Basketball Association, wanted to expand down there.

And people within the league kind of took a side eye and were like, you know, there's a lot of bad going on.

Let's, you know, that's how I feel about it.

I'm with Alvin.

I thought at first that this is probably good when I read that it's overtaking Southeast Asia economically.

But I'm not so sure that Rwanda is in a position to afford to buy a lot of St.

Louis stuff.

And there's something about us going over there to sort of sell them beads and, hey, St.

Louis, we got there first.

I don't know.

I don't think it was a good idea.

What did you think?

Money well spent, I should say.

How about the press conference this week when the mayor was not there, but the governor, Mike Kehoe was, along with the junior senator, Eric Schmidt, along with Attorney General Catherine Hannaway, and the police chief, Robert Tracy, and they announced that, along with Todd Blanche, oh, I buried the lead, the Attorney General for the United States, he was here, and they announced that $68 million federal dollars will be coming to St.

Louis for a public safety bill.

Well, I'm a little confused.

Wasn't Mayor Cerasino there?

I mean, you know, he can sign as mayor now.

You know, at first I was really conflicted, and I thought, you know, we need the money, and the money's great, and I read that story that Mark Maxwell wrote in which he pointed out that Gabe Gore, whose judgment I like, said, hey, I'm not signing this, I'm giving up too much independence, and that apparently in the little preamble you have to agree to cooperate with the Department of Justice and Immigration, and to me, the Trump Department of Justice and ICE as it is now constituted, that's a bridge too far.

I mean, I don't like what those people do, so I'm not so certain that this was a positive thing.

And if you ever look at, you know, press conferences, they're kind of a dime a dozen.

The looks on some of those people's faces just wasn't right.

It was just kind of like, you know, like, no, no, because basically he said, like, all right, we forwarded, we forwarded, I mean, not forwarded, we ghosted the mayor's name, we've got Gabe Gore says, I'm not signing it.

It's almost like, you know, and it just seems like even they knew, now maybe not the AG, but the governor, like, boy, there's another shoe's going to fall, and Governor Kehoe, he's had a bad year.

The last thing he needs between now and January 1st is this thing to blow up.

It was the city.

They were looking for people to sign who occupy specific offices.

And it was just like, oh, no, that's all right, because we've taken over in Jefferson City, so we can actually sign all of this and cross all these D's and dot all these I's.

And it's like, I kind of am wondering if Chris Saraceno is a little over his skis at the moment.

There was a deadline, there was a deadline, and there were questions sent, and there was a line that said something like the principal person, didn't say mayor necessarily, it said, you know, the dude in charge or something similar.

Yeah, who elected Chris Saraceno to run the city?

I go back to what a bad idea this police board is.

But taking it back, they had to recruit St.

Louis to be like, you all should fill out this application.

We really need some more cities to do this, because there are so many cities whose mayors sensibly said, yeah, we don't like this.

We don't want to get in bed with ICE.

This federal government seems a little nuts right now.

And this temporary kind of money that's going to, you know, it's like a one-time infusion.

You can't hire people with that, because then how do you keep them employed?

And not only that, but in terms of whether or not the city and who is responsible for any money that has to be paid back.

Where are we going here?

Because I guess now, after four years of Donnybrook, we now see a city that doesn't want 68 million federal dollars.

Well, even though I agree with you on the immigration issue, I agree with you there, but I've never in my life seen a public entity say no.

No, no, no, no, there are a lot of questions.

There are a lot of questions.

More questions than answers.

I agree there are too many questions.

Maybe I wouldn't take it.

I just thought, you know, maybe someone would say, hey, you guys, you're shooting yourselves in the foot.

You're looking a gift horse in the mouth, 68 million dollars.

And wait, and they're going to buy three Luganheims.

And you have to get in bed with ICE?

Like that's a deal no one should take?

Right, and where's the, you know, here, it gets back to the police board.

So like, they take the 68 million and give it all to the police chief or whatever, you know, like, there's just, I don't know.

So, when this was first announced, I said, like, look, the mayor's signature, whatever, this is a good thing.

But now these other aspects are happening.

Moving on, Chicago's going to start self-cleaning restrooms.

I think we should have done this years ago.

Alvin, what do you think?

Well, these are those porta, porta potties, you put in a quarter or a dollar and you walk in, do your thing, it cleans it automatically.

Yes, and Chicago, you know, on the cutting edge of toilet history here.

And we were talking about this, and I'm not kidding.

Little things like that help your city.

So rather than just kind of laugh at it, I would say, like, how do we get in on the self-cleaning toilet thing and, you know, like, it could help pay for the Lugan Heights.

They've been around for 20 years.

Have they?

Oh, yeah.

We are so far behind.

I mean, you go to places around the globe, they've got those.

Yes, Tokyo, France, Italy.

But Chicago is also behind, I mean, they're that far behind.

Okay, I didn't realize that.

I don't either.

I didn't know that, like, because of the RV, you know, we have, like, we looked into putting one of these in there, and they're really expensive, okay, kind of.

But I mean, the city, if you had them, I think people would be kind of impressed.

No, I think this is good, and I think the key is, you've got to make it so that people can do it without having an app, so that if you are an unhoused person, that you can use this.

Oh, yeah.

Because it is so good for society to have public bathrooms that are, like, well-maintained.

Four more years.

And you can't have it cost money, like a dollar or something, Charlie, because, you know.

Maybe, because you don't want people just hanging in there doing drugs or whatever.

So maybe there could be a coin that the St.

Patrick's Center or somebody else could hand out.

Yeah, tokens.

Someone could fund it.

I don't know.

I'm just thinking.

Right.

Because, you know, there could be hanky-panky inside these things.

Well, even with a coin, there could be hanky-panky inside these things.

Well, it depends what the cost is.

I don't know.

Other cities have figured this out.

Well, we certainly don't want cameras in there to make sure there's no hanky-panky.

Let's not leave our nine PBS viewers with the image of hanky-panky and a 25 -cent token.

Oh, man.

Well, it was going on in downtown St.

Louis, across from KMWex, not too long ago, in a facility, in a porta-potty across the street.

And you know that.

And you know that because?

Because we were reporting it to 9-1 -1.

Hey, and that will conclude your evening around this table, and yours as well.

Thank you very much.

Our careers as a whole.

I think we're going to time out.

I think we're going to time out.

Happy birthday, Charlie.

Oh, I love it.