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>> Thank you so much for joining us for Donnybrook.

Wow, we've got a lot of topics to get to tonight.

So, let's meet the panelists and jump into it.

Starting with the media veteran herself, Wendy Whis.

Jacob Kirn, managing editor of the St.

Louis Business Journal, sitting in for the vacationing Bill McClellen.

From the Post Dispatch, we welcome Joe Holleman.

And from the St.

Louis American, he's Alvin Reid.

Before we begin, thanks to Marian Steen for providing the artwork on our rotating art exhibition series here at Nine PBS.

Yes, Marian Steen, thank you very much for sharing your talents.

And folks, you can learn more about her work at marianstein.com.

All right, Jacob, we're going to kick things off with you.

Wesley Bell, local congressman, decided not to attend the State of the Union address by President Donald J. Trump this week.

About the half the Democrats decided not to attend the address.

What do you think about this?

>> It's not just Wesley.

I was sad to see all those empty seats because it's a historic address up supposed to be updating the nation on how we're doing all these decades.

I would like my elected representative to be able to listen to this message in person and be there kind of showing, you know, you're part of it >> and then give me information responding to the content.

You know, what do you agree with in terms of the policy?

What are your better ideas?

maybe give it to me in, I don't know, a letter or something that's thoughtful, a nice memo.

Instead, what we get the people in Congress now are interested in getting their tick- tock moment.

I think they're interested in screaming and yelling and it was sad in both directions.

Uh the Democrats screaming and President Trump, you know, the ultimate reality showman giving it back.

I thought it was um a really sad thing for the nation that you know >> I I I agree with you Jacob and I I I thought that Hakeem Jeff made a terrific point.

He said this is our house.

You know he said uh he he he said that we should we should behave as if it's the people's house.

And I don't think that I don't think that that's just a I don't think that's a good look.

You you can't pick and choose for the people who put you in office.

Um, there are certain expectations and I think attending the State of the Union, I don't think that's too much to ask.

No matter how repugnant you find the speaker, >> here's the thing.

Um, the president is not civil.

He always insults and he insulted the Democrats this time.

He said >> he insulted the Supreme Court justice.

>> Exactly.

If I was a Supreme Court, I wouldn't go.

He called the Democrats sick.

He said, "You should be ashamed of yourselves."

And as a result, if you know the the State of the Union address is printed, so a member of Congress can simply look at the uh transcript and then send that to the constituents if the constituents don't want to watch it.

But uh >> no, I I'm sorry.

If the president is not civil like those of us on Donny Brook, why should I sit and be insulted?

>> And and several of the Supreme Court justices were not there.

Now, I'm not saying they were not there because, you know, he went off on them after the uh tariffs judgment, but um I mean, as the president and his folks have said, this is not your usual president.

So, obviously, this is not your usual State of the Union.

And all bets were off with me when he recent or whatever he had to do with that the Obama's depicted as apes.

That was it.

I'm that's it.

I'm not going to be in the same room with the man.

I don't care if I'm a representative, a senator, whatever.

I'm just I don't work for him.

I And I'm just not going to be around him.

Since I tend to cover a lot of the Congress thing, I'll leave Wesley Bell's actions for people to decide.

I do agree though that the policy that Jeff said, I thought made the most sense.

Either show up and be silently defiant, but to show up because this is our house.

This is Congress.

We invite the president here to speak.

So, I would have liked to have seen them there from that point.

If you're going to stake your claim to this is where we make the laws, it would have been best to have all of you there.

>> It feels like we're going down a path where if the president is not of my party that they're not the president and that just >> I disagree.

This is an unusual circumstance right here.

I'm sorry, but no one has ever behaved like this in the history of this country.

So the reaction to him obviously has to be just as it doesn't have to be just as defiant or quite frankly trashy.

But at the same time this is like I said this is an all bets are off.

>> Alvin let me ask you about uh another topic far away from Washington DC the club Imperial in uh is it West Florison Street.

In the uh that in the 1950s where a young Chuck Barry and a young Tina Turner performed.

It's uh you know got a play its place in rock and roll history.

As it turns out, the city of St.

Louis is going to demolish that building.

There's no preservation effort apparently to keep it uh going.

You kind of wrote about this in this week's St.

Louis American.

>> Well, in Kansas City, where they put the Negro Elite Museum in 1990, nothing was really going on.

18th and Vine District was just a bad part of town.

And it helped anchor and turn around, you know, that neighborhood.

And it's going strong right now.

and future development is planned really signed for.

It's really going to happen.

So, I'm not saying that Club Imperial could be that structure, but at the same time, I know that the clock has been ticking for a long time on Club Imperial and it could be too late to save it.

But at the same time, if you had some real plan to say like rather than tear it down, how about we redo it, rebuild it up, and really try to make it something?

I think we're we're too quick to tear down buildings throughout St.

Louis and to see this one go.

I mean, can't we do something >> and I know we can't save all of them, but it would be very if I'm if I'm a resident of North St.

Louis, it's just one more demoralizing moment.

>> I agree.

>> I I I think I'll disagree.

Uh and I'm very well familiar with the the history of it.

Miles Davis played there as well.

So, I mean, it was uh uh and but the the sad fact is is you can't save every building, but the city did do an effort.

When the gentleman who owns it now tried to sell it eight years ago, the city turned him down.

>> Demolish it.

>> Yeah.

Or wanted to demolish it because he said he had a buyer who wanted to build a commercial structure like new development.

Something we always on the show goes, "We need to do new development."

That's what this guy wanted to do.

Sell it.

Somebody was going to develop.

City said, "No, no, we can preserve that building."

and it sat there for eight years and it went to a land bank and no one wanted to buy it.

>> Yeah, we've got to put some context around this that they're saying the engineering report is $18 million not to redevelop this building but to stabilize it so that will not deteriorate further.

It is at the land bank.

They don't have that kind of money.

They have it's one of the biggest land banks in the country.

They have thousands of properties.

They don't have that.

Then you think, okay, the land bank is part of the city.

Let's think about the city.

They have $250 million in critical building needs.

That is a failure point uh is what critical means.

They have $700 million in critical at the water division.

This is and then we're going to eventually talk about the police raises that they want.

This is a city >> who say the city should do it.

I mean, there was a time when Post-Dispatch columnists like Irving Dillard saved the Eugene Fieldhouse by advocating for the preservation of old structures.

And it wasn't the city that you get people private money together.

You say this is good for the region.

You know, to our credit, we have restored the old courthouse where Dread Tread and Harriets got sued.

The Scott Joplain house has been saved.

But as someone wrote most recently in the St.

Louis Business Journal.

We can do more to preserve our African.

>> You listed a You listed a lot of sites, Charlie.

So, there's a lot of good.

>> I tell you what, though.

Here they come.

Is is that everybody who wants to save buildings, I know they have wishes.

They just don't seem to really have a plan beyond let's save it.

So, mine was is you I got a buddy and it's become a joke and we tease each other.

We'll be driving around and he'll drive through his old neighborhood and he'll go, "Someone ought to buy this building and they could make this into this."

I always go, "Hey, buddy, you're retired.

Why don't you do it?

Oh, I didn't mean me.

You know, it was somebody.

>> But some people have money in >> Okay, but they don't seem to want to do it, Charlie.

>> Well, maybe they haven't been put together.

Maybe you need a rain maker who will get the right >> Bob Clark is a rain maker and every time he tries to make it rain, everybody boos him off the stage.

>> Well, no, he could, like I say, he can make it rain.

Just make it rain.

>> Let me tell you something.

I was in Raleigh, North Carolina this summer, and they have a statue for Andy and Opie, fictional characters from Mayberry.

Okay.

And then you go to Cleveland.

They preserved the house where A Christmas Story was filmed.

And that was a fictional building, right?

And here we have an actual place where Miles Davis, Chuck Barry, Tina Turner, members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame played.

And well, I guess now that we have uh airlines going straight to London, we can go look at, you know, preserved places there.

>> You know, is there a building you're willing to tear down, Charlie?

because it seems like every time but nobody ever seems to come up with the money.

Obviously, it's been sitting there for 8 years.

>> We can't take care of live people and in the houses of live people in >> but I think those are two understand I'm just saying if you were going to save something historic that's worth a city might get to deny the city a demolition permit because the preservation board I heard uh was talking about oh yeah this will have to go before us.

So that'll be interesting.

Hey Wendy, I want to move on to uh more recent matters.

This week uh the University of Health and Science and Pharmacy, Health Sciences and Pharmacy at uh formerly known as St.

Louis College of Pharmacy announced that it's got declining enrollment.

Used to have 700 pharmacy students.

Now it's down to 400, no 273.

And so they're gonna pretty much give it up and they're going to be absorbed by Washington University.

I'm kind of surprised though since pharmacy jobs start at $135,000 on average coming out of Still Cop.

Why aren't more kids becoming pharmacists?

Because these these generations as we have have talked about many many times whether it's the millennials or the Gen Zers or the Gen Xers or XYZ alpha >> the kids right the alphas uh they don't care as much about money as they do about stress levels and work life balance and I think it is a it's a real transition in workplaces all across the country and probably the world.

Um, but I think that's part of it.

I think the fact that the the line between the retail part of pharmacy and the medical part of pharmacy has almost dissolved in the aftermath of of COVID.

I think that, you know, pharmacists used to be it was a, you know, just a highly respected, you know, position in the community and today, you know, it's like flu shot, flu shot, flu shot.

I I I just I don't think I like everything else in the world.

I think it's just changing our perceptions.

>> Going way back when I was in college, um a friend of mine uh undergrad, but his wife had graduated and she was going to pharmacy school.

And at that time, there was a shortage of pharmacists in the country.

And basically, she had said like, you know, if you want to go to pharmacy school, like by your second year, it's pretty much paid for.

And then if you want to like go be a pharmacist like in western Kansas, it was six figures literally in the early 80s.

>> Yeah.

>> I don't know what it is about being a pharmacist, but there has always been and I I I agree that it was not the easiest goal to achieve back then.

Now, but I agree with you now.

I don't think people want to extol the effort to get there.

>> I'm pretty sure they I'm pretty sure they dormed with us at Fontbon.

I'm serious.

They they did dorm with us at the college college of pharmacy.

>> I saw a study that mentioned it because looked it up because I've had complaints about pharmacy services, you know, personally.

So, um, a couple of things that that was cited by some pharmacological institute did a study and it talked about uh the number of hours this changing shifts, but it also said part of the reasons were given were one was the corporate uh where these are being bought out by large retail chains.

So it's no longer the mom and pop where you're relating to your customer.

You're just cranking it out and they have quotas that they want you to hit.

And then also after COVID the number of vaccinations and they're pushing the vaccinations.

So they said the workload has become just ownorous.

>> Let's give let's give WashU credit though because they do get criticism sometimes for buying up all this real estate then you don't pay taxes on it.

They get pressured to do these pilots, but they have stepped up and maybe they were the only thing that could step up with their billions and billions of dollars in endowment to at least take control, try to stabilize it.

The quote from the pharmacy leader seemed like the alternative really was a shutdown.

So, I think we do need to give Andrew Martin and Wu some credit there.

Agreed.

>> Ask you something, Jacob.

Do you think the tuition for the school will go up now that Washington University is because I don't know the answer.

I would hope not, but I mean, yeah, perhaps we'll see.

>> Do the right thing.

Wash you.

>> I'm not so sure I agree that young people don't want to work hard.

Don't we see those stories coming out of Silicon Valley that all the Sam Almans of the world are like sleeping at the office and they never go home?

>> How many Sam Almans are there in the world?

>> That's kind of an entrepreneurial job though versus a kind of day in day out.

I think we're talking about >> I I can only say that the study they did cited those things that too many hours too many changing shifts >> the work life balance which was your first job at where was your first town >> oh Montgomery city >> where was yours Charlie >> Newton Mass Danville man kids you talk about hey you want to go mass you want to go to Danville Illinois they say like what's a Danville I said it's a job well then that's a job I don't want that's a reality now >> well it's true they used to say if uh you don't want to work on Saturdays.

Don't come in on Sunday.

>> Work life balance in my life.

>> That was just >> this probably as good a time as any to say that I'm going to take the month of March.

>> Okay, >> speaking of work life, >> Joe, save some bills.

>> Hey.

Yeah, right.

We're we're going to uh Joe on this next topic and that is uh it was reported actually by Jacob's newspaper that the PhD project which is I guess it's a not for profit started by some businesses including KPMG and GMAC they're trying to get more African-American and Latino and Latinas into uh the PhD ranks at business schools.

But I guess Joe, it was determined by the Trump administration that it discriminated against whites.

And so they sent the notice out to universities.

We don't like the PhD project as it's currently configured.

So WashU pulled out of it.

What do you think?

I think it was a prudent move.

I'll give them also WashU credit for making the fiscally prudent move at this time.

Now, this is all this isn't ended yet.

This isn't over yet.

there's going to be challenges to uh Trump's executive orders which kind of took aim at DEI programs.

Uh so I I don't think we've heard the last word on it.

But what we're talking about is a program and again it wasn't washu that the Trump administration was I guess saying you're doing it wrong.

They're saying the PhD project is doing it wrong.

So these universities if you want to stay with them you are jeopardizing federal funding.

So, you're talking about millions upon millions of dollars for a program that Washington University pays $5,000 to a year, I think the spokesperson said.

And the when I checked on the website for the PhD project, they basically had 2,000 kids throughout the entire country involved in this.

So, I think WashU did the prudent move, as did 30 other colleges, including huge ones.

Duke, Notre Dame, University of Wisconsin, University of Michigan, Cal Berkeley was one of the ones that uh the bastion of liberalism did the same thing WashU did.

I think it was a financially prudent move for these universities >> to disassociate themselves with the PhD project and either let PhD project reconstitute their program or wait until something changes if when someone new a new party is elected.

Well, I all I would say was not every college abandoned it yet.

They may, but okay, if you're going to stand for something, Washington University, stand for something and just I understand what you know, prudent moves and money and all that, but as I've, you know, heard people saying that thing, it's kind of playing out that those that really thought Washington really was just all about the money, it's kind of like turning out like, man, they're really about the money.

And I love the research and I love all that, but it just seems like the second that the the money gets threatened, we we just turn tail and run.

It's not just and and I'm just I just >> principal standard.

Those things exist.

>> But now hang on a second.

Didn't the Supreme Court rule that colleges cannot discriminate based on student for student for student admissions?

Harvard, right?

This is another This is under the Civil Rights Act.

exactly the same.

>> Pretty darn close though.

>> Well, but it it's it's the subject of a whole another thing that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals just said that Trump's executive orders were okay.

Yeah.

So, it's legally separated.

>> Here's what Wu has done.

They have said to every kid of any color in southern Illinois or in Missouri that if your family makes less than $75,000, you get tuition, room, board, and all your fees for free.

>> I thought that was Slooh.

>> No, that well that's Slooh might do that as well, but WashU does that.

So, you know, it's not always about the money.

And what that program has is that it's colorblind.

You know, you as long as your parents don't make more than $75,000 and you get into school, hey, >> well, therein is the Trump >> administration's argument.

>> We don't that colleges can continue to do that.

We have no problem with that.

So, you can help disadvantaged students.

>> You just can't say it can only be these disadvantaged students.

And that's still a legal question that is probably going to be answered at some point in time by the Supreme Court.

>> It's not just dollars, though.

If you're Andrew Martin, you're having to turn to a big faculty and maybe hand out pink slips because of something like this if it would lead to, you know, lots of money being rescended, which is a definite possibility.

I mean, he has had to go to Washington many times, try to figure out what they want, try to figure out how to keep everything intact because they're a huge part of the economy that that employs a lot of people.

>> What's that endowment over there at Wu?

Well, restrict a lot of its but and they actually already handed out 300 pink slips uh last October and they announced they're not going to develop the Concordia property.

They're not going to build that Riny Hall.

They've actually cut back quite a bit.

>> He's whether whether you adore him or whether you hate him, this particular president has proven that he has the will because he's not a lifetime politician.

He has the will to do things that other presidents have not had the will to And then then you have to have some will to stand up to him >> in a Frank Kapra movie.

And I know you're right.

I know you're right.

I know you're right, though.

>> Well, I don't know.

Just reconfigure the PhD project to help kids of no means, regardless of color, whether they're Asian, brown, black, white.

Help the kids without means get their PhDs in business.

>> Well, and this doesn't prevent the PhD project from doing that.

>> That's exactly right.

But if the PhD project is a one that they're saying you can't be associated with that project.

>> Something tells me they're going to change that if they like the program.

>> We'll see.

>> Well, Joe, I want to ask you about uh a story that I think channel 5's Mark Mark Maxwell had.

And that is that there's a car in Olive Street in downtown St.

Louis that since last April has accumulated $8,600 in parking tickets and nothing's happened.

The neighbors like Les Sturman, former head of the East West Gateway Council of Governments, now a downtown resident.

He's been calling city hall saying, "Do something about this."

Turns out uh it's the treasurer who's supposed to put boots on these cars.

And he admits that there are 40,000 cars out there that have accumulated enough tickets to get a boot, making them inoperable and then towed.

But he only has 30 boots for all of the city of St.

Louis.

So, it seems to me this is a story of how St.

Louis does not work.

And I I don't know why people would live in downtown St.

Louis under these circumstances.

>> I I agree with you completely.

How I was surprised by that they only had 30 boots.

>> That was stunning.

>> You know, and I think they have more garages than that treasurer's office.

>> You're right.

>> They have more people in the treasurer's office whose job I don't know what it is than 30.

>> And why are they still handing out tickets?

Well, because that person is paid to go up down the street and put a ticket on a car and so they're going to do it because then they say, "I did my job."

>> So, it's a worthless department.

>> I You're you're putting tickets that are not being collected.

There's no consequences for illegal parking in the city of St.

Louis.

>> I would say that the parking meter division and the parking enforcement division of the treasurer's office leaves a lot to be desired.

And in a very short I had a my brother-in-law sold a car for a year and a half.

That car ends up getting ticketed.

They start sending my brother-in-law notices that he owes money.

Sends him a copy of the bill of sales.

Sends him actually looks up who the new owner is.

Sends it.

They keep sending him notices.

He's going to court to get it taken care of.

My brother-in-law was going to have to go to court >> and pay court cost.

I start to write a story.

I get a call.

Oh, no.

Your brother-in-law is okay.

>> Yeah.

How many times do we have to plead with the Republicans in Jefferson City, please help us, please get rid of these state offices in the city of St.

Louis?

I mean, not that city hall itself under the administration is always running fabulously, but at least we kind of know who to blame and we know where they are.

I mean, we have got to change something in terms of these state offices that are kind of autonomous.

They're running their own budget.

They've got their own revenue coming in.

Uh, >> but they're not doing the job.

I think as the sheriff's department's recent behavior would prove, I think most everybody wants to, but I the one thing I seem to think and I've dealt with this question when there were Democrats controlling Jefferson City was politicians really don't like to kill off jobs for other politicians because you never know when you're going to be in charge of those jobs.

>> And these are patronage jobs.

And I think the whole state offices need to go away and you appoint people to those positions.

Well, I'll tell you what.

I think the state's going in the opposite direction, Jacob, because they just set up a police board that's basically a stateapp appointed police board and a new level of government in the city of St.

>> Well, we always had a police board when the state controlled it.

I mean, >> yeah.

Well, I know, but uh now we have yet another division of local government.

>> I just if there was a car out there that long, I think I there's several ways I could get that car towed.

I will No, no, I wouldn't tow it.

I would just put it this way.

the car would be in a state that the city would tow it.

>> There are a lot of really industrious mechanical minded people who would take it apart a piece at a time.

You're right.

>> If I wrote on the side of the car with spray paint, not that you should do this people, well, but if I said the police blank on the side of the car, the car be gone tomorrow.

something similar to that.

Kind of like Joe's uh idea, but uh Amy Marks Corors and Chris Ranji of KOX decorated an abandoned car outside KMX with uh holiday lights and uh Christmas tree decorations and then it was finally towed.

>> It was gone.

That's what I'm saying.

So, don't be the car up now.

I didn't say >> Hey, let's go to the mailbag and see what people had to say about last week's show.

Congratulations to Mr.

Reed.

So glad I was watching Donny Brook when you found out.

What a wonderful moment.

That's from Debbie Fritz of St.

Louis.

Yeah, Elvin's going into the St.

Louis Media History Hall of Fame, April the 23rd.

David Houseman of St.

Louis wrote, "I'm 72 and I've watched Donnie Brooks since its inception.

Great show.

Keep up the great work."

Thank you, David.

John Hilgman of Belleville wrote, "Democratic Congresswoman Nikki Bazinski did refuse to collect her salary during the last shutdown."

Thank you, John.

And why can't the data centers produce their own electricity with solar panels and windmills?

That from Mary Saviano Rice of Florison.

You can write us care of Nine PBS 3655 Olive Street, St.

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Our program is called Last Call.

And this week we're going to be talking about whether St.

Louis should call FIFA or is it FIFA and offer to host some of the World Cup games this summer if violence is overtaking Mexico.

Plus, how about that police budget in the city of St.

Louis?

That and more.

We call that last call.

So, we hope you join us.

And we also hope you join us for Donnie Bash on the 16th of April and the Hall of Fame awards for Alvin Reed on the 23rd.

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