CLAYTON — The St. Louis County Council on Tuesday approved spending $6 million in hotel tax revenue to help fund a long-standing plan for a $54 million mega youth sports complex in Hazelwood at the site of the moribund St. Louis Outlet Mall.
The council voted 6-1 to approve the request by POWERplex developer Dan Buck, agreeing to provide about 10% of the funding for the project.
Buck asked the council to approve the funding last week, arguing it would help bring private investors to the table after their initial plans were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Councilman Ernie Trakas, R-6th District, was the lone dissenter. He was concerned that Buck had yet to secure private funding, and worried that the county would be forced to dip into general fund revenues if hotel taxes decline because of the pandemic.
“There is no rush here,” Trakas said.
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Democratic Councilwoman Kelli Dunaway, whose 2nd District includes the project site, said the funding agreement posed little risk to the county because it prohibited the money from being released until all other private funding sources were secured.
In other action Tuesday, the council split into two bipartisan coalitions over competing bills to bar council members from county jobs within two years of leaving elected office.
Both bills are a response to County Executive Sam Page’s controversial decision to appoint former Councilwoman Rochelle Walton Gray, who represented District 4 for one term, to an $89,000-a-year public health job.
Gray, as a lame duck councilwoman, provided a winning fourth vote on Jan. 5 to reelect Councilwoman Lisa Clancy, D-5th District, to a second term as council chair and elect Trakas as vice chair. Both Clancy and Trakas are Page allies.
Council members opposed to Page — Rita Heard Days, D-1st District; Mark Harder, R-7th District; Shalonda Webb, D-4th District 4; and Tim Fitch, R-3rd District — later voted to replace Clancy and Trakas with Days and Harder. On Tuesday, the four advanced a bill that would bar the county from hiring former council members until two years after their terms ended.
In doing so, they rejected an alternative bill, supported by Clancy, Trakas and Dunaway, that would have also kept the county from immediately hiring Missouri state legislators.
That measure appeared aimed at Days, who has employed former state lawmakers Courtney Curtis and Maria Chappelle-Nadal as legislative aides.
Trakas and Clancy argued their bill would be more extensive, and therefore, more effective.
Webb argued that the focus needed to be on council members.
“One step in the right direction is a step,” she said.
Days, Fitch and Harder have accused Page of giving Gray a county job as a reward for her votes, and insist she shouldn’t have been allowed to extend her term past Jan. 1.
The council leadership fight is currently before a judge in St. Louis County Circuit Court.
In other action Tuesday, the council passed resolutions honoring former U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay and former Councilwoman Hazel Erby.
Webb sponsored the resolution commending Clay, who attended the online meeting, as champion of fair housing, health care, consumer protection, minority businesses and for bringing federal investments into the St. Louis metropolitan region.
Clay, 64, told the council his chief accomplishments included getting the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to build its new western headquarters in north St. Louis, pushing federal officials to clean up nuclear waste at the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, and helping save and renovate public housing in Wellston that at one time faced demolition.
Clay, whose father preceded him in Congress for 32 years, was defeated in the August Democratic primary by Cori Bush, who went on to win the general election.
The council also adopted a resolution honoring Erby, who was elected in 2004 as the first Black woman to join the council, and whose accomplishments included a landmark minority businesses inclusion bill in 2018.
Page, who had previously competed with Erby to replace former executive Steve Stenger when he was indicted in a federal pay-to-play scheme in 2019, hired Erby into a newly created role as the county’s diversity director.
But he fired Erby in August amid a fight over how much oversight she would have in business contracts. Erby has sued the county for retaliation, accusing Page of violating Missouri’s whistleblower statute because she was dismissed for publicly complaining about minority exclusion in county contracts.
The council unanimously adopted the resolution, save for Trakas who abstained. Trakas noted a previous council resolution honoring Erby when she left the council in 2019. He said it was inappropriate for the council to honor Erby while she had a lawsuit pending against the county.
"I think it would be an abandonment of our fiduciary duty to move forward with this resolution at this time," he said.
The council also adopted a resolution by Fitch honoring retired county police lieutenant Cynthia Golden, of Kirkwood, who was the first Black woman police officer for the St. Louis County department.