Timothy Birdnow

For the last four years St.Louis has been run by Tishuara Jones, whose father Virvus had been an alderman and went to prison for corruption. Tishuara was better than some - she was NOT a BLM activist, like Corey Bush, but she was wholly incompetent. We have solid proof of that now.

City's Emergency Chief Blasted as DEI Hire After 'They/Them' Left Tornado Siren Off During Deadly St. Louis Storms

The deadly tornado that rolled through north and central-western St. Louis came as a surprise to city residents because the sirens failed. Nobody had bothered to check them to make sure they were working properly.

I know for a fact; I never heard them, and I live in south city.

Granted, you can't blaem everything on Jones, the board of Aldermen also failed spectacularly. Of course, four of the leaders of the board, including the President, went to prison for corruption not long ago.

At any rate Jones was clearly an affirmative action candidate, and the North Side all voted for her (she was the first woman Mayor and black too.) She ran against Lewis Reed, a black man, who happened to be the same president of the Board of Alderman mentioned above.

That's St. Louis for you. Run entirely by Democrats since the last Republican mayor served in 1948 and corrupt to it's very core.

Cara Spencer, the new mayor, is at least making a show of horror at this and has ordered reviews of all emergency systems. I doubt Spencer's capabilities; she's a rich white woman from a gated community looking for something to give her life meaning, a true limousine liberal. But she has to be better than Jones.

All the blame appears to be falling on Sara Russell, the head of the city's Emergency Management Agency. Russell was no doubt a patronage hire for that job. I have little doubt she's politically connected to the city machine. But it was Jones who was at the helm all along and should have made sure her subordinates were doing their jobs. The buck stops there.

This article says the sirens were not sounded, and asks why not,but that's old news; equipment tests showed they weren't working. Nobody had bothered to test them or do proper maintenance.

Oh, it turns out Russell describes herself as "non-binary" and lists her pronouns on the city's contact page.

Whose fault is that though? She was hired because she checked off the diversity boxes. Ultimately the fault was Mayor Jones's.

This little bit of political correctness caused the death of five people.

Russell and other top officials at CEMA were attending a workshop elsewhere when this happened. I would point out that it probably was a free vacation paid by the taxpayers of St. Louis.

this is the kind of incompetence we've seen in St. Louis for decades. Mayor Spencer won the last election because of kitchen table issues involving the city. The public was very angry at the way the city handled the big snowstorm we had this winter; many people were simply trapped in their sidestreets for weeks because the city does nothing to prevent snow buildup or keep city streets clear. (They don't plow because city streets are one-way and narrow and they would bury cars if they plowed. Plus hit many of them. But they could at least lay some salt in advance.) Right now the gas company - Spire - has torn up the entire area where I live, with multiple detours and lane closures all over. It's infuriating. I was trying to go to a doctor's appointment and a ten minute drive turned into something like forty minutes. The City Street Department wasn't doing this, granted, but they let Spire simply tear up all the roads at once, causing a huge logjam. Tishuara Jones should have told them they couldn't do that, that they had to do one section at a time.

Also last winter we had multiple water main breaks, all over the place. Interestinglly enough there was a bill before the voters to replace many water lines. Coincidence? The city owns the water company in St. Louis; it's not a private corporation.

Increasingly St. Louis looks like a Third World city. There are large swaths of it that are simply ruins, or vacant lots. Packs of wild dogs roam the north side, living in abandoned buildings. Basic services are degrading. The forestry department doesn't prune the trees along the streets, and whenever there is a storm large limbs fall on peoples cars and otherwise block roads and do damage. And don't get me started on street conditions; potholes are as common as holes in chunks of swiss cheese. Recently the city installed speed bumps on many side streets; they needn't have bothered as the potholes force drivers to go slow.

And while violent crime SUPPOSEDLY dropped I seriously doubt it; I believe they just aren't reporting the crimes to the FBI. Every day there are shootings.

Increasingly St. Louis seems like Kinshasa, or San Salvador,or Tijuana, or some other desolate place.

And it will never change. St. Louis takes on big projects to try to rejuvenate the city but in the end the plans fail (even if they succeed for a time) because the city is structurally incapable of rejuvenating or of growth thanks to the Democratic stranglehold. The City Earnings tax, which must be paid if you are a resident or even just work in the city, drives businesses out. A business can simply set up just outside the city limits and not pay the onerous tax. (Sports franchises that play here have to pay it too, which is why St. Louis never gets any big sporting events and why sports franchises are slow to relocate here. It's part of why St. Louis lost the Rams football team, for instance, as they did the Cardinals before them.)

There is a lot to be proud of here, but St. Louis will never be a world class city again, and that's because it is being run into the ground and has been for over 75 years now. This failure to sound the tornado warnings is just one more example of why nobody wants to live or work in St. Louis anymore.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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