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>> Oh.

Oh, no monkeys under there.

Alvin Reid sitting in for Charlie Brennan this week.

Thank you for joining us on Donnybrook.

On the show tonight, Wendy Wiese, media veteran, Bill McClellen, one of our founders long time ago, actually 40 years.

Joe Holleman, also of the St.

Louis Post Dispatch, and Sarah Fenske, 314 Podcast, St.

Louis Magazine, st louis magazine.com.

Well, Bill, I'm going to start out with you.

Uh, Governor Kehoe wants to eliminate the state income tax, replace it with a lot of sales taxes, will make a burden on a lot of people say people that don't make a lot of money and also would drive the sales tax up pretty high in some areas.

Your thoughts on all this?

>> Well, I support government services, so I generally support taxes.

And I heard read the governor's speech about how he's tired of seeing us in the middle of the pack.

And I thought that's because the governor's forward looking.

If he looked behind us, he'd realize we're not in the middle of the pack.

We're at the end of the pack.

And I don't think that dropping the income tax is going to help us.

And over in St.

Charles County, states, former state senator Bill Igel wants to drop the personally property tax.

And I don't know how we're going to afford to do anything anymore.

>> I always get really suspicious when they say because now if we do this, we'll be able to compete with Texas and Tennessee.

No, we won't because they're Texas, which has one of the largest GDPs in the world, and Tennessee, which has Nashville, which unlike the Chiefs, can't move across the state lines into Mississippi or Georgia or wherever.

So, that one that always sets off alarm bells.

Um, the other thing is, I don't know about anybody else, but I'm very suspicious about the commitment that we have.

I mean, this was just however many years ago that the real estate association, right, they they made it possible that I mean, they they sort of were against this type of thing.

So, now he's stepping out to take on the real estate association.

that the same thing happened with clean Missouri, uh the puppy mills, the Medicaid funding.

So, the abortion obviously.

So, how long is it going to be before we overturn the will of the people, whatever that is, when we have this vote on income tax?

>> Yeah, I love that they're asking the people to vote on this.

Like, what do we know about tax policy?

This doesn't seem like something you just kind of want to throw to the average Joe.

Beyond that, I would say I'm concerned because our sales tax is already so high.

I'm struck every time I visit my family up in Wisconsin, their base uh sales tax rate seems to be like something like six or 7%.

Compared to in St.

Louis, you know, different parts of the city depending on what special t taxing districts have been laid on top of other taxing districts, you can get up to 13% 14%.

It's crazy to think, are we going to have like an 18% sales tax?

that seems like that's really going to harm lower income people.

U I don't think you're going to see many economists step up and say, "Yeah, this is the right move for Missouri."

Unless they can figure out a a much more uh sophisticated way of tackling this lost revenue.

>> I I'm not uh in favor of Governor Ke's plan, Norm.

I'm here to say I'm opposed to it.

Uh one, I think you're talking about as far as asking the voters to okay it.

I think we ask the voters to do a lot to cast votes on a lot of things they have no idea about and our only problem with the voters is when they go against what we think should be done.

We love what voters conclude when it agrees with our conclusions >> when it goes against this.

But personally in a general theory, I have no problem looking at alternative ways of taxes because people say, "Well, what happens if we cut our tax uh revenue?"

Well, cut spending.

But that's the part where nobody wants to go.

Nobody wants to go to that point where, okay, we're going to take in less money, but we're also going to lay out less money because that's when everybody's special interest, no, no, that's not waste.

No, no, that's not abuse.

My projects are great.

Your projects are terrible.

So, if someone wants to take a look at how we restructure the notion of how much money government takes in and how much money government pays out, I'm willing to at least listen to it.

>> Yeah.

Well, ex except the that's the governor's proposal didn't lay out anything about uh we're going to cut this program, we're going to cut this or cut that.

It's just a kind of a even thing.

We're going to take in as much money, we're just going to take it in in a different way.

>> Is it one of those things that has to be one or the other?

>> Revenue neutral.

That's the term that revenue.

Well, and I but I think but on a national level when Elon Musk specified what the cuts were going to be, nobody liked that either.

No.

Well, sure.

Well, there's the problem.

Okay.

Everybody in general will agree that government wastes money.

Just none of the programs I like are a waste of money.

>> Right.

And so being specific though, I don't think is any great solution to it because if what's named specifically is something you like, that's a terrible idea.

>> Well, I agree, Joe.

But I'm just saying that if you're going to say we're going to cut taxes, you have to say what services we're going to cut.

>> Yeah.

I now you could cut that personal property tax on automobiles in Missouri.

I think that's a a con.

That's you pay personal property tax on a vehicle that you every year.

>> That seems like that would be much more popular.

I hear more people complaining about that than the state income tax.

>> I agree.

No, they're going to but now none of our cars are going to have to do >> Well, but the but if you notice the the government in this case, even with the Kehoe's plan, they're not talking about really cutting taxes.

They're just talking about a different Nobody wants to cut and politicians are loathed to give up money.

They don't care about where it comes from as long as they get that big pot.

And that's what I think needs to change.

>> Well, I'll tell you what, one reason that the state of Kansas has the money to lure the Chiefs across the border was because 10 years ago they did this exact same thing.

went bankrupt, had the the same Republicans that voted to do this came back and said like it's not working.

So, we have a blueprint of failure.

I don't think the state should uh go down this lane.

Well, I won't call it failure, but St.

Louis public schools continue to have problems.

The latest now being uh the department of education has given them provisional accreditation, not full accreditation.

Um part of it is the turnover in superintendent.

There's a lot going on.

I think we could spend a whole hour on it, Joe, but I'll start with you on this one.

>> Well, you know, here third year that they don't turn their budget in on time.

I mean, it's and and the report said, and this is what struck me was it said that the school is failing on three levels.

The academic level, the administrative level, and the financial level.

What's left?

They make a good lunch.

I I mean, other I mean, seriously, you've taken the big three things that you need your school district to do.

You need administrators to run the programs.

You need academics so that your kids are learning something.

And you need to take care of your finances.

And it's saying you're failing in all three.

>> So the idea that they dismiss this financial officer, always hate to see someone lose a job, but it's good in a way because to me it seems like it's just dwindling toward the bottom.

It's circling the drain.

And I think when we look back on that uh Kesha Scarlet Borisade, the damage that has been done is going to be manifesting itself for another year or two to come.

>> And that it is, you're absolutely right.

It is significant and we have all, you know, aired our opinions about about that.

I don't think they've given this particular uh team enough time.

Um I'm very excited about Myra Berry.

I know that there are those on the panel who are >> I didn't say I just I I I but I think that we're going to launch this nationwide search in July.

Can we just keep one driver behind the wheel for a little while because she seems to be she seems to be I mean her heart is in the right place.

Uh Miss Adams who was the president um Kelvin Adams wife.

I don't have any problem with that.

Um, but I I just think this was too soon.

And it's if we're circling the drain, what's the what's the harm before we blow it all up for the fourth time in in however many years, three three or five years, why don't we give it a really good opportunity?

>> I I I agree with you, Wendy, and I think that, you know, we've had state control of the board boy and the schools remain the way they they were.

I mean, we've tried so many things.

I remember when we had the turnover company come in and we're going to treat this like a business and and and I was enthused about that.

I thought, hey, great, might as well try something new.

That didn't work.

State control didn't work.

So, I don't know why we want to go necessarily back to that.

And I'd like to see the new board have a chance.

>> Have a chance.

Yeah.

And I think what the state is doing here with moving this to a provisional accreditation and doing it at a time of year when they don't normally ever look at a case like this, they're doing it sort of out of sequence because a board member from Chesterfield brings this to the attention saying, "Oh, I've seen all these things in the news.

Maybe we should act on this."

Well, yeah, there's a lot you could react on that's been in the news, but they are trying to take care of that.

They got rid of these bad people.

They're trying to deal with it.

And I'm reading academic achievement is actually slightly up.

So despite all the obstacles here, this new administration trying to pull things together.

We see a slight increase.

And yet the board is saying, "Oh, well, we're going to move you down."

Just to make a point here, we're moving this to provisional status.

It feels like they're kicking them when they're down.

It's not helpful.

>> Yeah, I don't like it.

>> I I don't know how you work your way back to it, too.

Now, I guess technically, Joe, to use your kind of like not sound too sportsy, our team is bad on offense, defense, and special teams, but if we hire the right coach, we could get it back together again.

And I'm weary of the state because I really I I still contend the state really doesn't care what goes on in the city of St.

Louis.

They use this as a election.

I you know, like being mean to the city of St.

Louis wins votes out in the rural part of the Missouri.

And I think the district for now should be left alone.

And the gift that keeps giving from Matt Davis and uh Tony Cousins, I just I can't say enough about that vote that put Borisade in charge.

And you're right, we're paying the price for that now and another year >> and she was the result of a national search.

So >> I I I think yeah, I I think the thing is and and I'm not saying the state needs to take over.

is going to be better.

But what I don't what sort of I am object to is this notion where it's like well let's look at all the good things about city public schools and my first question always was do you have children and would you send them to city public schools >> and so many of the people I know would they don't.

So there's the thing I mean would you send your child to a city public school?

Now I'm not talking about the special schools like Metro.

I'm talking about would you send them to a C school or do you find a way or do you find a way to send them to a private school?

>> But Joe, that's not fair because those special schools and the magnet schools that are flourishing, those are part of SLPS.

They are under SLPS governance.

And I have a lot of friends that have children in the St.

Louis public schools and are very happy with their schools.

And I understand there are some neighborhood schools that are struggling and I get why people have chosen other alternatives to those.

But you can't say, "Would you send your kids to this district?"

and then say, "But not half the schools in this district."

I'm taking notes.

>> And I also know just as many people, Sarah, who the minute their children became of school age, moved to the county.

>> I know plenty of people like that, too.

And it breaks my heart.

But I don't see how what the state is doing here is helping one bit.

I don't see anything about this action that helps this.

>> How does it hurt?

>> I Because right now, once again, it's we're all arguing about these things that happened in the past as opposed to being able to look forward to fix the things that we already knew needed to be fixed.

>> All right.

One week ago, Josh Holly, I defended you.

Okay.

One week ago, Sarah Finsky defended you.

I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry I missed that.

>> Sarah What happened?

What happened?

What happened?

All right.

He flip-floped on his uh presidential war power vote, which kind of surprised me.

I thought he would hang in there and be tough just like he did on January 6th.

Oh, that's right.

Sarah, are you as disappointed as I am?

I >> I don't know how to feel about this.

I really I was sincere last week when I was saying, "Wow, I am impressed with Josh Holly."

It is hard to stand up to this president because this president is a bully.

And the comments that he made after Josh Holly joined with four other GOP senators to sort of buck him on this and to say, "Yeah, the president needs congressional authorization."

I was like, "This is a profile in courage."

Well, now Holly is saying, "No, no, no.

I just wanted to make sure we weren't going to have ground troops.

They're giving me assurances that we're not going to have ground troops.

So, you know, I guess uh Congress doesn't need to be involved in this.

It just Oh, I'm disappointed.

>> So, yeah.

>> You know, a few weeks ago, I wrote a column that I thought Holly could be president and he reminds me so much of Bill Clinton.

>> And I I still feel that way.

I mean, that this is kind of a Clintesque thing to do.

You know, David Gurgen talking about Clinton said he's very, very smart, but he does not have a true north.

And I think that's the way it is with Holly.

He's very smart and figuring out what to do, but but he doesn't really have a true north as to what he really believes.

So, >> yeah, >> you know, >> I I find the whole war powers debate interesting.

I'm going to reserve comments since I cover this on whether Senator Holly was right or whether he was wrong on doing what he did.

I do think as a politician that he understands that when you switch a vote, you're going to catch grief.

I I mean, that's just comes with the territory, >> especially with this president.

>> Well, and and especially with the people who look for things to hate this president for.

Yeah.

>> And no matter what the results might be.

But the the thing with the war powers act is amazing because presidents have been accused of violating the war powers powers since Truman and Vietnam being the biggest problem.

But every single president has decided to take military action without asking Congress first.

And then they have been opposed by members of Congress from the opposite party.

And it has been basically a partisan issue on down the line.

When Barack Obama, who some people believe did more than anybody to expand the war powers of the White House with his excursions into Libya and actions against Syria, it was Democrats supporting President Obama.

Republicans oppose.

>> I thought Obama was criticized for not going into Syria, Joel, for having that red line.

If you use poison gas, then that's a red line to us.

I I thought that the criticism of Obama was he didn't go into Syria.

But Libya, as I was saying, in Syria, he he ended up going to Congress after he was forced to.

In Libya, he took action and was criticized for it.

And the same thing happened then that happened in the Senate now where technically action was postponed.

My point is is what this is is usually a partisan issue where the party of the president supports the president and the party doesn't.

So when it comes to these questions of war powers, the only person in my opinion who has a true north is Rand Paul.

>> Sure.

who opposes it in every instance.

He opposed it under Obama.

He opposed it under W. And he oppo, you know.

So, I mean, when you talk about true north in politics, I don't think anybody in this situation had a true no true north except Rand Paul of Kentucky.

>> I think Josh Holly's true north is the Oval Office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

And I think he's been pretty clear about that.

And I think that when in bygone days, you know, in yester year, if the president was going to call you on the carpet, it was going to be done behind closed doors and you were probably going to have your feelings severely hurt, lots of severe emotional tire damage.

this president there.

It's withering and psychologically traumatic for you, for your family, for anybody who's ever known you.

So, he he is I think the true north is the White House.

He's going to do whatever he can to get there.

>> I was surprised that he changed his vote on top of that.

I'm really Yeah, I'm not really kidding.

I I thought he would I really did think he would hang in there.

Joe, were you surprised?

Real quick, >> I'm surprised when anybody switches any vote one way or the other.

So, I guess I was surprised twice.

>> Okay.

>> Okay.

Surprised he went the way.

>> He went the other way.

>> All right.

And real quick, Bill, um my wife and I met Bill Clinton when he was elected governor.

Uh two he he had to run within two years of one time because they were flip-flopping when the election cycle was.

He remembered us exactly what we did.

First name, last name, whole thing.

We came out of there and said like if everybody in the United States could meet Bill Clinton, he could be president of the United States.

>> And and you might think the same thing of Josh Holly.

He's charming, intelligent, went to Yale Law, married a Yale law graduate.

I mean, the commonalities are striking, I think.

>> All right.

We will see.

We will see.

>> With one notable difference.

Anyway, >> that was before and after.

Come on.

All right.

We are part of a national gambling scandal.

All right.

A former St.

Louis University player was one of 20 plus people indicted, I guess, yesterday or today because he was involved in a point shaving scandal.

Now, you would think one of the guys on this panel would have brought that up.

I'm just kidding.

But Wendy sent that notification.

I had not heard.

So, Wendy, how much did you have on the game that was involved?

Oh, you know when people think college hoops, they think Wendy.

Wait, what does Wendy think about?

I got an alert on my phone.

That was it because I get alerts from sdlday.com.

But I thought, well, this is this is really interesting.

This is really interesting given Eric Schmidt's interest, and I know we're going to talk about that a little bit later in the show with changing conferences or what have you, but I the the player's name was right.

The >> Yes.

The player's name is Bradley Rusco.

>> Yeah, it had a >> Yeah, I want to say like it had a foreign name.

>> Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

But um but yeah, he he he did and and my first thought is we h we're seeing all of the makings for just d I mean destruction of of programs, destruction of athletes lives.

We have, you know, we've put our we've we've put our toe out of the, you know, the tent.

I think it's time to really address this the the whole I mean, draft kings gambling.

It's really It's making me very nervous and I think it's only going to get wider.

It's when they when they talk about the FBI and college athletes that those are two things that should never go together.

Well, when you have these uh when you can vote on an individual player's performance, I mean, you know, like that he'll score more than 12 points or under 12 points.

It's kind of easy to imagine getting to a kid and saying, you know, just score 10 points and then twist your ankle and you make $50,000.

I mean the you know if it was just on the games it would be bad enough but like you know these the Slooh would thing was supposed to be that they'll be trailing at halfime.

So you could think you know okay well I'll just we'll make a couple shots in the first half and we'll still come back and win.

You know it's >> they were supposed to be trailing by seven at halftime.

They were trailing by 20 plus.

They did their job too well.

>> Yeah.

But it, you know, it kind of kills me that this should be such a big day for Slooh.

Like they announced today that they are going to give free tuition to any family that is making $60,000 or less a year that also has limited assets.

You can't just quit your job and say, "Sloo, take care of my kid."

But this is a huge thing.

Such a great thing to do for lower income students to say, "If you can get into Slooh, we're going to make sure that you're able to attend without racking up debt."

And to think that one player sort of tempted by this this filthy Lucer gets it.

So instead we're talking about point shaving and a basketball scandal instead of something that could be so good for so many St.

Louis kids.

>> Good point.

Good point.

>> I you know college sports I mean it's just not what it used to be.

It's just not it's my now it's officially minor leagues for the pros.

>> But can we put the genie back on the bottle?

I mean >> no you can't.

You you absolutely can because then what you say is okay kids you're not getting paid anymore.

Which was never fair.

colleges made millions off these kids over the years.

But the idea is to where you know a school goes out and recruits a kid and he stays there.

No, they move it.

So, and that's great.

I mean, I'm not opposed to that from a point of these are my skills.

I'm marketing these skills.

They're worth money.

But you have a kid one year at Missou who then goes to Texas, who then goes to North Carolina.

And I'm not opposed to that.

But the whole idea of school spirit and allegiance, it's done.

It's done.

Well, the D3, I mean, like you you go to Washington University and probably be a fan of their teams and those kids are playing just as hard.

They're just not quite as athletically gifted as the kids at the big school, >> you Um, Illinois State, I think, played Montana.

And Illinois State was like a 10 seed in the Division 2 playoffs and made the championship game, lost like in overtime, and everybody was hailing that this is true college athletics.

And I really wanted them to win, and I had no dog in that fight.

You're right, Joe.

It's changed.

And I I I root for one of those teams, but man, it it's tough.

And by the way, if somebody makes a $225,000 bet on a H.B.CU game, something is up.

And I'm sure that led to all this.

Okay, as we last few minutes here, Sarah, crime rate continues to be down.

Not only the murder rate all across the board, >> but no one seems to really care.

>> It drives me crazy.

Everybody was so wound up a couple years ago.

Like St.

Louis, it's so terribly dangerous now.

All this data is coming out like we're doing great and honestly it feels kind of great.

Like I feel very safe and things are good and everybody's like, "No, it's still a hell hole.

I won't visit."

It's like, what is it going to take, y'all?

What Chesterfield people, what will it take?

>> Well, I mean, we we happen to love our downtown St.

Louis, but I think the unfortunate the the irony is that while the crime rate is going down, the vacancy rate is also going down.

I mean, we have we we have a historic situation happening in downtown St.

Louis.

So, so yeah, maybe the reason the crime rate is going down is because there's nobody there anymore to commit crimes.

>> There's my point.

Okay.

And I I because having been a police reporter had to write my share of crime rate stories.

And the problem is is every side picks a specific area they want to focus in like this one here.

A murder rate was there were 151 this year was only 141.

A decrease of about less than 7%.

And they say success.

Okay.

Crime rate across the country was down.

Homicide rates in all the in the country close to 20% down.

So you can look at is it St.

Louis is doing better.

Are St.

Louis is still doing poorly and our rates not going down near as fast as everywhere else?

When you look at the other cities that got named when they always name the most dangerous cities, Detroit, St.

Louis, Baltimore, and Memphis.

Those other three cities, their homicide rate fell more than St.

Louis's.

Also, it doesn't take into account per capita, which is really the only way you can look at these statistics and make any kind of sense of them is how many per 1,000 it is.

But both sides cherrypick the information out.

That's why I don't like crime stat stories.

No matter what one side is saying, they say, they're usually only looking at a portion of the study.

>> And I misspoke.

It's a vacancy rate.

>> No, I understand.

Andy, you know, I just >> I will say this.

The previous administration uh boasted those statistics as is Cara Spencer's and the reaction has been the same.

There has not been a turn within our region of people saying like oh no that's really really important.

So is that fairness?

I guess I have to call it that.

>> You know I'd like to mention that Tony Messenger had a column on this just the other day that nobody's talking about it.

And you know what?

>> Well I think what do you talk about?

You say is our rates going down slower than I agree.

We got to we got to hear what the people want to talk about.

>> Let's just hope that the new majority owner of the Post Dispatch will bring more resources to hire some copy editors.

Spellch check is not cutting it.

That from Deborah Knox Dearman, who has never worked at a newspaper, most likely in Webster girls, Missouri.

Just kidding.

Maybe she did.

Most jobs used to include health care for life as part of a full retirement package.

If we bypass big insurance and pass Medicare for all, everyone would have health care for life.

Brian Daniels of Pacific, Missouri.

You can write to Donny Brook, care of Nine PBS, 3655 Olive Street, St.

Louis, Missouri 63108.

Send an email to donnybrook@ninepbs.org or a tweet to donnybrookst.

Give us a call 314-51294.

And you can catch us anywhere you catch your favorite podcast.

Last call coming up next.

And oh yeah, we're going to talk about those monkeys on the loose in St.

Louis.

That's at 9PBS and YouTube.

Thank you, Joe, for sitting in today.

Um, no, it's Sarah sitting in.

All right, my mistake.

Sorry.

When they're both here, I'm confused.

And thank you for watching.

Stay warm on this cold night.

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

away.

Heat.

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