ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Board of Aldermen President Megan Green raised some eyebrows in the local political arena last week when she delivered a formal address from her City Hall office.
In a new speech she called her 'Legislative Report," Green wove stories of her upbringing and her father's life into tales about the city's labor struggles in the past and promises about policy changes in the future.
Her move to begin a new annual tradition elevates the visibility of an office that holds significant power in the city's current government structure. However, she's also advocating for significant changes in that system via the Charter Commission.
Below is the full, unedited transcript of the complete interview as it happened on 'The Record.'
Mark Maxwell: Board of Aldermen President Megan Green joins us now. Thanks for being with us.
Megan Green: Thanks for having me back.
Mark Maxwell: Listening to your speech, it sounded like a State of the State address, a State of the City address. You had the throwback to almost ancient history in the city of St Louis history, your own personal family, then you wove the agenda in there. It sounded like a new tradition. I don't think presidents have done this before. Why set out this new tradition for something that presidents past haven't really done before?
Megan Green: I think it comes down to transparency. You know, a lot of times we hear from folks, 'Well, what is the board of aldermen actually doing? What are we accomplishing?' I thought it was really important that we have a check in with the public to say, 'Look, these are all the things that we've been able to get done so far, and we still have half a session ahead of us to get a lot more done.'
Mark Maxwell: It's interesting, in this era of modern technology, a lot of politicians are turning to social media to communicate with their audiences or find voters anywhere they are. You're kind of returning to sort of a formal speech in the office in this way. I guess it was just, I guess, interesting to see that. Is that part of it? You see, the expanded role of this office is just to communicate the agenda more clearly to the city?
Megan Green: I think it definitely is. The public, in order to trust us in government, needs to know how we're making decisions and what the plan is, where we're going, the timelines that we're expected to take to get there. And part of the address was to lay that out.
Mark Maxwell: Let's get into some of that. One of the things you mentioned was the charter commission. And I think it's often overlooked and it's hard to cover and report on because a lot of it is wonky and it's thinking about ways the founding documents of the city were crafted and how it sets the city or holds the city back sometimes. What are the most immediate changes you'd like to make? If you had a magic wand and say, 'I'd remake the city government this way, to empower this office to do that or this?' What are the things you would say, 'This needs to happen soon?'
Megan Green: Well, I think, you know, first and foremost, the city needs to have an actual checks and balances form of government when it comes to the budgetary process. I would really like to see a process where the Board of Aldermen approves a budget, has the ability to both subtract and add things to the budget that then gets passed by E&A [the Board of Estimate and Apportionment] and the entire... And then implemented by the mayor's office.
Mark Maxwell: So the current structure where the comptroller, the mayor and you sort of approve... You want to see that structure change?
Megan Green: I would like to see that change. I mean, one of the things that I've heard from aldermen for years and years and years is they feel like our budget process is very performative; that the... That basically E&A gives them a budget. They have the ability to subtract things from it. But ultimately E&A can put anything just right back where the board took it. If we were to change that process to create a more traditional form of government where the legislative branch passes the budget and the executive branch is in charge of implementing that budget, I think it puts us more in line with what other cities do.
Mark Maxwell: You talked a lot about poverty, homelessness and housing in your speech. That might have been the main takeaway. I think you're nodding your head, perhaps agreeing with that, but you sort of celebrated a lot of things that you have achieved on your agenda. That 'Unhoused Bill of Rights,' though, failed spectacularly. It went up in smoke. It didn't even get out of the committee, I believe.
Megan Green: It is not dead.
Mark Maxwell: It's not dead yet?
Megan Green: Correct.
Mark Maxwell: Okay. You called it a critical stepping stone.
Megan Green: Yes.
Mark Maxwell: So was it a stepping stone or was it a step back?
Megan Green: I think it's a stepping stone. It started the conversation that we have to have. And what we need to understand with this new board is that our decisions are not just yes and no decisions. That when we have major issues that need to be tackled, such as how we care for our unhoused population, we are not going to stop having those conversations. We are going to continue to push them forward, introduce legislation until we get to something that we can build consensus around. There's no more passing the buck.
Mark Maxwell: What went wrong in that negotiation?
Megan Green: You know, I think we tried to do a little bit too much, too fast. And so we're taking a step back right now. We're figuring out what are the most tangible things that we can get done right now that are going to have the most immediate impact while also creating a plan for what we need to do long term to expand shelter capacity in particular.
Mark Maxwell: You yourself have said there are some practical and real deadlines just with the cold weather approaching.
Megan Green: Yes.
Mark Maxwell: There are hundreds of people still without housing or, you know, temporary shelter, perhaps, that could use something more than just a tent.
Megan Green: Yes.
Mark Maxwell: Saint Peter and Paul has money in hand from the city.
Megan Green: Yes.
Mark Maxwell: They just have nowhere to go to build.
Megan Green: Yes.
Mark Maxwell: Where can they go to place this? Forget the political debate of it. Is there a part of the city, a parcel, a place, a building somewhere that some planning has been done? You say, 'Hey, I think that can work for them to go.' Can we just get the agreement around it?
Megan Green: Yeah. We have not been able to find that place as of yet. And part of the reason that we can't is because of the antiquated plat and petition process. And so I think that we do have an understanding at the board now that this process is a problem. There is not comfort in repealing it altogether. So the question is what do we replace it with that allows for communities to have a voice in what this process looks like; but also make sure that we actually are allowing shelters to open. Because this issue is only going to get worse as we continue to see shelters close without others opening in their place.
Mark Maxwell: People that are unhoused for too long might become victims of crime or perhaps perpetrators of it if they're caught up in some kind of a cycle. And then they might end up at the City Justice Center. That's a place where you've called for change.
Megan Green: Yes.
Mark Maxwell: But I don't know exactly what that change looks like. The mayor has stood by the commissioner of the jail. You've wanted to see change. Are you and the mayor pushing in different directions on this? What do you want to see exactly?
Megan Green: I think that the bill that Alderman Aldridge passed a couple of weeks ago that strengthened the detention facilities Oversight Board is a really great step in that direction.
Mark Maxwell: Sort of it... it still gives the city councilor, the top lawyer in the city, a massive kill switch to shut down any outside lawyers looking into things.
Megan Green: And that takes us back to the charter commission. You know, the way that the charter is written right now, we cannot delegate that authority over to another legal body. The attorney for the city is the city councilors office. And so I think part of the duties of that charter commission could also be looking at that structure and how we allow for both our Detention Facilities Oversight Board and our Civilian Oversight Board to be truly independent.
Mark Maxwell: Yeah. You have a quasi-independent oversight board of watchdogs who can look into this. But the question remains: Are you satisfied with the job that the commissioner is doing now, or would you like to see a replacement?
Megan Green: I mean, I would like to see us at a place where we no longer have desks in the jail, where we have the staffing that is necessary to make sure that inmates needs are taken care of and cared for. Whether that is something we can achieve through the current commissioner, I'm still not sure. I do think, though, that the administration has been taking the criticism seriously and has been putting in place steps to rectify some of the past challenges, specifically when it comes to hiring medical staff to get into the Justice Center. In E&A, we just approved maybe a month ago changing over some of the positions so that medical staff from the city can be in there while we're looking for a new medical contractor.
Mark Maxwell: And we've been talking about two different constituencies, I suppose, that may not vote very much: people that are behind bars and people who don't have a house or a mailing address right now. There are perhaps a more -- and if I can use a crass term like this -- more influential voting bloc of small business owners. Their ears perked up quite a bit during your inaugural address. You talked about a Red Tape Commission, cutting through a lot of red tape, things like liquor licenses, things that make it hard to get out and actually conduct business in the city of Saint Louis.
Megan Green: Yes.
Mark Maxwell: That was missing from your speech. It seems to have faded from your agenda. Have you found that hard to get done or what's going on there?
Megan Green: We are reformulating at the moment, so I think it's...
Mark Maxwell: Back to the drawing board?
Megan Green: It's the committee is not going away, but we are gearing up in the new year to bring forth, I think, a new vision for that committee to get it moving a little bit faster. Have had a lot of conversations with Alderman Narayan on moving forward the liquor licensing bill. We do anticipate that in the new year that will move forward. We have some other regulations around food trucks and things like that that we expect to bring forth as well.
Mark Maxwell: So stay tuned?
Megan Green: So stay tuned. It is it is in the works. There's just nothing public to report just as of yet.
Mark Maxwell: One other budget wrinkle that I think some of our viewers were curious to learn about: Just last week, we learned about a half million dollars in money went up in smoke. The marijuana money that could have come into the city coffers, didn't. There's... Who's ultimately responsible for this? The mayor's office said they weren't sure. We've heard just some back and forth. Does the board of Aldermen -- do you -- bear any responsibility for this accounting error that cost the city half a million dollars?
Megan Green: Yeah. I mean, the way that we look at it is as soon as our office was notified that there was an issue, we went through state law. We looked at what was supposed to be done and started bringing together the information, took it to the mayor's office, who very quickly then contacted the state. I think that nobody is quite 100% sure where the buck stops. But I do know that I think the board did our job by passing it and putting it on on the ballot. I think that the voters did their job by approving it. And going forward, I think we have to be looking at our policies at City Hall to make sure that once something passes that the administration of it actually moves forward.
Mark Maxwell: Well, it sounds like... To voters that hear that, I can imagine that sounds frustrating, 'cause they're like, 'Well, who ultimately was responsible here?' Where's that answer in your mind?
Megan Green: You know, in my mind, I think that it does fall on administrative functions for the city. But I also understand that there have been times where the Board of Elections and other entities have been the ones to put that forward. So I think going forward, we need to make sure that there are clear policies both from the mayor's office and from E&A and for the Board of Elections so that there's understanding of who is responsible for what by when.
Mark Maxwell: All right. I guess you could say just about halfway to the State of the City address, we've got this legislative report from the Board of Aldermen. President, thank you for going back and recapping that with us and for joining us here again.
Megan Green: Thank you so much.