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>> Thank you so much for joining us for Last Call.

We have a lot of topics, so we'll try and get kind of a what do we call that?

Lightning round.

Sarah, uh you have been reporting that Drury Hotel is not happy with the folks at uh what the Stainberg company because Stainberg is creating the second downtown in Chesterfield.

It's a huge billion-dollar development, but it also has special taxing privileges.

But now, this downtown development wants to tax some companies that are outside the footprint of the development, including Drury Hotel in Chesterfield.

>> Yeah, they've gotten the right to do that.

The uh city council voted uh this through this week.

The mayor was the deciding vote.

This thing was down to the wire.

Drrew saying we just want to be left alone.

I get where they're coming from.

I think if this development is the kind of thing I'm picturing based on uh what I've seen in other cities, it is going to have restaurants.

It is going to have hotels.

This is more competition for these guys.

And now depending on what sort of rate is set by this taxing district where Stainberg has the majority of votes, they're going to have to help pay for it.

>> There's a steakhouse, too, that that's out of the footprint.

And this is probably going to hurt their business because there'll be a lot of competition.

and to charge people outside of the footprint.

I think it just shows you who has influence in in >> Chesterfield City Council, right?

And I imagine that the steakhouse folks and I'm imagining that the jury chain already has a battery of attorneys lined up on this thing to say, how do we challenge this?

It it just to me seemed like >> something begging for a legal challenge.

>> Hey, a couple years back I had a gift card to that steakhouse and it actually is pretty good.

And then you know it Drury and those that restaurant there are kind of holding that whole part of Chesterfield together because the mall is like gone.

I guess they're about to tear it down or whatever.

So I I've gone with jury on this one like hey we have been here keeping it going without any help from anybody.

This is not what the reward we deserve.

>> You know I I think it's just fair.

If you're outside the footprint, you're outside the footprint.

>> It makes sense, doesn't it?

Well, I think your point about being left alone, one thing government clearly does not like to do, it's leave people alone.

So, >> hey, Bill, about uh five years ago, some neighbors, including some that you know, Jim Gallagher, formerly of the Post Dispatch and I, about 40 of us, we wrote a letter to all the uh congressional delegation.

We sent a letter to uh our senators Blunt and Holly and then Corey Bush at the time and Anne Wagner complaining about the United States Postal Service.

Well, this week Annne Wagner got around to doing something about it.

Uh she has decided along with Wesley Bell to ask for an investigation of the postal service in St.

Louis.

Um I think that uh Holly and uh Schmidt and others should be on top of this as well, don't you?

>> Oh, no.

I and I think you know what are they going to do?

Get some mid-level person who uh you know is is in charge sort of and and berate them.

The the post office was established for the 19th century and the 20th century and these days like when when did you last get a letter and people deposit you know direct deposit and they pay bills.

We need to reimagine the post office instead of having Anne Wagner and uh Wesley Bell yell at some mid-level person and especially Mrs.

Wagner.

You know, things really fell apart, I guess like six years ago when in the first Trump administration, he had Louis DeJoy as the postmaster who took sorting machines away and no overtime and really left the thing in kind of a bedal state.

And I know Mrs.

Wagner can't complain about a Trump thing.

I mean, we saw in Indiana what happens to Republicans who do, but to pretend like she's outraged about the mail, I thought that's too much.

I have been covering this male thing for several years now.

So, and I don't want to again I'll be covering uh the Anne Wagner congressional race, but I do want to give credit over in the Metro East area.

US Representative Nikki Bazinski from Illinois, who represents the Metro East area, has been on this subject for several years, >> four more years >> has been on there and she has talked about as much complaints as you get in the city.

Rural customers have way more.

They get their prescription drugs through the mail and they're having trouble getting that.

So, her a Democrat and Mike Boston who represents the southern tip of Illinois all the way up to Monroe and St.

Clair County and St.

Louis have been trying to do something about this and saying, "Hey, the rural people out here, I mean, I know you city guys are getting the attention, but out in the rural area, we're we're going weeks without deliveries."

So, they've been working on it for two years.

I think Bill is writing the obituary for the United States Postal Service a little too quickly.

I really do.

Too >> Oh, I I like the Postal Service, but >> Yeah, you sound like it.

>> Well, I mean, it's what it was created for is not the situation today.

>> I think Lewis DeJoy was put in there specifically to try to like destroy this thing so they could privatize it.

And it has been very effective.

It is It has become even worse than the lumbering institution it was before.

I will say though, I think it is worse in St.

Louis than elsewhere in the country.

And so as much as this is this big systemic problem and I want to lay it at the feet of the first Trump administration, what is happening in St.

Louis seems uniquely specific.

I say this as someone who sometimes goes two, three weeks without getting any mail in the heart of the city.

>> Uh we just found a whole like uh warehouse full of empty of mail, undelivered mail on the street.

I actually found mail addressed to Ronald Eley on uh Hanley Road about about four or five letters about five months ago.

>> Did you take them?

uh they put them back in the machine or the the box.

And Debbie Monterey on her way to work once found I think it was 14th Street just littered with mail that some truck had dumped.

>> I mean, is that purposeful or is that >> I mean, I don't know.

Okay.

I'm not I don't know.

I have answer to these tales, but we're going to have to have a United States Postal Service.

And please always remember that the United States Postal Service is responsible for tens of 20s of hundreds of million kids over the years getting to go to college and middle class families and all this.

Let's get rid of the post office.

Let's do like you're you're taking away one of the main cogs of middle class America.

So, >> well, I think you got to be on it and uh I I I I'm I'm happy for this investigation, but I just think it's really late for the people who allegedly live in St.

Louis.

Well, and the problems are not new because I I started to post in 1989, 1990.

I was covering night police.

I was writing stories in 1990 where someone would find a bunch of mail dumped in a dumpster.

So, this is all, you know, so the idea of a postal worker fed up with their job just deciding to dump it has been going on for a long time, but this is election time >> and so people need to do something.

Alvin, next week is the first year anniversary of that horrific tornado that hit uh parts of Clayton and most disastrously North St.

Louis.

Um what do you think?

>> Well, I let's go back to that uh press conference on Saturday morning, uh May the 17th, Eric Schmidt, the mayor, others.

We're going to do everything we can.

We're going to get FEMA and we're going to do this and we're going to do that.

And meanwhile, not a whole lot has gotten done.

um C minus for the city as a whole, possibly all the way down to a D+.

But I think part of the reason is there's just a lot of hand ringing on how much of the north side do we want to save and or can we save?

Maybe that's a better way to put it.

>> I I think I think FEMA dropped the ball.

I think uh they dropped the ball in the floods in Texas.

Uh they fired a bunch of people.

They gave them these DOGE buyouts.

They sent a lot of employees to ICE.

They put a lot of the responsibility on the state and local governments for the first time.

But they should have done a better job.

Both the state and the city, I think.

But >> they don't have the money, the machinery, or the institutional knowledge to handle a disaster.

But FEMA did.

>> Well, we had that big pot of cash that we're talking about.

And I'm not saying I'm not saying throw it all at >> It's not just It's not just money.

I think that's that's the problem.

I mean, there's a lot of money that's been allocated to this tornado that they have not been able to figure out how to spend effectively because it's very complicated getting money into programs that make sense and where you don't end up with fraud and where you can actually help people and not just like if they have a rapacious landlord who actually owned where they're living.

It is really complicated.

And I think FEMA, this is the same story as the US Postal Service.

The Trump administration went out and specifically decided they were going to screw this up and they did.

Well, >> and we're we're like one of the first test cases.

>> And I think that senators Holly and Schmidt bear responsibility in North Carolina when FEMA wasn't coming to the aid of Asheville's flood victims.

There's a senator there, I think his name is Fred Bud.

He's a Republican.

He said, "I am not going to approve any more FEMA nominees until Asheville gets some money.

I haven't heard anything like that from our delegation."

>> Yeah, I think Eric Schmidt is the one who's been tasked with carrying water on this.

And I don't see him front and center going, "We need the federal government to do more."

Well, well, well, maybe he's working though, but not front and center.

I mean, it's >> apparently not.

I mean, he is best.

>> Well, the the mayor has mentioned that he's the lead guy.

>> The money has not arrived.

I mean, for example, debris alone, we have a million pounds of it.

That's a $700 million problem.

Okay.

We only got like $100 million from the state and I don't know much, maybe that much or so from the federal government.

We're nowhere close to getting what we need.

>> I I agree.

>> But I think part of it is what are we saving?

I I I I'm just saying North St.

Louis.

>> Yeah.

Okay.

Those who need it the most.

I mean, Clayton actually, >> you go down W down.

A lot of those roofs have not been repaired yet.

So, it's not just North St.

Louis.

I don't know if it's insurance problems or lack of workers or whatever, but the people on Widown probably have the means to fix them if they could.

Um, but North St.

Louis, they don't have the means.

>> Well, I agree.

I'm just Yeah, I'm just I think there some of the delay is delay in thought of how much should we invest in the north side at this time.

>> Yeah.

Sarah, what what about the chess team at Webster?

It was disbanded.

Here's a chess team that uh set all records for the NCAA.

They won 10 Pan-American Championships.

Even the Webster newsletter that came out in January touted, "Our chess team won another Pan-American Championship."

It's only two schools have ever won 10.

It's amazing what's happened at uh Webster with chess since 2013.

And now it's like Ohio State cutting the Buckeye football team, isn't it?

>> Yeah.

I mean, Susan Puler, who ran that team, she was incredible.

built this incredible program and Webster came out with a statement and they said they were not able to raise any money.

They said zero dollars for their endowment over this chess team.

And I'm thinking, wasn't it Webster where just a couple years ago there were a whole bunch of donors who were very angry because they were taking the endowment and they were spending it just on operating costs and people had things that were supposed to go to scholarships and they're like, "Oh, we're taking that away from scholarships.

We need to pay the bills."

Why would anybody have given to Webster's endowment at that point?

I know they're trying to turn things around, but I get why this was not a popular thing for people to want to step in and say it.

>> I mean, it's it's Rex Sinfield.

I mean, if he if he won't fund it, it's not going to get funded.

>> And he's funding his own private chess.

>> Yeah.

And and I wouldn't wouldn't be surprised if he looked at the situation of Webster and thought, I don't really want to >> get in on Yeah.

I mean basically he was the one right >> behind the you know not only his chess center but then also the Webster team to make this the the hub of chess in the United States the world what have you.

>> So at some point in time do you give your money if if you're that person who's writing the big check to handle it and you don't like the way they're doing it so you say I'm going to quit writing checks.

I don't know.

People support >> his money.

People have all kind of problems with the universities they cheer for or went to and they still give money to the athletic team >> and that's up to them.

>> I know.

I understand.

So I don't I don't know.

I I don't think Rex Singfield ignored the chess team because of Webster's financial >> woes.

Maybe Singfield will move it to St.

Louis University.

There's the Sinkfield Center there, isn't there?

Yeah, but the best team was at Webster.

>> Well, I guess they'll move the whole operation.

>> I was saying why he did >> transfer portal portal.

>> Yeah.

It's secondary to he decided not to and it's his money.

So there you go.

>> He said checkmate me.

>> There you go.

>> That's it for this week's program.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks to Sarah for sitting in for Wendy.

See you next week.