ST. LOUIS — Citing the pandemic-spurred economic slowdown as a rationale, a petition drive was launched Wednesday to let city voters decide whether to restart the process of privatizing St. Louis Lambert International Airport halted last December by Mayor Lyda Krewson.
A city charter amendment proposed for the Nov. 3 ballot by the city NAACP chapter and the Carpenters Union would require city officials to lease all or “a majority” of Lambert to private operators if they pay at least $1.7 billion. At least a billion would have to be upfront.
The organizations, in a letter “to the people of St. Louis,” said the coronavirus pandemic and weak economy underscore the need for a major revenue infusion for the city, especially among African American neighborhoods hit disproportionately hard.
“In this current crisis, our call to seek transformational change for the City of St. Louis is more relevant than ever,” Adolphus Pruitt, president of the city NAACP, and Al Bond, executive secretary-treasurer of the St. Louis-Kansas City Carpenters Regional Council, said in the letter.
“The need to identify revenues to rebuild and revive our population is more pressing and more imminent.”
Krewson did not comment on the announcement.
Mary Goodman, an aide to Aldermanic President Lewis Reed, said by text that while Reed hasn’t taken a position, “it appears to be a large and thought-out undertaking by these organizations” and he “is willing to hear more.”
But a longtime opponent of the idea, Comptroller Darlene Green, said the city’s failure to withdraw its 2017 application to federal officials that allowed the consideration of privatization “leaves a door open to special interests to try again.”
Under the proposed ballot issue, the city would be required to spend at least $300 million of lease proceeds for police, firefighting and other public safety efforts and at least $200 million each for neighborhood development efforts and job training.
The latter would include apprenticeship programs for minorities in the construction and building trades.
At least $100 million would be earmarked for each of the following:
• Streets, bridges and parks
• Removal of vacant buildings, construction of affordable housing and home repair efforts
• Transportation infrastructure and multipurpose facilities
The plan also bars the sale of Lambert, requires that all airport debt be paid off by leasing companies and says airport employees would be offered jobs without a pay cut.
Krewson, in ending the city’s exploration of leasing Lambert to private companies, had cited criticism from residents, business leaders and other elected officials.
However, she said last week she might hold off withdrawing the 2017 application to the Federal Aviation Administration to see if there is some way to use privatization to help develop unused land at Lambert. She said she had no intention of reconsidering a full-blown lease.
The union and NAACP chapter have each kicked in $5,000 to start the drive and are seeking donations from other privatization supporters.
Pruitt, with the NAACP, and Stephanie Fleming, a Carpenters spokeswoman, both said they expected political megadonor Rex Sinquefield or organizations associated with him to get involved financially in the petition drive and potential election effort but had received no commitments so far.
Travis Brown, a Lambert privatization supporter and Sinquefield associate who played a major role in the city’s study of privatization, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The charter requires petitioners to get signatures of at least 10% of the number of registered voters at the last mayoral election in 2017, or 19,688.
If the measure reaches the ballot, the proposal would require 60% approval to pass, said Gary Stoff, an official with the city Election Board.
Fleming and Pruitt said the petition process would be more difficult than usual because of social distancing guidelines and the public fear of COVID-19.
They said signature gatherers, a mix of volunteers and paid workers, would wear masks and gloves and many would go door to door. “We’re only going to use one pen and one signature page per household,” Fleming said.
She added that organizers hope to develop a way for people who want to sign to contact the campaign. Another problem, Pruitt said, is the need to gather the needed signatures in just a few weeks. He said the citywide stay-at-home order, which ended last week, kept them from starting earlier.
While state law sets an Aug. 25 deadline to qualify for the November ballot, the charter says the measure must be before the Board of Aldermen for as long as 60 days after signatures are verified.
Krewson’s decision to end the city’s exploration of privatizing Lambert had followed almost three years of controversy. While supporters cited the potential revenue windfall, opponents said the city would be selling out to private interests and had been doing most of its analysis behind closed doors.
The privatization study was begun by former Mayor Francis Slay near the end of his tenure in 2017 and continued by Krewson.
One lightning rod was the involvement of Grow Missouri, a nonprofit funded by Sinquefield. Sinquefield paid for the city’s application to the federal government and paid millions of dollars in fees to consultants advising a city committee that studied the idea.
Grow Missouri was promised reimbursement from revenue from a lease deal but only if one was reached.
The Carpenters Union’s political arm in July 2018 received a $150,000 check from Great St. Louis Inc., another nonprofit affiliated with Sinquefield.
In January, Bond and Pruitt held a news conference to urge city officials to restart the process.
The issue resurfaced in late March when some city residents got phone calls from a polling firm asking questions about their view of a potential ballot issue that could raise $1 billion for city services through leasing Lambert.
Pruitt and Fleming, with the Carpenters Union, repeated Wednesday that their organizations had nothing to do with the poll.
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