Century Case Set for Trial Next Month

August 14, 2008 Century Building 9 Comments

Even though the historic Century Building has been razed for a few years (replaced by yet another downtown parking garage), the legal issues continue. Downtown residents (and friends of mine) Marcia Behrendt & Roger Plackemeier had filed cases questioning the project’s procedures back around 2002. They had sought to save the Century from the wrecking ball. After the building was razed the entities responsible turned around and sued Behrendt & Plackemeier in April 2005 for “malicious prosecution”. Myself and others consider this to be nothing more than a SLAPP suit.

In December 2007 I updated you on the status of this case. At the time the plaintiff’s (The Missouri Development Finance Board, The Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority of the City of St Louis, NSG Developers LLC, and St Louis Custom House and Post Office Bldg and Associates) filed motions to add another count and to add Behrendt’s & Plackemeirer’s lawyer, Matt Ghio, as a third defendant. Ghio filed a motion for summary judgment to have the whole case thrown out. I was there in the court room as the lawyers presented their arguments before the judge.

According to Missouri’s Case.net judge McCullin denied these motions on March 26th. The case is now set for a 4-day jury trial starting on September 22nd before Judge Thomas C. Grady. I’ve got work and class at SLU but you can be sure I’ll find some time to stick my head in the courtroom that week

Update 8/16/08 @ 8:15pm:

After the above post I received the following from a reliable source:

Just to clarify, Judge Grady is the judge in Division 1. Div. 1 is where civil cases get assigned to a trial division, so the case will not be tried there.

The Century Bldg. case has been what’s called “peremptorily set,” which means Judge Grady will assign it to one of our trial divisions in a couple of weeks.

Check Casenet again in a couple of weeks to see what division it’s going to (or shoot me an email to remind me and I’ll look it up)

 

Valets Continue Abusing Public Parking

August 13, 2008 Downtown 21 Comments

I haven’t written about valets in a while but a new comment came in recently on a post from January 2007. Here is an excerpt

Obviously those of you posting in attack of the valet’s have never been on the other side of things, never actually had to work for your living through college or whatever it may be. If you have ever worked as a valet, especially at Lucas Park Grille, that the amount of space that they have to work with is hardly enough for safely operating a valet service on a busy night.

Regarding parking in “non designated valet spots”, valets have just as much of a right to park their cars on the street as you do. Not to mention, especially on a weeknight when you are low manned, or even the only one working, response time is key. Therefore the most effecient solution is to park on close street parking… running to the lot 20 or 30 times when it is over a block away, gets quite old, especially when people don’t realize that the valets don’t see any of the money from the parking charge and don’t tip us. Did I mention that we work almost exclusively for tips?

Where to begin? For me I worked at a Toys R Us to get through college. Five Christmas seasons at a toy store is no picnic, that Cabbage Patch craze was maddening. We all do crappy low wage jobs to get through college — at least those of us that are lucky enough to get to go to college.

But here a valet is saying it is unsafe to operate valet service unless they have all the spaces for their own use, as was the case a couple of years ago. But basically the valet doesn’t want to do their job and go to the private lot numerous times per evening. Well, too bad.

But really the valets want to create an artificial shortage of parking so patrons are forced to use their service. If someone can just park on the street within the block of their destination why fork over $3 plus a tip? So the valets want to take away that option — it forces people to use the valet and it saves them a trip to their private lot by parking your car in a public space on the street.

caption7/25/08 -Valets for the club Lure at Washington & Tucker cone off public parking spaces on both sides of the street.

The valet waits in front of Lure with more cones ready to take spaces as people leave them.
The valet waits in front of Lure with more cones ready to take spaces as people leave them.
caption
7/26/08 - Lucas Park Grille's valet was parking cars anywhere they'd fit and simply turning on the flashers. Above two cars are parked on 13th blocking the fire hydrant - but they have their flashers on so that makes it OK? Each of these owners paid $3 to have their cars illegally parked!
caption
This Hyundai was parked just barely out of the crosswalk.

On Monday this week I noticed around 8pm that the Lucas Park Grille valets had coned off two free public spaces across the street from the restaurant. I’m not sure what is worse, that the city lets these guys abuse the public right away or that folks hand over money to these guys for them to just park the car in a coned off space within sight of the destination.

I can see valet use when an actual shortage of parking exists but when they create the shortage just to make a buck we have a problem.

 

An Older Post is the Most Popular of Late

August 12, 2008 Scooters 2 Comments

In the nearly four years that I’ve been writing Urban Review STL I’ve published over 1,500 articles — most written by me. So it came as a surprise to me that after installing a new “stats” program a week ago that my most actively read post is not current but from a year ago. The post My Honda Metropolitan Scooter, Two Years and Six Thousand Miles Later from September 4, 2007 is consistently read more than any other individual post (the main page is still more read). Why is this?

Google search.

It seems that many many people out there are searching for “Honda Metropolitan” and after Honda they get my post from last year.  More and more people are considering a scooter — if they can find one for sale.  If there was ever a time to be selling scooters 2008 is the right time.  We might be back to Hummers in 2009 but for now the scooter (and bicycle) reign supreme for personal transportation.

 

“100% Gas Sold Here”

August 11, 2008 Downtown 18 Comments

Some gas stations, here in Oklahoma City where I am visiting, have signs proclaiming their gas is 100% gas — not 10% ethanol. The price is higher for the pure gas and people are willing to pay it. Fuel mileage is reportedly better – enough to offset the modest premium at the pump.

caption
Gas stations all over the state that have pure gas advertise as much.

The price of E85, an 85% ethanol blend that burns cleaner than straight gasoline, fell 0.5 cents to $3.089 a gallon on average, AAA reported.

Ethanol, which is made from renewable resources like corn, is thought to be more sustainable than gas, but it is less efficient.

As a result, a car that burns E85 would actually pay $4.065 a gallon to get the same mileage as a car that runs on gas, according to AAA. (source: CNN Money)

caption“Our Gas is Ethanol Free”

In Missouri we have an ethanol mandate which means we get a 10% ethanol/90% gas blend regardless of our preference. State Treasurer Sarah Steelman, who recently lost her bid to be the Republican candidate for Governor, had advocated repealing the mandate. Engines must be specially designed to operate on E85 but normal engines can tolerate the 10% mixes.

We can’t all switch to alternate fuels as long as the alternates get a bad rap.

 

What a Difference 10MPH Makes

August 8, 2008 Downtown 13 Comments

When I started driving a car again following my stroke I knew I’d miss the stellar fuel economy of my now sold scooter. So I was deliberate in getting a used Toyota Corolla as they have among the best mileage for passenger cars save for the much more expensive Prius Hybrid.

Screen shot from iPhone mileage tracker application
Screen shot from iPhone mileage tracker application

I got quite a shock when I filled up the tank on 8/2/08 — the mileage was a disappointing 18.88. The city EPA for the car is 29mpg. I was pretty sure nothing was wrong with my car. The prior fill-up had been on 7/14/08 and I had only driven 202 miles. My city driving is bad for mileage and wear & tear on the car. My trips are frequent and short.

So yesterday I drove back to Oklahoma City to visit family. I filled up the tank again on Wednesday so it would be full when I left. For that week between getting gas I drove just 50 miles. This time I managed to improve to 20.597mpg.

The drive to OKC is 500 miles. I decided to use the trip to experiment a bit. Leaving St Louis early Thursday morning I set the cruise on 60mph. This felt comfortable to me as I’m still getting used to highway driving with one hand on the wheel. In Joplin I filled up again even though I had a half of a tank left. The mileage over those 300 miles was an outstanding 43.958mpg! That was with the A/C running too.

I knew when I got to Oklahoma I’d pick up the pace a bit. While the speed limit on I-44 in Missouri is 70nph in Oklahoma it is 75mph. Many drive faster, I know I usually did in the past. So when I left Joplin I through caution to the wind and kicked it up to 70mph. By this point I was very comfortable with my highway driving and was looking at the clock and thinking how slow it was going.

When I pulled off the highway in Oklahoma City I immediately got gas again. The extra speed had taken its toll, I got “only” 32.143mpg. Lots of people would kill for highway mileage in the 30s but compared to the mileage on the first leg of the trip it was a let down. That extra 10mph made a huge difference.

Perhaps we should lower highway speed limits again?

The time difference for my trip is just over an hour. I made more stops than in prior trips just to rest and to stretch. It took me 12 hours to do what I used to do in 7. Typical of my post-stroke life, everything takes longer. On my return trip next week I may just take it easy, stop off in Tulsa to see a couple of things and spend a night in Springfield or thereabouts.

The fuel savings from driving 60 the entire distance would be about five gallons, less than 20 bucks. A cheap room along the way will certainly cost more than that. Maybe we shouldn’t lower the speed limits, allowing people to decide for themselves what is the best speed/time/mileage ratio for themselves? I do think if more people knew the potential savings we’d see a natural reduction in travel speeds.

But that isn’t going to help my city mileage. All the short trips, lots of stop signs and poorly timed traffic signals are just not ideal conditions for conventional cars. Hybrid’s with regenerative braking thrive in these conditions — getting extra juice from all those braking moments.  For now I’ll just try to keep my driving to a minimum and use my plug-in electric (power wheelchair) for those local trips.

 

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