If Claire Can Twitter So Can The Aldermen

I’m fortunate to have, as my representative on the Board of Aldermen, the youngest (and tallest) member: Kacie Starr Triplett.  She twitters.  That is she sends out posts on the micro blogging site, Twitter.  She also has an infrequently updated blog.  Of all 28 Aldermen she does a far better job them most.  She was just starting grade school when some of her collegues were first elected to the Board of Aldermen.  Micro blogging is so named because the maximum length of a post is 140 characters.

But it is not just the kids doing the Twitter thing.  Missouri’s junior Senator Claire McCaskill also posts regularly to Twitter.  McCaskill is 55.

Here are a few samples of Senator McCaskill’s tweets:

New Chief of Staff on board March 1. We will miss Sean(went to WH), but Julie Dwyer is gonna be terrific.Change is good.

Things look good on compromise. Officially got sub committee on contracting. Going to basement to grab lunch while walking.

So Senator McCaskill gives little tidbits here and there.  Ald Triplett does the same.  Here are a few of her recent entries:

Just left a meeting with the owners of Union Station. Discussing upcoming renovations and new Marriott hotel

I really liked this one:

My eyes are burning from cigarette smoke in Loop restaurant. Ingrain in Brain: SmokeFree. SmokeFree

During a recent meeting of the Board of Aldermen she posted:

Friday board meeting. Nothing too interesting or out of the ordinary today.

Less than a half hour later she posted:

I spoke too soon. Troupe vs. Bosley on advance warning signage for red light cameras. Several point of orders throughout debate

McCaskill now has over 6,000 followers on Twitter.  Triplett has 93.  I have 118.  Bill Streeter is a mad man on Twitter and has 1,081 followers.The Post-Dispatches’ Jake Wagman has 286 followers. For the most part my blog posts are my only tweets — posted automatically using my feed so the follower gets headline and link.  I sometimes post commentary. Facebook gets more updates than Twitter.

But the beauty of Twitter is that you can follow the tweets of others without them needing to approve or reciprocate.   I like seeing tweets from both my U.S. Senator and Alderman.

One is middle fifties and one is late 20s.  Both realize they are in public office and they have an obligation to communicate with the public.  While each likely has constituents lacking internet access, I’m glad they do not limit their communications to the least technological.

In our current times using only one avenue for communications just doesn’t cut it.  Neighborhood meetings are great for those able to attend.  Newsletters are costly to produce and are not timely.  Pols can’t call everyone to give verbal updates.

Twitter is free.  For elected officials good communications need not mandate a large staff or a big budget, just a smart phone.

Here are links to the Twitter posts of the folks mentioned above:

• Claire McCaskill
• Kacie Starr Triplett
• Steve Patterson
  
• Bill Streeter
  
• Jake Wagman

Lost?  Confused?  If so read more about Twitter on Wikipedia here.

Seven Lanes, No Waiting

Seven lanes, no waiting.  No, not the checkout, that has plenty of waiting.  I’m talking roads.  We’ve got ridiculously wide roads around here.

Jefferson & Market come to mind.  Jefferson North of I-64 and Market West of Jefferson each have seven lanes — three travel lanes per direction and a center turn lane.  Seven!  These wide roads pre-date our interstate system.  Roads like these two, Natural Bridge and others were widened to serve a city with a population over 800,000 and expected to top a million by 1970. Instead of passing a million residents we were at 622,236 in 1970 and by 2000 we were under 350,000.  Yet our roads are still designed for much greater traffic than is typically present.

When the highways like I-70, I-64, I-55 and I-44 these excessively wide roads returned to their prior status as local arterial roads.  Except that somebody forgot to come back and trim down the road width.

The new Jefferson viaduct between I-64 and Chouteau is finally open in both directions.  It contains two travel lanes per direction, a reasonable number.  I can think of no arterial roads in the City of St. Louis that need more than two travel lanes per direction.  It is no surprise that the areas adjacent to these wide roads are lifeless.

Formerly wide streets like Delmar (West of Kingshighway) have received new planted medians to consume excess width.  Ditto for Grand between Arsenal & I-44.  I’ve expressed before my wish to use the width for modern streetcar lines.  However, medians can be built down the center now and streetcars run in the outside lanes later.  One thing is certain, these streets are not going to magically reinvent themselves.  Government intervention created the current widths and it will take government intervention (aka $$$) to remake them in a more reasonable for.

Of course funding projects in the city today is more challenging because we have fewer people to split the cost.  Back then they were clearing away obstrucxtions to make room for an increasing number of automobiles.  Today we’d be spending money for different purposes — to reactivate the streets and the private property along them.  Some of the adjacent land is public such as the long vacant Pruitt-Igoe site at Jefferson & Cass (map).  Redoing Jefferson & the Pruitt-Igoe site go hand and hand.

If only we had slimming these streets ready to go as “shovel ready.”

Mayor Slay, Geisman, & Rainford To Be Deposed in Century Case

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, Deputy Mayor Barb Geisman and chief of staff (now campaign manager) Jeff Rainford have all been served subpoenas to be deposed in Century case against my friends Roger Plackemier & Marcia Behrendt.

Plackemeier & Behrendt have been accused of “malicious prosecution” over their previous legal challenges to the Old Post Office redevelopment project, which included preventing the historic Century Building from being razed and replaced by a parking garage.  The deposition date is February 27th.  The lawsuit,  first filed on April 19, 2005, will begin over four years later on Monday April 27, 2009.

I personally believe the case to be a SLAPP suit (strategic lawsuit against public participation, see Wikepidia).  Slay, Geisman & Rainford will be questioned about the withdrawal of an alternative plan for the redevelopment of the Syndicate Trust/Century Building by a development team that included Craig Heller and Kevin McGowan.  Heller was later able to obtain and renovate the Syndicate Trust.

Both sides will be presenting motions before the court this morning at 9am.  See all my Century Building related posts dating back to 2004 here.

Candidate Questionnaire Responses from the 25th Ward

Four years ago I was a candidate for Alderman in the 25th Ward, losing with 44.1% of the vote in the 2-way race . In November 2007 I moved downtown to a loft in the City’s 6th Ward where Kacie Starr Triplett was elected earlier in the year after a 3-way race.

Dorothy Kirner, who defeated me in 2005, decided not to run again this time.  Four candidates filed as Democrats.  The winner of the March 3rd Democratic primary will potentially face Independent Chris Clark on April 4th (assuming he submitted signatures yesterday and they are verified).

This election cycle I sent out letters to candidates in contested primary races asking them to complete an online questionnaire.  The following are answers from three of the four candidates on the Democratic ballot in the 25th Ward: Shane Cohn, Travis Reems and Angie Singler.  A fourth candidate did not respond.

4. Campaign website URL is (this WILL be published). Type ‘none’ if you don’t have a website/blog.

Cohn:  www.myward25.com

Reems: http://www.WardUnited.com

Singler:   www.Ward25.com

5. List your 3 main qualifications for the position?

… Continue Reading

Missourians Against Red Light Cameras

This just in from local singer and anti-red light camera activist Jesse Irwin:

The bill that would ban red light cameras in Missouri, SB211, is being ambushed. It was granted a premature, unexpected hearing by the Senate Transportation Committee scheduled for this Wednesday, February 18th at 8am at the capitol in Senate Conference Room 1. We have to keep them from killing the bill before it gets to the senate floor. I need people to do one of three things.

1. Call or email one or all of the senators on the committee. You can find them here:

http://www.senate.mo.gov/09info/comm/tran.htm

Let them know you don’t like the cameras and you support the passage of SB211

2. Give me a written statement saying they do not like these cameras, etc. You can fax it to 968-5981 or send it to irwinjes@webster.edu. I  will take it to the capitol for you and enter it into the record

3. Ride to jeff city with me on Wednesday morning to sit in on the hearing.

There is a lot of big money trying to stop us, so we are going to have to be loud and persistent.

I am organizing a group of people who will be driving down to attend the hearing. If anyone is interested in going and would like a ride, they can send me an email at irwinjes@webster.edu or call me at 314-775-5760.

Thanks again,

Jesse Irwin

http://www.redlightcameraban.com/

Now that I’m driving a car again I’m concerned about the cameras.  Not that I might get caught doing something I shouldn’t — that a camera might falsley cite me.