What’s the best way for a city to delegitimize a worthy concept like providing economic development grants in struggling neighborhoods?
Like this: Approve city legislation to alter the grant program in a way that allows a chunk of the money to go to relatives of the city alderwoman who sponsored the legislation. Then, for good measure, refuse to tell the public exactly what all the grant recipients plan to do with the money.
The veil of secrecy that city officials have draped over a $37 million grant program for 50¶È»ÒÊÓƵ’ north side would be problematic under any circumstances.
The fact that well over $1 million of that pot is being handed out to entities with ties to Alderwoman Shameem Clark Hubbard — including members of her politically prominent family — makes it outright unacceptable. Especially because some recipients wouldn’t have even qualified for the grant but for a measure Clark Hubbard sponsored to expand the program’s eligibility guidelines.
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Mayor Tishaura O. Jones risks allowing one of her central policy initiatives to become irrevocably tarnished with the appearance of grubby insider politics if that veil of secrecy isn’t lifted. She should publicly demand that the 50¶È»ÒÊÓƵ Development Corp., which administers the grant program, ends this outrageous stonewalling and tells the public exactly how this public money is being spent.
Jones has championed the grant program since its inception three years ago, targeting $37 million of the city’s federal pandemic funding windfall for grants to businesses and nonprofits geared toward rejuvenating the long-neglected north side.
The program, initially mired in political and bureaucratic complications that delayed dispersal of the money, finally began authorizing grants this summer, based on scoring of applicants by the SLDC.
That process continues. However — as the Post-Dispatch’s Jacob Barker reported in a meticulously documented piece Sunday — the SLDC is refusing to specify how all the recipients will use the money, citing a loophole in Missouri’s Sunshine Law that arguably doesn’t even apply to the situation. And one that, in any case, they aren’t required to use.
The Sunshine Law generally requires public bodies to provide public documents to anyone who formally requests them, with exceptions that can be invoked in specific circumstances.
The SLDC rejected the Post-Dispatch’s Sunshine request for the applications of several of the awards approved in late June. Barker reports that the agency cited a Sunshine Law provision that allows public bodies to withhold information related to “a negotiated contract until a contract is executed.â€
A “negotiated contract†would generally be understood to apply to situations like the city hashing out details of agreements with public-service unions or city contractors.
The notion that an applicant seeking grant money for, say, opening a salon in an underserved neighborhood or starting a nonprofit for homeless services is “negotiating†with the city is a stretch. And stretching the Sunshine Law in order to hide details of politically connected grants can only serve to diminish public trust in the entire process.
As Barker reports, Clark Hubbard, the alderwoman, sponsored legislation to loosen the geographic requirements for grant applications. The SLDC had requested a more expansive program to make it easier to disperse the money. But that doesn’t negate the fact that Clark Hubbard’s own family and its allies benefited from the change, to the tune of almost $1.3 million.
Grants pending include $500,000 to a tenant organization led by Rodney Hubbard Sr., whose son, former state Rep. Rodney Hubbard Jr., is Clark Hubbard’s husband.
Rodney Hubbard Sr.’s granddaughter, Ebony Washington, is slated to receive more than $760,000 in two grants for a homeless services nonprofit that she created a month after the approval of Clark Hubbard’s legislation loosening the eligibility standards for grants.
Then there’s Todd Irons-El, a close associate of the Hubbard family, who is slated to get a $25,000 grant for what he told Barker is a convenience store. But Barker found that what’s actually at the address in question is the Moorish Science Temple of America, for which Irons-El is listed as a sheik.
It’s a truism in public service that the appearance of conflict of interest is damaging in itself, regardless of whether there’s evidence of genuine malfeasance. That’s because a public already jaded by political opportunism throughout government has a tendency to assume the worst about situations that look bad.
The SLDC says it will let the public know what all the money is being used for after it’s been formally dispersed. That’s not how governmental transparency is supposed to work.
Mayor Jones does her legacy no favors by standing by silently as those who administer a program she has championed shroud it in inappropriate secrecy. That $37 million belongs to the citizens of 50¶È»ÒÊÓƵ and they have the right to know what every penny of it will be used for — not after it’s all said and done but right now.