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Thank you so much for joining us for this edition of Donnybrook on this national birthday weekend.

Hope you're having a good time and we're gonna try and make sense of the stories that took place in the city of St.

Louis and around the region this week.

I'll see how successful we are.

Wendy Weise is with us, the media veteran.

From the Post Dispatch, one of our founders 39 and a half years ago, Bill McClellan.

Also from the Post and stltoday.com, Joe Holleman.

And sitting in for the vacationing Alvin Reid, we welcome Jacob Kirn, managing editor of the St.

Louis Business Journal.

And Jacob, thanks for joining us.

We're gonna start with you this week because you have reported that even though the check was written in November or December of 2021, the RAMs settlement, the money that had been given to the region as a result of a lawsuit by the region against the NFL and Stan Kroenke, finally today they decided to allocate every penny in the city of St.

Louis, 255 million dollars.

So there's money for infrastructure, which could include water mains.

There's money for downtown.

There's money for tornadoes.

And what else do we see here?

Yeah, it's been quite a saga, hasn't it?

Because we couldn't get it into interest bearing accounts for a long time.

And then Megan Green stormed off in that one meeting where they couldn't determine what to do.

But now they've determined what to do.

And so it's 120 million dollars supposed to be for North City, 55 million, as you say, for downtown, and then 40 million dollars in this infrastructure.

I think what is sticking out to me is that in terms of the tornado and North City, a big chunk of this is supposed to go into, again, stabilizing buildings that have really had a problem getting the roofs on and getting maybe people back into them.

But I think there's been fair questions about the city has had a bad track record on this in terms of fraud in these stabilization building programs.

And one thing that I've been thinking about is we'll say that we stabilize some of these buildings, but the private owner of these things doesn't then have money to fix them up even more.

Are we in a situation where tons of these properties just slide back into the ground?

And was that an effective use of the Rams money?

So that's what I've been thinking about.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Exactly what he said.

I think there's a huge question when it comes to that as to putting that much money in there.

And I will just repeat with no details.

I thought every dime should have went to the water department.

So I thought a compromise was necessary.

And, you know, you give a chunk to North St.

Louis, do something for downtown and try to give a chunk to the water, the infrastructure.

Yeah.

And I thought that there were very vocal opponents to this particular fifty five million dollar chunk downtown on the north side.

They were appeased somehow.

Not really.

Not really.

They wanted more.

But but really downtown needs a lot of help.

I think that is the business community I can definitely speak for.

That is a bright spot in terms of they feel strongly about getting some of these roads into two way streets, getting rid of some of this drag racing, sidewalk infrastructure, things that can kind of shore up what's crumbling down.

We've been down that road so many times.

We poured tens of millions into Washington Avenue, hundreds of millions into the Gateway Arch.

We built Ballpark Village subsidized or at least the stadium subsidized by the taxpayers.

The the arena where the blues play that was subsidized by the taxpayers.

We had all of that was pre covid.

No, no, no.

We have put billions literally into downtown St.

Louis, if you include the the money for the gambling and everything else.

And now we're going to put in fifty five million dollars.

You know, Pittsburgh's putting in six hundred million dollars.

My concern is you put a little bit forty million dollars into water mains when it's an eight hundred million dollar problem or you put in one hundred and twenty million dollars in the north St.

Louis when that's a seven hundred million dollar band aids.

They're not going to make any impact.

Well, actually, Charlie, to look at it that way, you couldn't have solved any single problem with all this money.

Well, you probably could have made a bigger dent into the water mains.

I happen to agree with Joe because that would have benefited every neighborhood, North City, downtown and beyond.

And it would it would provide a lot of work for a lot of people.

It was one reason why we asked the mayor this week.

This feels on your podcast.

It feels like that the need just completely outstrips the resources and all these different categories.

And so don't you need to look at a more macro level solution going back to some kind of government merger or she mentioned a possible overlay district or a city reentering the county?

Just something to change this trajectory, because it just seems like the need just massively overstretched.

The county's broke, though.

But that's that was her point in the article, is that there is now there's real hurt, you know, back.

I'm not saying that it was this we were having.

We were in the salad days when you know, when when Rex was Mr.

Sinqfeld was was proposing this.

But I think we have been humbled quite a bit in the last five, six years.

And I think a lot of people who were immovable on this merger is no longer immovable.

No, those those are the people in the county because the county says, oh, we were eighty million dollars in the red.

Yeah, we'll get into the city.

We'll probably get some of that money, whatever they have, because they've been running surpluses actually for four years in a row.

So and then you're in the city and you're saying, oh, do I want to merge within the county where the county executive says to his department heads, you cannot talk to the county council because one of the members of the county council threatened to punch our health director in the mouth.

OK, I think so.

You're thinking about survival.

You're saying, oh, yeah, I want to not.

Well, this is a marriage for money.

I mean, exactly.

He wants to marry the county for money.

And the county says, you know, we're actually broke.

We ought to marry the city.

Yeah, the city's got that good name and the ballpark.

Yeah, that turns out great.

That turns out great.

Sometimes it's OK.

Hey, Joe, let's go to I guess it's actually St.

Charles County where the public works supervisor for Baldwin was driving down 64 40 and apparently got into some sort of exchange with a 35 year old motorist.

And they one guy was driving in front of the other and then slowing down and vice versa.

And then they both got off at Wing Haven Boulevard.

And it turns out 35 year old Jake Sherman got out of his automobile and proceeded in some manner toward the vehicle that was operated by the public works supervisor of Baldwin, who had a firearm, shot him dead.

And now the public works supervisor is up on murder charges.

Is that about right?

Yeah, I mean, certainly it seems to be.

And when I say it's just about right, obviously there's a whole full police investigation that's going to have to happen in a trial.

And so what exactly happened still remains to be seen.

But the prosecuting attorney out there, Joe McCullough, former city cop of a long time, was pretty upfront about that.

At first, this was billed as the Baldwin engineer, city employee being attacked by Jake Sherman, the end of the ultimate victim.

But he ended up charging the Baldwin employee saying no, no, it was the other way around.

So I think there's some questions there as to how much in danger was the Baldwin engineer, because McCullough, the prosecutor, did not believe the story that this guy was acting in a self defense, that he believed he was the one that started it.

And I thought that was really interesting in terms of law enforcement, when when McCullough said to I suppose you that, that if you are the initiator, if you have initiated the aggressive behavior, then you cannot turn around and then say, oh, but he cut me off and I was scared.

You can't do that.

But it's it was bad judgment on every everybody's part.

These road rage things.

I mean, they're just unbelievable.

And the idea that the guy in the Prius had a gun.

I mean, you don't think this isn't some guy.

Well, he lived in St.

Charles.

I think it completely validates my plan.

Always.

I'm never going to speed past somebody if they're speeding past me.

Do not honk.

Do not look them in the eye.

I assume everyone has a gun and I assume that some percentage of them are going to be willing to use it.

Not for that much of a provocation, by the way.

And that is a Baldwin employee's defense.

Apparently, the passenger of the late Jake Sherman said that Sherman was agitated.

He tried to talk him down, but Sherman got out of the car anyway.

Now, would have could have should, of course.

But why in the world would anyone in this age would be seemingly everyone has a firearm.

You never get out of a car and confront somebody.

It's rage.

It's rage.

Neither person is thinking clearly.

They're angry.

They're terribly upset.

And the consequences are life-threatening.

And there's also the anonymity.

There's that anonymity that people sometimes feel, at least they used to before the age of cell phones, when people can literally video what you're doing on the road.

And as you so accurately point out, Jacob, you have to assume that even the 79 or 90 year old motorist could easily have some kind of a handgun in their car.

Let's also say if you get out of the car, it doesn't mean you deserve to die.

Right, right, right, right.

No, but it's it's it's you're asking for it to escalate.

But as Bill said, you're not being rational or logical.

Well, how about the shooter who ends up being the person who calls the police?

How often does that happen?

Well, I think I think he realized what he had done.

I think in that moment of blind rage, you know, he he said, I felt in his immediate right conversation with a 911 operator, I felt threatened.

I felt I was being, you know, beaten or something.

And and I shot him.

Well, Bill, there's another another law and order story this week.

It's a sad one going up to the Baden neighborhood last Friday.

A 10 year old shot a seven year old, his cousin, I think seven month old, seven month old.

I'm sorry.

You're exactly right, Wendy.

10 year old shot a seven month old.

The first reports were the 10 year old has been charged with first degree murder, and now they have charged the father of the seven month old, a 19 year old who apparently had the firearm under a mattress and the 10 year old located it used it.

Apparently it wasn't the first time he had picked up that firearm in that household.

So do you do you in 2026 charge a 10 year old with first degree murder?

Well, only to get it into the juvenile system.

I mean, no one expects a 10 year old to go off to adult prison or anything like that.

And the 19 year old and the father, wherever he is.

I mean, these people leaving guns laying around.

It's awful.

I mean, I don't know what they do with the 10 year old.

I mean, it's conceivable to me that a 10 year old kid could be evil or could be a bully.

But it's just as conceivable that the 10 year old doesn't know what the heck he's doing.

So I have no solutions.

I was my initial thought was some kind of pediatric psychiatric facility.

They have them.

I'm sure they do.

Of course they do.

Certainly in 2026.

I just think all I want to know is there's a whole bunch of things I want to know that go well beyond that.

It was a 10 year old who shot a seven month old that we know and all these reasons could be right.

But I want to know where were the parents of the 10 year old?

You know, where was if this gun was always there?

I mean, I just want to know because somewhere somebody's responsible.

I say whoever's gun that was it did have a gun lock on it and it was in the home of a 10 year old.

And apparently there was also a seven year old in that house at the time.

I think that's the person responsible.

And so I think maybe the charges will let them then look into that.

Like I don't see them.

I don't see him putting this 10 year old on trial.

I don't know.

It's the same story as the as the 12 year old who got into a an Uber to come in to the the the sky zone when there was going to be that team takeover with her butcher knife.

You know, I was babysitting three year olds on the block when I was 12 years old.

And I mean, I want to know where their parents were too.

I don't know what the legal process would be in terms of, you know, going through juvie and then maybe having to go to a different adult type prison.

But I would just hope that the person could get enough help, psychiatric help, as you say, some kind of mental counseling, and then have a reevaluation at the end of the, you know, juvenile period to maybe avoid ruining the rest of that person's life.

Well, that's what they do.

I mean, yeah, they're a judge will make a determination when the 10 year old, assuming the 10 year old is found guilty and is put in the juvenile system.

When he's 18.

I think the judge makes a decision, you know, based on what the juvenile people tell him.

Well, I still think that it's the adult who possesses the firearm, who put it near within reach of a 10 year old and not locked up.

And not locked up.

Yeah.

Wendy, you work for many radio owners.

And it turns out that how many three or four here only two.

So Oh, well, good for you.

Maybe I should go to somebody else on this topic.

Okay, but I'll go to you anyway.

Let me ask you about David Hoffman.

He is the guy who was the son of a milk truck driver.

He grew up in Washington, Missouri, Congressman Gephardt, and he became a billionaire.

He owns Oberweiss Dairy, Pittsburgh Penguins, he owns 110 or 120 newspapers 70 through Lee Enterprises, where he has a controlling interest and another 40 outright.

So this week, he announced that he's going to buy KMOX radio from Odyssey and five other local radio stations that are part of the Odyssey cluster as they call that.

What do you think about this?

Well, online on social media, which is that's where I hang out because I am retired.

But the the reaction was swift.

You know, people were very upset because they think that he is some kind of right wing.

I don't know.

I don't know what but it was just kind of and then they always mentioned Mr.

Highland and he must be spending.

Well, KMOX has changed hands quite a few times since Mr.

Highland died in 1992.

So I he did die in 1992.

Correct.

Okay.

So so this is nothing new.

I mean, there is nothing new to really report here.

I just kind of think because, you know, technically, when you think of an AM radio station and a newspaper, that is not exactly in the vanguard.

Okay.

I mean, but I also believe that this country has never been more divided.

We are seeing a rapid ascent of socialist Democrats or democratic socialists.

We don't know what's going to happen with the Republican Party.

So to have a more robust fourth estate to have, you know, AM radio isn't going anywhere.

AM radio, whether it's KTRS, KMOX, it's not going anywhere.

There's always going to it's like newspapers.

There's always going to be an audience.

I think he might have I think he have he might have some pretty solid ideas in terms of business plans and the information and the way people receive it.

I totally disagree.

That's okay.

Because in 2005, the commercial radio industry was a 21 billion dollar revenue industry.

I get it.

Today it's nine.

I get it.

Nine billion dollars.

It's less than half of what it was.

And that's even with all their digital stuff that they've added.

You know, it's not like we're just talking about terrestrial.

So so if you want a great radio show, you're going to bring out a lot of money.

You're going to have to buy the producers, the engineers, the top talent who are not going to work for 20 bucks an hour.

Right.

You're going to have to put together a show that really I mean, bring in Conan O'Brien.

You mentioned Mr.

Highland.

He thought big.

He had Costas and Deardorff.

He called Larry King and said, Larry, I want you to start Monday.

And Larry King at the time was doing a CNN show.

But that's how he looked at the world back in those.

Yeah, there he thought that television was a fad.

And it turns out that all those years later, he's right.

So now it's all about streaming.

How can a smart businessman know something that maybe Les Moonves didn't know when he sold all the CBS?

I hope that Mr.

Hoffman is right, because, you know, I'm rooting hard for newspapers.

Obviously.

And, you know, listening to radio in my car.

But it's not an investment that I think makes a whole lot of sense.

But he but he he's a smart guy.

He became a billionaire and he really did start with nothing.

That's right.

So it's hard for me to sit here and say he doesn't know what he's doing.

But you know about Washington, Missouri or Augusta?

He was turning Augusta into wine country.

OK, it was going to become the Napa Valley of the Midwest.

And he was going to have a what an eight hole golf course, a 12 hole golf course.

That was actually a good idea.

But he is he he is a billionaire.

OK, this this is let's focus on his the business acumen.

OK, and he's still a trillionaire.

But he doesn't fulfill all his promises.

It's hard to lose a billion dollars.

But he has he has purchased Camo X, which was the jewel in the crown of the CBS radio network.

And I guarantee you he didn't pay what it was worth 20 years ago.

That's the point I was going to say.

You talk about prices.

We don't know what price he got this at.

How much did Odyssey I mean, how much was this?

If the price if the worth of the industry is going down, so is the sale price.

That's right.

He might have got a deal.

I don't know.

Let's put him into context, too, though, because there was some laughing earlier this year when he had an event with us and he told us, you know, I'm closing on Lee today.

I'm closing on Joe's newspaper and I'm going to buy the Penguins.

And we have all these different plans.

And by the way, I also want to buy the Cardinals.

And people laughed and they cited Augusta and said, well, we'll be waiting for the check to clear, you know, until the cows come home.

But now you're seeing this local empire kind of line up, just as he said, the Penguins cleared.

The Post is adding people and now Camo X is there.

And he says that there is going to be interesting synergies between the Post and Camo.

And I also think when you have people talking about like, well, Mr.

Highlander, that was 30 something years ago.

I mean, I think that spinning in the grave is done now.

But that's what that's always what the response is.

I will say that Camo X is I've never met David Hoffman and I'm skeptical about this move.

But I did have dinner the other night with a woman whose family sold their business to Hoffman.

And she said he's the most decent guy.

He came through with everything they asked for.

And believe it or not, even though her family ran the business, she told me that the employers, the employees were much happier under Hoffman than with her family.

And he didn't fire a single person.

That's wonderful news.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, I for one, I'm heartened to hear Joe, you reported this week that Al Alfred 62 year old retired firefighter and union leader has thrown his hat in the ring.

He's going to take on the president of the Board of Aldermen Megan Green in next year's primary.

The idea that someone was going to oppose her is no surprise because she has been a polarizing one way or the other.

People really like her or they really don't.

So the idea that they were going to come up with a candidate that was going to happen and a bona fide candidate, you know, not just your perennials that always run for office.

And I think here they have a candidate who, by all appearances, is a serious candidate, not only a retired 32 year, 33 year veteran of the fire department, the rescue squad, but for 12 years, head of local 73, the firefighters union, which is a very powerful, politically powerful union in the ST Louis area.

And so I think this is a race to look forward to.

I think that was, I think my story announcing his candidacy was just the beginning.

I think this is going to be a race that is going to pose a challenge to miss green.

Uh, and it's coming from a person who has experience in negotiating with people, cutting deals, working things out.

And if it comes to knowing the city, as he did point out, and we didn't get to a good story, he said, I have been in every neighborhood in this city more than once.

This is the final step really in the makeover of the city lead.

I mean, yes, going to moderate people from Tashara Jones to Kara Spencer, uh, Donna Berenger becoming a comptroller and, uh, Gabe Gore from Kim Gardner.

Right.

And, and now this gentleman to try to take over from Megan green, the, it's the final collapse.

If it goes this way of the progressives who thought they were, I would point to that, to the map from the 25 election with Kara Spencer, uh, you know, overthrowing Tashara Jones because Tashara Jones was a lockstep ally of Megan green.

And so when you look at that and how much that Tashara Jones, Megan green voter eroded, and then you look at that Tashara Jones is base was up North.

Well, this gentleman lives in the West end.

Does he not?

Right.

Right.

So I would say Megan green has a serious problem.

Well, and I thought it was so interesting because like right out of the bat, right off the bat, he said, he said, I believe in, in dialogue and compromise and conversation because we've, we've said so many times that whether it's the police board and the mayor or any other entity, there's no dialogue.

It's scorched earth.

It's you're wrong.

I'm right.

We're not going to talk.

And this man seems to be very serious about dialogue.

And he also saved a puppy from a frozen lake.

That's actually a bigger deal.

That is that alone would propel him.

Okay.

But then again, Wendy, we've seen recently where democratic socialists have done well in New York, in Colorado, in this year, they might be ascendant.

Who knows?

He happens to be a firefighter and it's going to be interesting if he's on the board of estimate and apportionment, is he going to be in favor of police races, which automatically include firefighter raises?

Huh?

I don't know.

Um, you know, she did say on Friday to Elliot Davis, this is Megan green, and she's in favor of defunding the police.

And I know that's been unpopular.

I don't know if it's going to be unpopular now.

So you think that from 25 to 27, the city voter is just going to flip because of these races in New York.

One thing is Trump and the other thing was around in 20, 25 police.

Trump has never, Trump has never went away in 2025.

When Kara Spencer was elected, it was showing as, as both got to wrap it up.

Jacob pointed out.

I don't think that trend is here in St.

Louis.

We shall see that we will.

Let's go to the old mailbag and see what people had to say about last week's program.

You rarely get it wrong, but note the builder with the third is a proven successful leader and a family man at the opposite of Bush.

The fourth went succeeding his father.

Let's show respect for good citizenship and stewardship that from Linda and Brian of St.

Louis.

We also heard from Tom Torak of St.

Louis who wrote, we should not be giving the guy who orchestrated an insurrection voter information.

He is not qualified to have Alvin is 100% correct.

Thank you, Tom.

You can write to us care of nine PBS, St.

Louis, Missouri, 63108.

Don't forget those emails.

Donnie brook at nine PBS.org and on social media, tag us with hashtag Donnie Brooke.

S T L call the nine line when you get a chance at three, one, four, five, one, two 90, 94.

And make sure wherever you are, if you're on vacation, like Alvin, listen to us on your favorite podcast source.

We have a program on YouTube.

It's called last call.

It's on the Donnie Brooke channel and you can ask access that we talk about the topics we didn't get to in the first 30 minutes this week, we'll be talking about a new curfew for those under 17 in downtown and downtown west.

So we hope you join us for that topic.

Meanwhile, thank you, Jacob, for sitting in for Alvin Red.

Everybody else.

We'll see you next week at this time.

Donnybrook is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson foundation and the members of Nine PBS.