On April 29th, 2020 Mayor Quinton Lucas of Kansas City announced his 10-10-10 plan for reopening Kansas City.
It would start midnight May 6th with some non-essential businesses that aren’t open to the public being allowed to bring in their employees. Businesses that are open to the public must follow the 10-10-10 plan.
Limit customers to 10% of building occupancy or 10 people (whichever is larger)
Record the name, contact information and times of any customer that is in the the business for more than 10 minutes.
Religious gatherings like weddings, church services and funerals can resume with 10 people inside a location and 50 people outside, as long as social distancing is maintained and they keep the names and contact information of attendees.
Wait….what? Now you want a record of who is attending a church service?
By May 5th, 2020 Mayor Lucas had clarified the church requirement:
“On all of the rules, we do have the final requirement which relates to contact tracing,” Lucas said. “That was that if you are a salon that keeps appointments, you should hang on to those. If you’re a restaurant that keeps reservations, when you open in a few weeks, hang on to those, and something’s been discussed a lot. If you’re an event, a religious institution that has people check in and sign in all the time, you should keep those.” The reasoning, according to Lucas, isn’t to “keep big lists,” but so that the organizations can contact people to make them aware of a coronavirus outbreak, should one occur. “That’s what it’s all about,” Lucas said. “It’s a voluntary requirement.”
This makes complete sense for a salon with appointments or a restaurant that keeps reservations. It isn’t an unreasonable hardship, and truth be told, they probably have that information for an extended period of time anyway. What religious institution has people check in and/or sign in? How long do you think it will take before Mayor Lucas starts asking for the attendees of a religious institution under the guise of covid-19 contract tracing?
Oh and don’t forget: Lucas said if someone wants to report a business not following these guidelines they should call the city 311 line.
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin.
What do St Louis City, Kansas City, Springfield and Liberty all have in common? They all have annual licensing fees ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 on “short-term lending establishments”. Interestingly enough on the same day that the Springfield City Council voted to start imposing the fees Curtis Trent (R – Springfield) added language to a bank bill stating
“local governments are not allowed to impose fees on “traditional installment loan lenders” if the fees are not required of other financial institutions regulated by the state, including chartered banks.”
While Trent states this was not intended to protect Pay Day Loan companies specifically and “traditional installment loan lenders” are different. Advocates for the ordinance say
“that while a payday loan wouldn’t normally count as a “traditional installment loan,” many payday lending institutions also have a traditional installment loan license. Rather than being two separate businesses, the multiple licenses could allow such a lender to claim the fee imposed because of their payday loans is disallowed by Trent’s measure since they are also a traditional installment loan lender.”
Brian Fogle, the CEO of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks and a co-chair of a Springfield city committee appointed to study payday loans stated
“A lot of these payday lenders are shifting to this type of product,” he said.
Unlike payday loans, which must be less than $500 and are supposed to be paid back within weeks, installment loans can be larger and are paid back over four or more months. They can still carry triple-digit annual interest and create similar problems for borrowers, though.
He allowed that expanding those offerings could have some positive effect for consumers because the loans are paid off gradually.”
Hmmmm…..maybe they aren’t as bad as we thought.
In the meanwhile Crystal Quade (D-Springfield) the House Minority Leader stated
“People use the payday lending industry when they are in desperation and obviously, there’s a lot of that right now,” she said. “This will be harmful.”
So is it better that people are desperate just don’t get the money they need?
Their wish to shut the Pay Day Loan companies down may still come true as at least Payday Money Centers is suing for access to the small business lending program. In fact the pay day lending industry states that it is being unfairly excluded from the small-business lending program. Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) was one of the authors of a letter to Secretary Mnuchin and Administrator Carranza pleading their case. Surprised Bought & Sold Lacy Clay didn’t sign on.
J Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation shares the fight his organization has been involved in trying to get information on how many non-citizens are on the Pennsylvania Voter Rolls.
The latest brewing controversy in St Louis County has been over the federal stimulus money being received to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In the left corner is Council Chairperson Lisa Clancy. In the right corner is the “Republican Caucus” members Mark Harder, Tim Fitch, and Ernie Trakas. The question at hand is how to handle the $180 million in federal stimulus to fight COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a public health emergency,” Clancy repeated in response. “We need to move swiftly. There is ample opportunity for council members to get the information they need to make an informed decision about this, and I encourage everyone to do so.”
Republican caucus says:
“The county executive has already earmarked certain government officials and departments in our region for their use with no oversight; long before this money ever reaches St. Louis County.”
Could Clancy have a hidden motive behind handing all the money over to the county executive to use as he and his appointees see fit?
“She said she did not have a conflict of interest. She said when Page hired her brother, he did so without her consultation. She said she wasn’t thrilled about how it would look, but that it had no impact on her role as council chair.”
Admittedly though the county executive should keep an eye over his shoulder given is Campaign Manager’s resume
Organizing Director – Mantovani for STL Sept 2017 – Aug 2018
Responsible for the creation and implementation of a detailed field plan, $300,000 budget, and strategy
Field Director – Citizens for Steve Stenger April 2014 – Jan 2015
Managed the field campaign for Steve Stenger’s successful bid for St. Louis Count Executive
Shoot…..even the highly biased editorial board of the St Louis Post Dispatch thinks it is a bad idea:
“The Post-Dispatch editorial page weighed in on the matter. “Even if they have the best of intentions, their backroom, partisan maneuvers stink of impropriety.””
It should be interesting how this plays out….it doesn’t bode well for Chair Clancy when Bill McClellan says
“For a liberal Democrat the rule is this: When you’ve lost the Post-Dispatch editorial board, you’ve lost the room.”
“During a Feb. 12 episode of the “The Jim Bakker Show,” Sellman claimed the so-called Silver Solution was able to eliminate some strains of coronavirus.
Asked if the Silver Solution would be effective against COVID-19, specifically, Sellman replied, “Let’s say it hasn’t been tested on this strain of the coronavirus, but it’s been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and it has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours.””
Now the former Governor of Missouri AND a former Attorney General of Missouri Jay Nixon says that Bakker is the real victim.
That
“Bakker has a First Amendment right to urge viewers of “The Jim Bakker Show” to get their bodies ready for the end times, even if the methods of doing so might not hold up to secular scrutiny. “Pastor Bakker was engaged in a religious practice and speech during this show, as he is in his daily shows out of Blue Eye, Missouri,” he said. “
We will just ignore that
“Last month Bakker asked viewers to mail in checks after credit card companies refused to work with him due to his show promoting the phony remedy. He also complained that his legal challenges had given ammunition to critics who wanted his “head on a platter” while forcing him to pay lawyers who seek to “bleed” him to death.”
So glad the former Governor is making good use of his time.
St Louis Election Law attorney and Americans for Citizen Voting board member Jalesia “Jasha” McQueen shares her thoughts on how voting is a privilege and should be limited to only citizens. Click here to watch the entire town hall.
Due to the coronavirus, Lambert St Louis Airport has experienced a projected $17 million loss of revenue.
The airport has performed cost cutting through cutting projects, a hiring freeze, reducing budgets and approving $34,000 for a public art installation commemorating the 100th anniversary.
Wait, what?
Don’t worry the money is coming from a fund dedicated to public art and not the operating budget of the airport.
Meanwhile concessions and other businesses serving airport travelers are struggling and asking for help from the airport. The very generous airport offered a 3 month deferral of rent to be paid sometime in the next 12 months. Commissioner Sean Fitzgerald, a vice president at Enterprise Holdings said that wasn’t enough.
With St Louis City Mayor Lyda Krewson and St Louis County Executive Dr Sam Page taking the very very slow path to restarting businesses in the area we can only imagine a recovery will not be quick.
TheWall Street Journalasked former politicians and military leaders their views on what positives may come out of the Corona virus pandemic. The former House majority leader’s answer was partisan and quite frankly an embarrassment. You would think that a guy who represented a flyover state for all those years in Congress would understand how important the electoral college is to states like Missouri. Without the electoral college, the east and west coasts, Florida and Texas would elect the president every four years.
“Change the electoral college to a national popular vote (and) adopt full or leveraged matching public finance of small contributions for congressional campaigns for any candidate who forgoes private fundraising…I understand those two changes sound unrelated to the present pandemic, but my thought is that when we face similar global and national threats in the future, it is essential that citizens trust their leaders enough to follow them.”
COVID-19 is an important break, and one the US should use as an opportunity. Consider: How many African leaders are now going to want to drape their arms around their Chinese equivalents?
How many are going to be interested in dialing up trade with China in the near-term? And how many are going to want to import droves of Chinese contractors to build schools and bridges and roads for Africa?
The answer: very few. Cameroon, South African, Senegal, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and Sudan have all confirmed cases of COVID-19, and both the numbers of countries and the number of infected individuals is set to rise. When those numbers go up, China’s stock in Africa will plummet.
This is an historic opportunity for the United States to step up, show leadership, and build the kinds of bil-lateral ties that have held our country in good stead for generations.
It was just weeks ago that the Secretary of Defense announced plans to potentially draw down America’s presence in Cameroon and others of what is known as the Sahel region. Read more…
Due to the coronavirus, Lambert St Louis Airport has experienced a projected $17 million loss of revenue.
