Month: November 2018

Spy vs. Spy

/ stellamarisproductions / Leave a comment

In 2015, the Russian news service landed in North County to cover the troubles at West Lake Landfill and Coldwater Creek. The question now is whether the CIA mounted a counter-intelligence operation here.

KWMU reporter Vérinique La Capra aims a microphone at  Mary Oscko as HBO and RT cameras captured the moment in August  2015 at the Hazelwood Community Center.

This story first appeared June 16, 2017 at Stlreporter.wordpress.com

It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely place for an espionage operation to take place than the Hazelwood Civic Center. But recent revelations by the U.S. intelligence community suggest that it may have been one of the locations in North St. Louis County where a secretive propaganda battle quietly played out in August 2015.

Hundreds of people gathered at the civic center for a community meeting that month had no inkling they were bit actors in this Cold War revival. The overflow crowd that jammed the conference room on August 20 attended  out of concern for the health of their families and the safety of the community. Radioactive contamination leftover from the Manhattan Project and its aftermath still plagued the St. Louis suburbs and residents wanted answers from government officials about the long-delayed clean ups.

Questions were asked, testimonials were given and frustrations were vented at the event, all captured on video by camerapersons, including at least one with ties to RT America, the Russian foreign news service.

In the heat of the moment, those present were not aware that they were pawns in a larger political struggle between the U.S. and Russia. Evidence of the covert chess game didn’t surface until January of this year, long after the meeting had faded in the community’s collective memory.

That’s when the CIA took the unprecedented step of releasing a classified report on alleged Russian interference in American politics. The unusual act by the agency was spurred by the continuing controversy over Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Those allegations remain the focus of  congressional investigations, and a probe by an independent counsel appointed by the Justice Department.

Allegations of the hacking of email accounts of Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton and her campaign staff by Russian operatives prompted the CIA’s release of the report. But the majority of the declassified information in the report is unrelated to the furor over whether Donald Trump and his cronies benefited from the alleged Russian intrusion.

Screen Shot 2017-06-16 at 4.04.20 PM

RT honcho Margarita Simonyan briefs Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in October 2012 in Moscow. (photo courtesy of the CIA’s declassified report)

Instead, the CIA released an intelligence assessment put together in 2012  that details how RT America is allegedly used by the Kremlin as a propaganda tool to cast the U.S.  government in a bad light.

The obvious question this now raises is whether the CIA mounted a domestic counter espionage campaign to offset the perceived damage being inflicted by the negative image that the Russian news service allegedly broadcast not only in America but to a global audience via the Internet.

The CIA report was compiled in 2012 three years before the Russians showed up in North St. Louis County and four years before the U.S. presidential campaign. Though classified, it can be assumed that its contents were shared with the White House and other federal departments and agencies.

It is therefore reasonable to surmise that the CIA and other government agencies were not simply monitoring Russia’s interference in America — but actively combatting it with their own surreptitious operations.

If this is true, it begs the question as to whether American intelligence assets were present at the Hazelwood Civic Center that sultry, late summer evening back in 2015.

Only The Shadow knows.

Correction: Originally, this story identified the meeting as taking place at the Machinist Union Hall in Bridgeton. Instead, the meeting took place at the Hazelwood Community Center. 

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Shaky Foundation

/ stellamarisproductions / 1 Comment

Details as to why outgoing Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley decided to give $12.5 million of the state’s settlement with Republic Services to the St. Louis Community Foundation remain a state secret — because nobody’s talking. 

Bridgeton Mayor Terry Briggs (right) participates in a roundtable discussion at a forum held at the Bridgeton Recreation Center by the St. Louis Community Foundation on Tuesday November 27, 2018

St. Louis Community Foundation CEO Amelia Bond says she doesn’t know why outgoing Republican Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley handed over $12.5 million of the state’s settlement with the Republic Services to the charity she heads.

“I can’t speak to why. You’ll have to ask the attorney general’s office,” Bond says.  The foundation CEO then shifted the conversation and began reciting a litany of laurels  about the non-profit organization’s other charitable work.

Bond was on hand Tuesday morning at the Bridgeton Recreation Center for the first of a series of forums that will be held this week and next to discuss how best to use the money for community betterment in the vicinity of the radioactively-contaminated West Lake Superfund site in North St. Louis County, which is owned by Republic Services.

The Office of the Missouri Attorney General first informed the St. Louis Community Foundation of its decision to consider awarding the majority of  the $16-million lawsuit settlement to the charity in May, says Maria G. Bradford, the foundation’s director of community engagement.

St. Louis Community Foundation Engagement Director Maria G. Bradford

Bradford also denied knowledge of why the state attorney general made the unusual decision to transfer the public funds to the non-governmental foundation. She too referred questions related to  the terms of the settlement to  Hawley’s office. The office of the attorney general has repeatedly declined to answer those questions in the past.

Under the terms of the brokered deal, the charity will oversee the specially created Bridgeton Landfill Community Project Fund, which will dole out grants to qualified non-profits to address environmental, public health and safety issues within a four-mile  radius of the landfill site, where nuclear waste leftover from the Manhattan Project was dumped illegally in 1973.

Though not unprecedented, Bond says to her knowledge there are only a few other cases in which the  Office of the Missouri Attorney General has designated the St. Louis Community Foundation to act as its fiduciary. In those rare instances, the amount of public money placed under the foundation’s control was much smaller than the $12.5 million that was part of the deal Hawley cut with Republic  Services.

St. Louis Community Foundation CEO Amelia Bond

Bond is married to Arthur Bond III, the nephew of former U.S. Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond of Missouri. In 2016-2017, Kit Bond Strategies, the lobbying firm headed by the former senator, was paid $230, 000 to represent the interests of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, including congressional lobbying efforts to turn over the West Lake clean up to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That effort failed. The Partnership is a joint agency of the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County set up to promote economic growth by melding private and public interests. It is not directly connected to the activities of the St. Louis Community Foundation.

But there is an indirect connection between the two organizations. Kit Bond, the founder of Kit Bond Strategies, has served on the board of directors of the St. Louis Community Foundation. However, Amelia Bond, a well-qualified investment banker, says she was hired to lead the St. Louis Community  Foundation prior to Kit Bond joining the board of directors of the charity, and that her relationship to the senator did not play a role in her being named CEO of the foundation.

Linda and Kit Bond of Kit Bond Strategies

About 40 people were present at the kick off event at the Bridgeton Recreation Center.  Attendees included residents, community advocates and municipal officials, including Bridgeton Mayor Terry Briggs, Councilman Ferd Fetsch, and Police Chief Don Hood.

The agreement announced in June, closed the book on five years of litigation conducted mainly behind closed doors between the state of Missouri and the trash company, which owns both the smoldering  Bridgeton Landfill and adjacent West Lake Lake Landfill that is contaminated with radioactive waste.

Then-Attorney General Kris Koster filed the suit against Bridgeton Landfill and Republic Services, its parent company,  on behalf of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources in 2013,

Missouri Attorney General and U.S. Senator-Elect Josh Hawley.

asserting violations of the law by Republic Services  that caused harm to the environment and human health. The case continued after Hawley took office last year. Hawley, now U.S. Senator-elect, will leave his state post for Washington in January. Gov. Mike Parson, who was installed as  Missouri’s chief executive after Gov. Eric Grietens resigned in  June, has appointed Missouri Treasurer Eric Schmitt to take Hawley’s place. Schmitt is a partner in Lathrop & Gage, a law firm that represents Republic Services.

The agreement required Republic to reimburse MDNR for $2 million in staff time, pay a civil penalty of $1 million and $500,000 for damages to the state’s natural resources. The corporation is also required to monitor air and groundwater under state supervision contingent upon obtaining $26 million in bond funding. 

But three-quarters of the settlement will be put into money market accounts exclusively handled by the St. Louis Community Foundation — which was not a party to the suit and does not have a depth of experience in environmental protection issues.

The final clean up plan by the U.S. EPA, which carries an estimated price tag of more than $200 million, was announced in late September.  That compromise decision calls for the partial removal of the radioactively-contaminated materials from the site, leaving the remaining waste to continue leaking into the groundwater of the Missouri River.  Making matters worse, acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler last week officially downgraded the urgency of cleaning up the West Lake Superfund site, which will further delay remediation.

Current efforts by the St. Louis Community Foundation on behalf of the office of the state attorney general to address ancillary issues and allegedly bring healing to residents of the impacted area seem premature given that not a single shovelful of radioactively-contaminated dirt has yet to be removed from the long-neglected site.

During a break in the meeting,  Dawn Chapman, who has led community efforts to address the landfill problem for years, expressed frustration in the latest turn of events. “It seems like they’re putting the cart before the horse,” she says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bradford also denied knowledge how and and why Missouri Attorney General Hawley made the unusual decision to transfer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unholy Bond

/ stellamarisproductions / Leave a comment

When U.S. Reps. Ann Wagner and Lacy Clay testified before Congress to have the West Lake Landfill clean up turned over to the Army Corps of Engineers in 2016, the public had no clue that a scandal-tainted St. Louis County government agency had paid big bucks to former U.S. Sen.Kit Bond’s lobbying firm to do its bidding on Capitol Hill. 

Academy Award Performance:
GOP Rep. Ann Wagner pounding home her message in testimony before the congressional subcommittee, July 13, 2016.

 

July 13, 2016 was just another day on the sound stage that is Capitol Hill. But veteran congressman Lacy Clay couldn’t help noting that his usual role had changed. As the audience filed into the gallery behind him, the Democrat from St. Louis took his seat at the witness table next to Republican Rep. Ann Wagner of St. Louis County.  In the moments preceding their testimony,  a C-Span microphone captured Clay’s candid remark:

“It’s kind of different being on this side,” Clay said.

Clay’s awkward small talk with his conservative counterpart ended when the chairman of the Environment Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee gaveled the hearing into session at 10:03 a.m. By all accounts, what happened next in Room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building was a rare display of bipartisanship.

Wagner and Clay — who represent polar ends of the American political spectrum — bonded together that summer morning to send a unified message. The odd couple appealed to their fellow representatives to send House Resolution 4100  to the floor for a vote. If passed, the bill would have mandated the transfer of control of the controversial West Lake Landfill Superfund site in Bridgeton, Mo. to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Corresponding legislation had already been successfully steered through the Senate under the bipartisan guidance of Republican Sen. Roy Blunt and Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

Under the lax management of the EPA, the cleanup of the radioactively contaminated site had languished for decades. Attempting to correct  the agency’s negligence was the shared responsibility of  both congressmen because the dividing line between their respective districts literally runs through the landfill. Angry residents in St. Louis County were demanding change and they made it clear that the Corps was their preferred choice to oversee the long-delayed remedy for addressing leftover nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project. The previous autumn, their protests had been amplified by local and national news coverage and the release of two documentaries on the subject.

Public pressure continued over the intervening months, stoked by monthly community meetings and non-stop social media posts. By summer, the heated issue had reached critical mass. Local activists traveled to Washington, D.C. to show support for their representatives at the congressional hearing. Besides C-Span coverage, Wagner and Clay’s joint testimony blanketed the local St. Louis news.

Unfortunately, despite the concerted effort the measure failed to clear the subcommittee. Similar legislation in the next session was also derailed.  The back-to-back failures occurred even though the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership ,  a local governmental agency, had quietly bankrolled the well-financed federal lobbying campaign for two years.

The details on how the grassroots, community-based movement morphed into a high-powered, Washington, D.C. lobbying project remain fuzzy. Calls and emails made to various private and public officials asking for comment have went unreturned.

Since its inception, no one has been in a hurry to divulge the machinations surrounding the deal, which flew under the radar using public funds without the knowledge of the vast majority of St. Louis area citizens. Organizing the congressional lobbying drive involved considerable time, a bundle of cash and lots of inside wheeling and dealing. To handle a job of this scale, the Development Partnership hired Kit Bond Strategies (KBS), the lobbying firm of former U.S. Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond of Missouri.

In hindsight, the failure of KBS to accomplish its goal set the future course for the West Lake clean up, which is now in the hands of the Trump administration.

Enter stage right: The Superfund Czar

The move to turnover the West Lake clean up to the Corps is now history.  Last month, the final EPA remedy for a partial clean up of the site — a decision that falls short of full removal — was announced by the agency.  If carried out as planned, large quantities of radioactive waste will remain on site and continue to be a threat to human health and the environment.

The long-postponed announcement came after the nascent Trump administration fast tracked the West Lake clean up in early 2017 as part of a campaign by then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to “streamline” the Superfund program. The task force created by Pruitt to accomplish that objective is now the subject of an EPA inspector’s general probe announced last month, which intends to examine the group’s secretive agenda. Pruitt and his top lieutenant Albert “Kell” Kelly both resigned earlier this year under a cloud. The controversial EPA administrator and former Oklahoma attorney general appointed Kelly, a Tulsa banker,  in early 2017 to the newly formed post of EPA Superfund Czar. Kelly’s appointment came shortly after the FDIC had imposed a fine of $125,000 and barred him from banking for life.

Lights, Camera, Action: Rep. Lacy Clay testifying before Congress, July 13, 2016.

With the latest rush of developments, the earlier pleas by Wagner and Clay to transfer the project to the Corps have now been largely forgotten, relegated to a footnote, a curious moment in time when congressional adversaries from opposite sides of the aisle put aside political differences for the common good. For a moment in the summer of 2016, it looked as if a spontaneous consensus had arrived on the scene in the nick of time.  The St. Louis area congressmen gave heroic performances on camera — and the video went straight to YouTube, where Wagner can still be seen vehemently driving home her talking points by pounding on the table. Clay’s oratory was equally impassioned. Their words expressed sincere convictions and righteous outrage, echoing the pleas of their constituents.

St. Louis Economic Development Partnership CEO Sheila Sweeney.

It almost seemed too good  to be true — and it was. In retrospect,  Wagner and Clay now appear to have been reading  from the same script of a made-for-TV movie.

Linda Bond and hubby.

What the public didn’t know back then was that  the director of this staged congressional performance was KBS.  Linda Bond, the former senator’s wife, is  a senior partner in the lobbying firm. She signed the contract with St. Louis Economic Development Partnership CEO Sheila Sweeney in January 2016.

The Development Partnership is a joint government agency of the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County, which wields broad powers and operates largely in the shadows with the benefit of millions of dollars in annual payments from  casino interests raked in by the St. Louis County Port Authority, an agency that shares the same staff as the Development Partnership. The County Port Authority’s purpose has nothing to do with ports. Instead, it acts as a conduit for the casino payments.

 

The 2016 contract between KBS and the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership.

In 2016 and 2017, the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership funneled $230,000 of public funds to Kit Bond Strategies, according to federal lobbying reports. Part of that total went to pay for the failed congressional effort to turn the West Lake Landfill Superfund Site over to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — an agency that expressed serious reservations about assuming the responsibility for taking control of the project in the first place. The exact amount spent specifically on the West Lake lobbying effort is uncertain. A request under the Missouri Sunshine Law for further details is pending.  But this much is known:  the development agency’s contract called for KBS to be paid $10,000 a month for its services. The lobbying records show that the public money was doled out to the lobbyist in quarterly payments. The St. Louis Economic Development Partnership paid the lobbying firm an additional $60,000 in 2018 , but by then the effort to persuade Congress to turn the West Lake clean up over to the Corps had been dropped.

In July, a St. Louis County Council ethics committee announced it was embarking on an investigation of a wide range of questionable activities by the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership involving alleged improprieties related to the agency’s contract procedures and real estate transactions in recent years. Its lobbying contract with KBS is not known to be a part of that investigation.

The announcement followed a series of revelations published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch focusing on the dodgy dealings of the Development Partnership and the County Port Authority under the Democratic administration of St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger  [1, 2, 3]. Among the allegations are those involving unusual  bidding practices by businessman John Rallo, a Stenger supporter and an heir to the Rallo Construction Co. fortune. Rallo has been the beneficiary of a lucrative real estate sale by the Development Partnership and he has also sought advise on two consulting  deals from Development Partnership CEO Sweeney, a Stenger appointee, in advance of submitting his bids, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Sheila Sweeney, Kit Bond, Lacy Clay and Steve Stenger celebrating the opening of STL Partnership’s Wellston Business Center expansion in July.

At the same time, political opponents of Stenger’s on the St. Louis County Council, have alleged that Sweeney is under federal surveillance. Councilman Ernie Trakas, a Republican from South County, and Councilman Sam Page, a North County Democrat, raised the allegations on July 24. The allegations were reported by Post-Dispatch reporter Jeremy Kohler in the newspaper and on Twitter.

The protracted controversy has been roiling for more than a year. But until now,  the ties between the Development Partnership and KBS have been unreported even though Sweeney’s signature is on the bottom line of the lobbying contract with that of KBS partner Linda Bond.

Trouble in River City

The St. Louis Economic Development Partnership is an autonomous county agency that distributes public money for various economic development schemes  with the help of casino revenue that it receives from the St. Louis County Port Authority. The port authority gets its funding from an estimated $5 million in payments paid by the River City Casino in South St. Louis County. Pinnacle Entertainment opened the casino in 2010. It is now operated by Penn National Gaming. The casino property is owned by Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc., a real estate investment trust that was spun off by Penn National, which controls a virtual monopoly on the overall operations and ownership of the St. Louis area gambling industry.

KBS lobbyist Julie Murphy Finn

The South County gambling site, which is located in unincorporated Lemay, is no stranger to controversy. Development of a casino at the location met stiff resistance from local businesses, churches, and residents in the past. Despite the widespread opposition, the St. Louis County Economic Development Council began wooing prospective casino developers there more than 20 years ago. Those initial efforts under the late St. Louis County Executive Buzz Westfall in the 1990s failed.  But they set the precedent for current practices.

Dec. 25, 1995 St. Louis Post-Dispatch story citing then-St. Louis County Port Authority Chairman Sheila Sweeney.

As early as 1995, the St. Louis County Port Authority accepted payments from an earlier casino developer interested in developing  the site. The chairman of the Port Authority at that time was Sweeney, who in 2018 is still pulling strings as head of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, the umbrella agency that controls the purse strings of  the  County Port Authority funds.  In 1995, Sweeney was already advocating spending payouts from gambling interests  to support the development of other sites in St. Louis County.

Dec. 25, 1995 St. Louis Post-Dispatch story reports then-County Port Authority Chairman Sheila’s Sweeney’s strident support of spending casino cash for development schemes throughout St. Louis County.

Others involved in past issues tied to  South County politics and the Lemay casino site include former South County Councilman Jeff Wagener, a Democrat who is now policy chief for St. Louis County Executive Stenger; and Wagener’s former assistant Julie Murphy Finn, the  Kit Bond Strategies’ lobbyist who oversaw the congressional lobbying  effort on behalf of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership in 2016. Wagener also sits on the board of directors of the St.  Louis Economic Development Partnership.

Murphy Finn was aided in her congressional lobbying assignment by fellow KBS lobbyist Kenny Hulshof, a former Republican congressman and gubernatorial candidate from Northeast Missouri.

Cold War Redux

But Hulshof and Murphy Finn were not the bosses of the operation. That distinction goes to KBS senior partner Linda Bond, who signed the sweetheart deal with Sweeney, the head of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership.  Both women are savvy political operatives. Sweeney has been an inside player in St. Louis County politics for decades under multiple county administrations; whereas, Bond’s career in national politics stretches back to the Reagan era and is rooted deeply in Cold War politics.

Long before she married the senator, Bond worked for the Voice of America, the propaganda arm of the U.S. State Department.  From 1985 to 1991 she served as the director in Germany of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a non-governmental agency with long-established ties to the Central Intelligence Agency.  The late William Casey, the former OSS agent and CIA director during the first term of President Ronald Reagan’s administration, served a stint as the president of the IRC, which aided Eastern Bloc and Soviet defectors.

In this case,  however, there appears to have been no need for cloak and dagger skullduggery.  Instead, the deal between Kit Bond Strategies and the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership was as easy as walking next door and borrowing a cup of sugar. KBS and the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership are neighbors in the Pierre Laclede Center II, a high-rise office tower at 7733 Forsyth Blvd. in Clayton. The development agency calls Suite 2200 home, and KBS lists its address as Suite 2300.

In the end, the motive behind the 2016 lobbying deal seems to have been predicated not on bi-partisan cooperation and concern for the environment as much as it was realpolitik, and cold hard cash.