An abridged version of a public letter from renowned activist Percy Green on the Special Advisory Committee on St. Louis Public Schools appeared in today’s Post-Dispatch as a letter to the editor. It reads:

Commissioner of Education Kent King’s Special Advisory Committee is a fraud. Mr. King appointed to the committee people who supported St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay’s failed policies. Such policies led to the accreditation drop from 64 to 39 points, three years of mismanagement, outsourcing, turmoil and five superintendents. Two fair election processes have begun to repair the problems that the Slay board majority created for our St. Louis Board of Education.

The final two Slay members of the board (Ronald Jackson and William Archibald) are up for election in 2007 and must be replaced for the sake of our children and stability on the board. Because the community rejected Mr. Slay’s failed experimental programs for public education, he now calls for a state takeover of public education, implying that St. Louisans are too stupid to vote correctly.

Board president Veronica O’Brien’s behavior is a distraction from moving the new board majority’s agenda forward. Ms. O’Brien launched a series of attacks on Superintendent Diana Bourisaw. After Ms. Bourisaw refused to be intimidated, Ms. O’Brien supported state control.

The committee recommended that the current elected school board members should not have full authority over the St. Louis Public School District. The excuse was a survey that everyone knows was not representative or credible.

If Mr. King should accept the Danforth-Freeman committee’s recommendation, lawsuits and protest demonstrations should emerge targeting those throughout the state who are responsible.

For years, Green has been a vocal critic of Mayor Slay and policies of SLPS under the Slay-backed majority. In August he lost a lawsuit against the city in which he claimed Slay fired him as director of the Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprise Certification program because he was openly critical of what he called a “broken” certification system.

At Friday’s press conference on the need for public hearings before any state action, Green called out Post education reporter Steve Giegerich for what many see as biased reporting.

It would help “if the newspaper would print the news fairly,” said Green after a question by Giegerich.

“I know you don’t like me saying that, but it’s the truth, Steve,” he said.

An article in Friday’s Post-Dispatch gives props to Pub Def for our political coverage throughout 2006. Thanks to political reporter Jo Mannies for the love.

French, who operates Pubdef, said political activists at all levels had better get used to the relentless characteristic of these blog sites.

As he sees it: “The Internet has introduced the 24-hour news cycle to local politics.”

Two members of the city’s school board stood by other community leaders today to defend their embattled school district from state takeover.

Board members Bill Purdy and Donna Jones said that now that the district has changed course, after three years of de facto rule from the mayor’s office, it is once again focused on gaining full accreditation — which Purdy noted it is closer to attaining than many other districts around the state.

“The confusion you see on the board is a manufactured confusion,” said Jones.

State Reps. Robin Wright Jones and Jeanette Mott Oxford, Teachers Union President Mary Armstrong, and Rev. James T. Morris, a parent of children in SLPS, were among the speakers at this morning’s event.

Check back later for videos of two school board members defending the district from takeover.

More elected officials are joining calling on state education officials to conduct public hearings before any action on St. Louis Public Schools is taken.

State Representatives Jamilah Nasheed, Jeanette Mott Oxford, Robin Wright Jones, school board members Bill Purdy and Donna Jones, Committeemen Jesse Todd and Jay Ozier, Rev. James T. Morris, activists Percy Green and Jamala Rogers, school board and aldermanic candidate Bill Haas, and representatives of the unions representing teachers and admin istrators joined with parents this morning for a press conference outside the downtown headquarters of SLPS.

Nasheed, who was the first to call for public hearings, said there should be no takeover of the school district at this time.

“We’re demanding that the Missouri Department of Education hold public hearings here in the City of St. Louis before they make any decision to take over the public schools and take away the people’s right to vote,” said Nasheed.

Also this morning, Comptroller Darlene Green and state senators Maida Coleman and Jeff Smith issued statements in support of public hearings.

“Public input will be essential to forming a consensus about the direction of our schools in the important weeks and months ahead,” said the joint statement from Coleman and Smith.

“Ultimately, we all want the same thing, which is for our children to have a safe environment to gain a quality education. To help achieve this goal, the public should feel it has been involved in the process.”

READ IT HERE FIRST

Comptroller Darlene Green has joined in the call for public hearings before any state action on St. Louis Public Schools.

“I support the community’s call for the State Department of Education to conduct a public hearing on the St. Louis public schools report,” said Green in a statement released today.

“With the School Board election just three months away, the state and the committee should consider that a change in board members may be all it takes to end the turmoil. A state takeover, on the other hand, could result in a continuation of the political controversy instead of focusing efforts on what’s best for the children”

“Any of the committee’s recommendations, short of a takeover, need broad public support to be successful. A public hearing on the issue here in St. Louis would go a long way towards doing just that,” said Green.

Last week State Rep-elect Jamilah Nasheed sent a letter to the president of the State Board of Education requesting such a public hearing.

In April, parents Peter Downs and Donna Jones pulled off a huge political upset by defeating two incumbent school board members that were backed by Mayor Francis Slay and were well financed by some of the city’s business interests. But the support of the city’s elite nor spending more than $50 per vote could make up for the incumbents’ lack of parental and teacher support.

“There are a lot of angry people out there,” James Buford told the St. Louis American. Indeed there were, and still are — maybe even more today.

Pub Def was the first to report on a major shake-up in the Legislative Black Caucus that ousted State Rep. Ted Hoskins as its chairperson, replaced by State Rep. John Bowman.

Pub Def asked has Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan become the Che Guevara of southside liberalism? Don’t ask us. Ask The Bill McClellan Motherfuckers!

In his state of the city address, Mayor Slay announced plans to seek voter approval for a sales tax that would pay to hire 50 new officers and fund a “Career Criminal Unit” in the city prosecutor’s office.

Post-Dispatch publisher Terrance C.Z. Egger resigned. “Even in a job you love, sometimes 10 years is enough,” he said.

The five-way race to replace the term-limited State Sen. Pat Dougherty began to heat up with the candidates attending forums around the city. Pub Def’s camera was there at many.

Concerned citizens took to the streets (see the video here) to protest a proposed McDonald’s development in Jennifer Florida’s 15th Ward.

Maxine Johnson, a homeowner in the 3rd Ward, picketed on Easter Sunday in front of Bethlehem Lutheran Church to call attention to a plan supported by Ald. Freeman Bosley, Sr. to use eminent domain to take her home as part of a planned redevelopment project.

On April 21, Vince Schoemehl and his supporters celebrated the 25th anniversary of his swearing-in as mayor of the City of St. Louis.

Pub Def’s camera was there as Air Force One landed in Columbia carrying President George W. Bush (Click here to see our exclusive photos). Anti-abortion activists parked two large trucks in front of the State Capitol displaying graphic photos of aborted fetuses. They were meant to send a loud message to President Bush and others during his visit.

Continuing to hold State Senator-elect Jeff Smith as the elected official all black officials should strive to be like, the St. Louis American today labeled State Rep-elect Jamilah Nasheed the “un-Jeff” for requesting public hearings on the issue of state takeover of St. Louis Public Schools.

The still anonymous authors of the “Political Eye” said that Nasheed’s suggestion “overlooks the fact that the Special Advisory Committee has been doing its business in public, as required by the Sunshine Law. Also, if the powers in play wanted the fate of the pubic schools decided by the folks who show up at school board meetings, then it would never have appointed this committee in the first place.”

Of course the “Eye” fails to mention that Donald Suggs, publisher of the American and former campaign treasurer for the original 2003 slate of school board candidates backed by Mayor Francis Slay, was one of the members of that Special Advisory Committee.

And they also fail to mention that while most of the committee’s meetings took place in public, those meetings never allowed time for public comment.

Nasheed’s suggestion is a good one and, quite frankly, is the least the state should do before acting to disenfranchise 300,000 people.

In March, Pub Def asked the question “Where have all the real Democrats gone?“

Former 20th Ward Alderman Sharon Tyus filed to run for state representative in the 60th Distric against activist Jamilah Nasheed.

Mayor Francis Slay’s appointees kept overruling Fire Chief Sherman George.

Alderman Steve Gregali (D-14) led an unsuccessful filibuster against the bill to create a civilian review board. It eventually passed anyway. Then Slay vetoed it.

BTW, cops hated CRB. “Where do they get the idea that some shitbag should have the right to investigate a police officer?,” wrote one person on the St. Louis CopTalk electronic bulletin board.

Senator Barack Obama came to town to stump for Senate candidate Claire McCaskill.

McCaskill’s mom, Betty Anne, lent her daughter “elderly cred” with senior voters.

Pub Def suggested 3 easy things Metro could do to improve pubic transportation in the City.

There was an allegation of a physical confrontation in the school board campaign.

Chris Goodson became president of the police board, which then, after Mayor Slay left the meeting early, approved waiving the residency requirement for the department’s 500 civilian employees. The board later reversed itself. (Then later in the year reversed itself again.)

Pub Def broke the story of how University City Mayor Joe Adams was edited from a CALOP-commissioned documentary about the city because of campaign politics.

Committeeman Francis Slay, Sr. jumped on the Jeff Smith bandwagon.

RFT editor Tom Finkel apologized after his reporter, Chad Garrison, lifted quotes from one of our exclusive videos without giving us credit.

State Rep. Sherman Parker, the lone black Republican in the state house, bucked his party and filed to run against a fellow Republican, Congressman Todd Akin.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accepted the apology of Dave Lenihan, of St. Louis’ own KTRS 550AM. Lenihan was fired after he used the racial slur “coon” when discussing the Secretary. He quickly said it was an unfortunate slip of the tongue and just as quickly (and inexplicably) had Harold Crumpton of the local NAACP jumping to his defense.

Pub Def was the first to report the selection of Julie Szymula Feier to replace Frank Ollendorff as city manager of University City.

We also presented the first-of-its-kind video voter guide for the U-City’s mayor’s race.

Deputy Mayor Barb Geisman testified before a House committee on eminent domain, defending the City’s use of the power, which one state rep described as “willy-nilly.”

Pub Def proudly endorsed parents Peter Downs and Donna Jones for school board.

Superintendent Creg Williams tried to prevent teachers from volunteering on Election Day.

The St. Louis American responded to observations we made about the relationship between political advertising and newspaper endorsements in that paper and others.

The “AmShack” was officially pronounced dead.

And political op Lou Hamilton won our first ever “Name That Politico!” contest.

The Missouri Republican Party sent out a press release this afternoon attacking State Senator-elect Jeff Smith, a Democrat, on his decision to oppose Gov. Matt Blunt’s appointment of Donayle Whitmore-Smith to the State Board of Education.

“Smith today showed that he is more interested in bowing to Democrat Party bosses than doing what’s right for Missouri students,” said the Republicans.

“Smith contradicts himself by praising Whitmore-Smith’s efforts on behalf of urban education in the St. Louis area then in the same breath rejects her nomination because of a lack of experience,” said Paul Sloca, communications director for the Missouri Republican Party.

“Jeff Smith’s politically-motivated rejection of Donayle Whitmore-Smith is a slap in the face to the African American community and to our urban schools. Jeff Smith is turning his back on his constituents in order to garner favor with Democrat leaders who have opposed Whitmore-Smith’s nomination,” said Sloca.

“It is this kind of dismissive attitude toward our urban schools that have led to problems like those currently surrounding the St. Louis Public School District. It’s a disgrace.”

Meanwhile, Gov. Blunt is also voicing his displeasure with Smith’s decision.

“I am deeply disappointed that one of the Senator-elect’s first actions is obstructing the appointment of a well-qualified African-American woman who would have done a magnificent job on the State’s School Board,” said Blunt.

“Donayle Whitmore-Smith was one of two African-American leaders I appointed to the State Board of Education. I am pleased that Reverend Stanley Archie of Kansas City will at least be given the courtesy of a hearing even though the same courtesy was not extended to Donayle.”