The League of Women Voters of St. Louis will be moderating a candidate forum for those who seek to be elected Mayor of the City of St. Louis in the April 7, 2009 election. And for the first time, all four candidates — Francis Slay, Robb Cunningham, Elston McCowan and Maida Coleman — have confirmed they will attend.

The forum will be held on Monday, March 30th from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at Central Library, the main branch of the St. Louis Public Library, located at 1301 Olive Street . This forum is co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Downtown St. Louis Residents Association.

The St. Louis Oracle

The mystery of Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman’s surprise mayoral candidacy still weighs on the minds of many political observers, including the St. Louis Oracle. In his latest blog post, the Oracle, a self-described political junkie for over 50 years, suspects another well-known politico may have an interest in torpedoing any viable challengers to Francis Slay: Mike McMillan.

Without offering much proof besides that Denise Coleman has 19th Ward roots, the Oracle theorizes:

If Maida Coleman’s challenge to Slay were successful, then she’d be the incumbent mayor in four years, and McMillan would not be in a position to challenge a fellow African American for the top job. (Yes, I know, Clarence Harmon successfully did just that to Freeman Bosley, Jr. in 1997, but Harmon won with white support, not black support.) Slay’s reelection is now also in McMillan’s self-interest.

Hmmmm… well, if we’re discussing third party self-interest, what about Aldermanic President Lewis Reed? He’s probably the man most likely to be the next mayor now — especially if Francis were to step down near the end of his third term, maybe to accept a judgeship or another attractive appointment. And there is a Reed-Coleman connection. She used to be attorney for the Board of Aldermen.

Or what if Francis does have plausible deniability even though his staff put Coleman #2 in the race. I mean, remember who we’re talking about here. Word has long been that his chief of staff and campaign manager Jeff Rainford was fired years ago as a journalist at KMOV after trying to entrap a priest with a male prostitute. Not the most honorable people in the world.

So the list of suspects grows longer and the days till Election Day grow shorter. And in the end, maybe Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman is just a political novice that thinks she’s the next Barack Obama. If so, God bless her heart. And may He bless some of our other leaders with the courage that naivity provides.

Read Oracle’s full post at: http://stloracle.blogspot.com/2009/01/is-mystery-coleman-filing-mac-attack.html

In 2005, Mayor Francis Slay was forced to defend his failures as a police board member. He was re-elected but his performance as the city’s only elected representative on the police board didn’t improve as scandal after scandal eventually got the attention of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney.

Two weeks ago the St. Louis American broke an intriguing story about how a committee associated with Mayor Francis Slay has been paying two local African-American newspapers for positive front page coverage at a time when the black community’s dissatisfaction with the Slay Administration is at an all-time high.

The committee that paid money for “media” (not advertisements) to the St. Louis Argus and Gentry Trotter [Publisher-at-large of the St. Louis Evening Whirl]… is Citizens for a Better St. Louis.

Slay’s positive coverage in the media has been remarkable as of late, especially considering his role in the recent police department scandals. As a police board member, Slay excused Chief Joe Mokwa for his role in the towing scandal and never said a word about illegal practices which caused so much financial harm to many everyday working people — that is, not until the FBI and the U.S. Attorney got involved. Then Slay and the rest of the Board suddenly reconsidered their opinion. But still Mokwa was allowed to resign with a generous severance package. He even took his $5,000 badge with him.

Nothing seems to stick to St. Francis. Especially in the eyes of the editors of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Post has had a hard time concealing its cheering for Mayor Slay’s re-election. Yesterday they incorrectly reported that his top challenger, State Sen. Maida Coleman, had decided not to run against him. And in recent weeks, their coverage of the election regularly began with leads like “Don’t look now Maida Coleman…” and “If State Sen. Maida Coleman does indeed jump into the mayor’s race, she may have hardly anyone left to endorse her” (Nevermind that most black elected officials in the city have refused to support Slay).

With the exception of the columns of Sylvester Brown, not a critical word of the Slay Administration and its many missteps, misdeeds, misdemeanors, and more can be found in the pages of the city’s only daily newspaper.

You would think that Slay had found a way to pay-to-play in the mainstream media the same way he has in the black press.

Maybe he has.

As the Missouri Legislature is about to reconvene next week, the mayor has prepared a list of his priorities, the things he will instruct city lobbyists to push for in Jefferson City this year. On the list: “Support for daily newspapers”.

Iowa-based Lee Enterprises, which owns the Post-Dispatch and 48 other daily newspapers across the country, has been losing money and cutting jobs all year long. Without some public money, the Post may fold as so many other daily newspapers have across the country.

In fact, the St. Louis Business Journal recently reported the company’s stock had dropped so low that it received a notice from the New York Stock Exchange that its stock had fallen below the exchange’s continued listing standard price and was nearing non-compliance with the NYSE’s market capitalization standard. At last check, the stock was selling below 36 cents a share.

In politics, I am always suspicious of starving politicians. People in powerful elected positions who have very little money in their pockets and are truly struggling to put food on their tables are faced with a daily ethical and moral dilemma. It’s dangerous for the community to have these people in power too long because it is a rare politician who can resist selling out their community in order to feed their children.

It would appear the owners of our only daily newspaper are facing a similar dilemma. Unfortunately, our community cannot elect a new daily paper every four years.

Well, St. Louis’ news media got the story wrong today. After the deadline to file for mayor ended at 5:00, with few reporters actually covering the event, the TV news stations reported falsely that State Senator Maida Coleman had filed for mayor. Channel 5 even claimed she did it an hour before they reported it at 5:02 PM.

But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch gets the prize for reporting completely false information. The website of the city’s only daily newspaper reported that Coleman decided not to run for mayor, which was factually incorrect.

What Coleman said in a press conference at the Election Board was that because it appeared that Mayor Slay was illegally backing a stalking horse to run in the Democratic primary, she would instead battle him as an Independent in a heads up race in the general election in April.

After the paper was called out on their error, they soon amended the misleading headline.