Slay mixes business, nostalgia on Southest Missouri road trip
In Poplar Bluff, Slay finds church founded by his uncle
Mayor Francis Slay hit the road this week to lobby southeast Missouri legislators on bringing control of the St. Louis police department back to City Hall.
Along the way, Slay took in a little family history, too.
Slay’s trip to Limbaugh Country — which included stops in Farmington, Dexter and El Rushbo’s hometown of Cape Girardeau — comes as a scathing audit is giving Room 200 renewed zeal in its push to wrest control of the police department from the state-appointed Board of Commissioners.
In order to do that, Slay must win support from the rural Republicans who call the shots in the Capitol — and who typically don’t have the needs of the city of St. Louis at the top of their wish list.
While on his trip, Slay stopped at a church in Poplar Bluff, where a relative was the founding father.
According to Slay, who comes from a big Catholic family, the Catholic presence in Southeast Missouri was established by missionary priests who were dispatched to the area’s French and German settlements in the 19th Century.
“I thought about some of this yesterday as I passed through Poplar Bluff, where an uncle-priest had been stationed,” the mayor reflected on his blog. “Although it was already dark, I wanted to see his old church, Sacred Heart. As I approached the front door, the lights (miraculously?) turned on.”
With his cell phone, the tech-savvy mayor took a picture of the church cornerstone, which clearly shows the name of his kin, the Rev. Raymond P. Slay, and the year the stone was set, 1953.
This is something I have never understood, why does the state have control over the STLPD? Is this the only police department they have control over?
I agree with Slay, control needs to be local.
They also control the KC Police Department. Slay would love to get control so he can tap into the police pension fund to finance his other broke city pension funds.
City control would be a joke with each of the 28 alderclowns thinking they are the chief.
I read in a previous article that this came about during the Civil War because the Confererate leaning General Assembly wanted to have control over the Union leaning big city police departments.
As the travels around, does Slay tell people he was one of the members of the Police Board who were asleep at the wheel while all this was going on.
It’s no different than school districts, etc… When it becomes apparent that a tax-supported institution, depended upon heavily by the public, is at best incompetent and at worst corrupt, then the state is going to run it and try to turn it around. I’m not surprised so many people here don’t get that… as St. Louis continues to try to give Chicago a run for the Corruption Capitol designation.
Exactly right! The pro-Confedferate governor and legislature passed the state-police-control law for that very reason. The leg and governor were removed from office by Union troops for treason. That would seem to mean that any laws passed by these treasonous scum are null and void, including state control of the police.
Do we really want our idiot aldermen in charge of the police? Or for that matter the cop’s pension fund? You’ve got to ask yourself “Why does the city want control”. It’s always about money. always. The pension fund sure is a nice piggy bank to raid as other cities have done.
Yeah it’s about money. The Police AND the BOard have made it that way by spending like drunken sailors for years. Have you people already forgotten about the $5,000 chairs and $6,000 Gold-plated badges? They’ve been getting tens of thousands of dollars of free Cardinals tix illegally for years. Read the State Auditor’s full report @ http://www.auditor.mo.gov/press/2009-123.pdf. They get raises every year even when the rest of city employees don’t. Even custodians, accounants, clerks. They park illegally dangerously close to cross walks and intersections downtown and target the media when it is brought to light. We need a new chief from out of town, fresh blood. Current rules require chiefs from current ranks, this is a ridiculous rule found almost nowhere else. Bottom line is, they have no accountability. They write bill to the city each year and the city has to pay it period. Local control is comin’ boys.
How can a lawyer be an executive?