ST. LOUIS — A Board of Aldermen committee voted Thursday to restore millions of federal dollars earmarked for north city commercial corridors that Mayor Tishaura O. Jones vetoed last summer, a move that could reignite a battle over how the recovery money is spent.
Arguing the programs amounted to "general economic development" that federal rules disallowed, Jones had vetoed the commercial corridor programs amid a political struggle with Aldermanic President Lewis Reed and his allies over the federal money.
But Reed on Thursday pointed to final regulations on local government funds allocated under the American Rescue Plan Act that clarified uses for the funds, granting wide discretion if they were used in low-income census tracts, which cover virtually all of north St. Louis.
"We had this in the original bill," Reed told the Post-Dispatch. "It was clearly an appropriate use of funds and a legal use of funds. I'm just thankful with the U.S. Treasury's final ruling they made it abundantly clear to everyone."
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Reed said the spending lines up with priorities in the city's 2020 Equitable Economic Development Strategic Framework, which calls for investing in and supporting the city's key commercial corridors, including many of the north St. Louis streets identified in the new spending plan.
"What we're doing is backed by a bigger plan," Reed said.
Members of the committee — most of them allied with Reed rather than the progressive bloc that supports Jones — voted unanimously to send the spending package to the full board, which won't be able to pass it until after board's spring recess.
But it's unclear whether Jones will support a measure that in effect reverses her veto. In a letter Tuesday, she urged the committee to hold off on discussions over the second round of $249 million on the way to St. Louis until more public input could be gathered. Instead, she asked aldermen to focus on the remaining $39 million yet to be allocated from the city's initial $249 million round of funding, outlining several priorities, including direct cash assistance, early childhood education and building stabilization and demolition to combat vacancy.
Reed's proposal, first unveiled Thursday, appeared to take the mayor's office by surprise. Jones spokesman Nick Dunne said after the committee vote that her office and the City Counselor's office are "reviewing this new proposal for the first time."
The amendments add $4 million to the $33 million in commercial corridor spending proposed last summer. The bills would allow businesses and nonprofits to apply for grants funding expansion or community services. Grants would also be available for a portion of the costs to rehab commercial storefronts and other properties in the corridors.
More north St. Louis streets would also be included in the program, including Delmar, Union, Goodfellow and North Broadway. Only four corridors were included in last year's plan, with more than half of the money — $20 million — allocated to Martin Luther King Drive.
Reed said those areas need investment and if Jones is sincere in her desire to reinvest in north St. Louis, the proposal "should not be a long discussion and it should not warrant any pushback."
The new Treasury rules do appear to remove ambiguity about the use of the funds for small businesses and nonprofits in low-income areas such as north St. Louis, specifically listing uses including grants for small business expansion and commercial rehabs.
Under the plan from the aldermen, the money would be administered by the city's economic development arm, the St. Louis Development Corp., which is already administering $29 million for new programs from the first round of federal spending.
But the plan would also require that any grants over $100,000 be approved by the area's aldermen — which Reed's office says pushes decision-making closer to the community and is similar to aldermanic support traditionally required for zoning bills and sales of city land bank property.
The requirement for aldermanic approval for grant funding will also give many aldermen leverage over a major spending program just as a major election that will reshape the board by cutting its membership in half looms a year away.
Editor's note: This story was originally published online March 10, 2022, but it disappeared from for at least one week due to a technical error. It was reuploaded at 3 p.m. March 21, 2022.
