ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – The fight over American Rescue Plan Act funds is heating up between the St. Louis County executive and the chairwoman of the St. Louis County Council.
The chairwoman has insisted on millions of pandemic funds going to not-for-profit agencies that help the community. But a new letter from County Executive Sam Page to the county council has other ideas she doesn’t like one bit.
About four years ago, the county government had promised funds to the organizations that do everything from increasing learning for the poor to dealing with domestic violence.
They were supposed to receive more than $10 million. But the Page administration has had a change of heart on the deal, now saying that the money should come from general revenue or maybe Rams settlement money.
Council Chairwoman Shalonda Webb was furious after getting a letter from Sam Page earlier this week.
“Those not-for-profits that were expecting these funds, we have put them at a great disadvantage and jeopardized their longevity and their businesses because we made commitments to them,” she said. “They worked with us in good faith, they made decisions based on the word of the county, and now, six or seven months later, we totally pulled the red carpet from underneath their feet.”
Webb said you cannot underestimate the importance of these agencies.
“They do a tremendous amount of work in our community, from Family Forward, to Rustic Roots, JADASA for domestic violence, and even the money to help improve the education of our early career childcare providers, all of these things are vital to our community,” she said. “This was a one-time opportunity to get it right, so the people in our community can see you’re investing back in them and not in a building.”
County Executive Page is trying to get the council to approve sending to voters a plan to spend $600 million on a new county administration building and police headquarters.
“I do believe those are two separate entities. However, if I cannot trust and depend that you would do the right thing with…less than a hundred million dollars, how can we honestly say that you have the best intentions with a half-a-billion dollars?” Webb said.
Page sent the county council a letter outlining his objections to ARPA funds for nonprofits.
Webb does not believe Page’s plan to spend $600 million on the buildings will fly with taxpayers.
“I think that is the wrong call. I think that’s disingenuous. And I think if this was his long-range plan, why did we waste three years, a year of those subrecipients’ time, two years for the council, and a year from the general community, to ask them what would they like to see invested in their communities?” she said. “We did all this activity over a three-year period?”
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