As if East St. Louis weren't already a national joke, St. Clair County Democratic Committemen and the head of the county Democratic committee were convicted this week of voter fraud in the 2004 election. Frankly I'm surprised, because usually no one votes in ESL. If they did, they wouldn't be in the mess they're in would they?
The crux of the conviction is that the officials paid voters $5 each to vote for Democrats last November. In 1931 an East St. Louis vote cost only $2. Quite a long way they have come.
This is the place that couldn't afford garbage pickup for five years, so everyone threw their trash in the street.
The city once had almost 100,000 residents, but now has only 40,000 and remains the same size. The population is literally made up of grandparents and grandchildren. The middle-aged flee for somewhere better. There's no employment base.
The city lost a civil suit in 1994 and couldn't pay the plaintiff, so the judge ordered that payment be the deed to the city hall. Not until last year could the city afford to buy the deed back.
And this is the place that is represented by the imbecillic Wyvetter Younge. She is a seventy-year-old woman who is in the pocket of Michael Madigan. She wants to raze the city to the ground and rebuild it underneath a dome. And she wants to rename it "Old Man River City." She's had plans drawn up and has a scale model on her desk in Springfield. I notice that she's done nary a thing to improve the city as long as she's been in office, despite all the votes she's cast for anything Madigan wants.
Of course, all blame cannot be laid at the feet of the decades of Democrats who have had a stronghold on the elective offices from this city. We had Republican governors when ESL was at it's worst. I don't understand why there isn't a joint program between Illinios and Missouri to invest heavily in ESL and get her on her feet. It seems to me that St. Louis would appreciate getting rid of the current eyesore it has to look at every day. Just go to the top of the arch and see for yourself. It's ugly.
I can't imagine how things could possibly get any worse....
1 comment:
Poor East St. Louis - echoes the story of many other rust belt cities in the midwest. Look at Peoria if you want to see a city doing something to turn itself around, with its new riverwalk and businesses opening up in the former ghostly empty downtown. I don't know if ESL (English as a second language?) can do it considering it is the quintessential city of poverty and degradation (see Vacation with Chevy Chase).
Oh, and I saw you yesterday waiting to cross the tracks after getting off the 4:38 train! Ain't that Grand, I says? It is Grand!
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