For the Rams to stay in St. Louis over the long haul, the city needs a new stadium. It hasn’t been an easy process, and it will get no easier if the process results in local politicians claiming, with or without merit, that laws are being broken.
Via Jacob Kirn of the St. Louis Business Journal, St. Louis Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green has alleged “corruption” in relation to a committee vote supporting a stadium-financing measure. Green made the claim on Twitter, and she also wrote the she has “had loved ones offered bribes for my support.”
Green separately has posted on Twitter a statement on her official letterhead, claiming that she “contacted local FBI agents” on Thursday “to report an attempted bribe to a family member exchanging political favors for her favorable vote on the proposed stadium financing package.” Green contends that the “political favors were offered by a member of an organization with significant financial interests in the proposed stadium.”
According to Kirn, the powers-that-be already have determined that Green’s contention misses the mark.
“Our officers along with the FBI interviewed Alderwoman Green relative to said allegations, and determined that there was nothing actionable,” St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson Schron Jackson told Kirn. The FBI declined to confirm whether it had received a complaint from Green. The local U.S. Attorney said he hasn’t received a complaint from Green, adding that “when allegations without substance are made through the media those are not the sort of allegations we would act on anyway.”
The St. Louis Ways and Means Committee advanced the financing plan on Thursday, via a 7-2 vote. A vote of the full Board of Aldermen is expected next week.
St. Louis has until December 30 to submit to the NFL a final proposal for keeping the Rams. Even if the current proposal is adopted, it is expected to fall $100 million short of the previous goal of $400 million.
Which makes the entire effort ultimately meaningless. If Kroenke isn’t willing to do a deal with $300 million instead of $400 million in public money, the public money being carved out for the stadium never will be spent.
Meanwhile, there’s a fundamental difference between bribery and the age-old game of trading political favors. Absent proof of someone offering an envelope (or larger receptacle) full of cash, the mutual back-scratching that happens every hour of every day in the American political system isn’t illegal.
If it were, nearly every politician already would be in jail.
