The Police Board's Idea of "Community Outreach"

The Police Board's Idea of "Community Outreach"

I noticed this item on the left side of the front page in last week's South City Journal, but couldn't find it online anywhere until now.

This summer, the Board of Police Commissioners for the City of St. Louis, will be holding its monthly board meetings "in the community."

Their first stop, on Wednesday, June 21st, at 7:00 PM?

Word of Life Lutheran School gym at Eichelberger and Jamieson -- the same place where the St. Louis Hills Neighborhood Association regularly meets.

St. Louis Hills, of course, is a very, very pleasant neighborhood in which to live. While I have been criticized in comments on previous posts for not recognizing the increasing diversity of Southwest City, nevertheless it seems pretty clear that St. Louis Hills is not demographically representative of the "community" as a whole that is the City of St. Louis. (See table below)

2000 Stats	St. Louis Hills	Citywide
% White	96.8%	43.9%
% Unemployed	3.3%	11.3%
Median HH Inc.	$67,125	$32,585

About ten years ago, during the Bosley administration, I was a member of the Mayor's Youth Advisory Board, managed by Jamala Rogers at the City's (now defunct) Office of Youth Development.

The MYAB sponsored a forum on Youth and Police Relations in spring 1996, at the Wohl Recreation Center in Sherman Park at N. Kingshighway and Dr. Martin Luther King Drive. It was quite heated, but quite interesting and useful to watch.

Perhaps, if the Blunt-controlled Police Board wants some really meaningful community input, they could have their July meeting up at Wohl.

And then for August, somewhere in the Third District would be good: maybe Cherokee Recreation Center? (Where, strangely, former aldermanic president Tom Zych is apparently the current director.)