In the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in the Book of Matthew, Jesus lays out a New Testament vision of Christianity.
The old law, he says, as detailed in the Old Testament, isn’t going away. He is the fulfillment of that law. Here’s how he describes it, in the King James Version of the Bible:
“For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.â€
ºüÀêÊÓƵ City Counselor Julian Bush must be a fan of King James.
He referenced that archaic verse in a letter he wrote Thursday to Alderman Jack Coatar that might have turned the tide against Board President Lewis Reed’s bill to ask city voters to privatize ºüÀêÊÓƵ Lambert International Airport.
On Friday, a day after Reed did a round of media interviews explaining he had the votes to pass it, the bill was placed back on the informal calendar, meaning it’s dead for now, with too few votes to pass. The bill is mostly identical to, and was filed in coordination with, an initiative petition submitted by a privatization political action committee. That committee is primarily funded by Pelopidas, the lobbying firm run by Travis Brown, whose biggest client is prolific campaign donor Rex Sinquefield, the region’s No. 1 cheerleader for airport privatization.
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Two letters written by Bush, one to Alderman Cara Spencer, a key privatization opponent, the other to Coatar, a privatization supporter, lay out the case that the initiative petition is “botched†and should not be presented to voters in November.
One line stands out. Bush says the petition is insufficient in that it doesn’t actually propose an ordinance, a requirement under the law, he says, to pave the way to a change in the city charter.
“Indeed, the petition contains nary a jot or a tittle of a proposed ordinance, let alone an ordaining clause,†Bush writes.
The city counselor, who works for Mayor Lyda Krewson, isn’t making a religious reference here, but one to the law. It’s appropriate, since at virtually every step of the now three-year airport privatization saga, the law has taken a back seat.
That’s what happens sometimes when very powerful forces, from Sinquefield to some of the multibillion-dollar corporations hoping to profit off of Lambert, seek short cuts to public debate over what the city should be doing to improve and/or benefit from one of its greatest assets.
The shame of Reed’s bill, and even the initiative petition, isn’t that some aldermen want to talk about ways to improve the airport, or ways to leverage the asset to create a flow of cash to help with much needed investments in the city’s north side, it’s that it was a rush job, both literally and figuratively, not for the city’s sake but so that Sinquefield or his entities or allies could collect $44 million from future privatization proceeds.
Hiding behind the front men of Adolphus Pruitt of the city’s NAACP branch and Al Bond of the Carpenter’s union, Reed and Brown and a troupe of lobbyists said this effort was about helping Black people and union workers, though by the end it was clear that significantly more Black organizations and unions opposed the measure than supported it.
To borrow from Bush and King James, the entire effort had nary a jot or a tittle of authenticity.
That was true when Sinquefield’s team won the bid to advise the city after writing the bid proposal and being under contract when that bid was awarded to them. It was true when Brown chose a pilot buddy who specializes in funneling dark money to Republicans as one of the key airport consultants. It was true when one of Sinquefied’s consultants went on a radio show under an assumed name to defend the project. It was true when Deputy Mayor Linda Martinez told the airport advisory board that she didn’t know what a risk assessment was. It was true when Reed told aldermen he wasn’t coordinating with the writers of the petition when the clear evidence said the exact opposite.
Reed’s bill existed because the writers of the petition knew their proposal was flawed. Bush called their bluff.
“The committee may have botched its petition because it erroneously believed Article VI, Section 20 applied, or it may have botched its petition because it misread Article V of the Charter, it’s hard to say,†Bush wrote. “But it was botched.â€
On Friday, the aldermen turned another page in the airport privatization saga. Like a biblical tax collector seeking a few shekels, though, the privatizers will be back.
So predicted Alderman Brandon Bosley, who said he was opposed to Reed’s bill.
“We’ve got to think 10 steps ahead,†Bosley said, “just like the billionaire.â€