A state representative has threatened to call a hearing in Jefferson City if she doesn’t get answers from ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Council Chairwoman Lisa Clancy on a proposal for a countywide sales tax to support early childhood education.
In a letter to Clancy on Wednesday, Rep. Raychel Proudie, D-Ferguson, asked to be invited, along with Rep. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, to a council committee meeting regarding the bill.
Proudie said she doesn’t trust the chairwoman or the Ready By Five campaign to be transparent about the bill, which would place a half-cent sales tax on the Nov. 3 ballot. The tax would raise about $85 million a year and direct part of the funds to land acquisition, wastewater treatment and other economic development projects in or outside of the county, according to the bill. There are no mandates in the bill to lower the cost of child care, a stated priority of the campaign.
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In the letter, Proudie also asked that representatives from Ready By Five, including campaign treasurer Maxine Clark, along with other nonprofit groups including WEPOWER, Ready by 21 and Opportunity Trust, be available to answer questions about their involvement in the bill. Proudie suggested she also could call a hearing of the Missouri House Committee on Urban Issues, which she chairs, to discuss the bill.
“(The push to expand early childhood education) may have very well been started by Black and brown women, but the nonprofit industrial complex saw an opportunity to co-opt this movement,†Proudie said. “There are too many questions that are unanswered.â€
Clancy on Tuesday pulled her initial proposal for the tax following complaints over its creation, but said she will try to push a revised version in the next week. Emails discovered through a public records request show Clancy helped develop the proposal with early-education advocates in the Ready By Five campaign, who asked her to shepherd the project through the government approval process.
“I’ve got my eye on doing what’s right for the children of ºüÀêÊÓƵ County and I’m not going to allow anyone to derail it,†Clancy said Wednesday in response to Proudie’s letter.
To meet ballot deadlines, the council would have to approve the bill on Aug. 25 and submit it to the Board of Elections by 5 p.m., or seek a court order to extend the deadline to Sept. 8.
Dozens of letters from supporters were read into the record at Tuesday’s county council meeting, mostly mentioning the lack of access to child care in low-income communities.
â€All of these well-meaning ladies out in Maplewood sending these letters about Black and brown women,†Proudie said. “I have not seen these ladies in Ferguson.†Proudie said a lack of access to early childhood education is relevant to the urban issues committee she chairs, justifying a hearing.
Ready By Five registered March 1 as a political action committee with the Missouri Ethics Commission. The campaign had raised $17,595 by July 27, according to its filings with the commission.
The filing did not include $163,988 that the campaign says it raised July 22 in a one-day virtual fundraising event, to which Clancy and County Councilwoman Kelli Dunaway, D-2nd District, said they contributed.