ST. LOUIS 鈥 Mayor Tishaura O. Jones isn鈥檛 commenting, for now, on calls to make cash payments in reparation for the city鈥檚 history of racial injustice.
Jones on Monday made her first appearance at a meeting of the advisory commission she established in 2022 to explore potential avenues for such payments.
Neal Richardson, her economic development chief, spoke for a half-hour on some of the ways the administration is already spending hundreds of millions of dollars in federal pandemic aid to rejuvenate the heavily Black north side with new housing: building dozens of affordable homes, opening a job training center on Martin Luther King Drive and demolishing about 1,000 dilapidated vacant buildings.
But during the public comment portion of the meeting, several people made clear they want more direct compensation, as they have at almost every meeting of the commission.
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鈥淲hen you鈥檙e not cutting the check, everything else you鈥檙e talking about reparations is null and void,鈥 one said.
Nick Dunne, a spokesman for Jones, said the mayor is waiting for the advisory commission to make recommendations before taking a public position on that.
Those recommendations are expected to be part of a report due in September.
Dr. Will Ross, the commission鈥檚 vice chair, said Monday that commissioners are hoping to publish a draft report in July so they can get public feedback before submitting the final version.