Lou Hamilton stood in front of the conference room with his arms crossed.
Seated at the table were various ºüÀêÊÓƵ city officials getting ready to decide whether to choose a Rex Sinquefield-controlled nonprofit called Grow Missouri to advise the city as it considers privatizing ºüÀêÊÓƵ Lambert International Airport.
Grow Missouri will help the city decide whether or not they should privatize the airport (surprise!) via
— Rebecca Rivas (@Rebeccarivas)
To nobody’s surprise, Sinquefield, the wealthy retired investor and chess-philanthropist who is also the state’s most prolific political donor, won the bidding process. A selection committee voted 3-0 to enter into contract negotiations with Grow Missouri, political consultant McKenna & Associates, and banking firm Moelis & Co., to advise the city through the potential privatization process.
Why, I wondered, was Hamilton there?
The longtime lobbyist is a fixture at many City Hall meetings. He represents big clients such as the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Cardinals and Anheuser-Busch. He’s a fervent backer and campaign adviser of Mayor Lyda Krewson. Which of those entities was he representing, I asked?
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Hamilton won’t say.
“I have any number of clients for whom I am registered that are curious about this issue,†he texted me.
Two of them, in particular, come to mind.
Days before the city tilted the bid Sinquefield’s way, the political power broker dubbed “ added some rooks to his chess board.
On Jan. 12, he hired Hamilton to represent two other nonprofits of his, Great ºüÀêÊÓƵ and the Missouri Council for a Better Economy.
Hamilton won’t say whether he was representing Sinquefield at the committee meeting in which Grow Missouri won the request for proposal that Grow Missouri helped write. But it doesn’t matter much. Sinquefield was already playing a game he couldn’t really lose.
That’s why some ºüÀêÊÓƵ politicians are now calling foul.
City committee poised to approve contract which would move privatization forward.Â
On Monday, state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed called for the city to remove Grow Missouri from its advisory team. “The conflict of interest this group poses threatens to derail the process with the Federal Aviation Administration and it reduces the public’s trust in the process,†Nasheed, who has taken donations from Sinquefield, said in a statement.
The next day, 18 members of the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Board of Aldermen signed a letter with , saying the process had been conducted under a “shroud of secrecy, a lack of transparency, glaring conflicts of interest and widespread public mistrust.â€
How glaring are the conflicts of interest?
The nonprofit, er, Sinquefield, has actually been in charge of the process since March 16, 2017.
Two former mayoral aides are now working toward privatization of the airport.
That’s when former Mayor Francis Slay, with no input from any other elected officials, signed a with Grow Missouri, McKenna & Associates, and the Wicks Group law firm to advise the city through the early stages of the privatization process.
The scheme was concocted to avoid any public transparency. In reality, it is a contract between then-city attorney Michael Garvin and the Wicks Group. The city charter allows the city attorney to hire special counsel. But if there is no cost, the city attorney doesn’t have to seek approval from the Board of Aldermen or the Board of Estimate and Apportionment to spend the money. Of course there was a cost here, possibly into the millions of dollars, but, the contract says, it’s being paid by Grow Missouri. So the contract was signed with no oversight.
And some contract it is. Among its provisions is one that says Grow Missouri can ultimately be reimbursed for its expenses — whatever they are — if the airport is privatized.
Garvin, the attorney who signed the first contract with Grow Missouri, was the chairman of the selection committee that chose Grow Missouri for a second advisory contract. But Deputy Mayor for Development Linda Martinez says this is not a conflict because the city terminated its first contract with Grow Missouri before the request for bids was issued, to avoid the appearance that Sinquefield was exercising too much power. On Monday, Martinez told me she’d get me a copy of the letter that terminated that contract.
By Tuesday, Krewson spokesman Koran Addo told me the letter doesn’t exist. The original deal with Sinquefield’s group says clearly that it could be terminated “by written notice.â€
As the debate over Lambert privatization begins, the pitfalls are everywhere.Â
Asked on Wednesday if she could say with certainty that the previous Grow Missouri contract was not in place during the recent bidding process, Krewson told me, “No. But we behaved as if it had been terminated.â€
With no written notice, that effectively means Grow Missouri had a contract to advise the city, and benefit exclusively from attorney-client privilege, the entire time Grow Missouri was bidding on a second advisory contract that was ultimately awarded to Grow Missouri.
“The fix is not in,†Krewson said.
That’s one way to look at it.