Lewis Reed Accuses Slay: Pay to Play Tactics
ST. LOUIS • Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed held a press conference on Thursday afternoon accusing Mayor Francis Slay of engaging in “pay-to-play politics,” using city resources to raise campaign cash.
Reed, who is running against Slay in the March 5 Democratic primary, alleged that the city’s Board of Public Service awarded contracts to companies making campaign donations to the Mayor’s re-election effort—sometimes on the same day the donation was received.
“He’s leveraging the office of the Board of Public Service to benefit his politics,” Reed said.
Slay’s administration hit back hard, saying Reed showcased a fundamental misunderstanding of the contract awarding process.
“The mayor isn’t involved in awarding contracts, his office isn’t, doesn’t have any authority to award contracts,” said Eddie Roth, the city’s director of operations who oversees the board. “People talk about how complex it is to deal with city government, and that’s exactly for this reason to spread out authority so far and wide that no one can engage in the kind of corruption that’s been alleged here. It just hasn’t happened.”
Reed provided documents showing Slay’s campaign received $103,700 from companies that won “professional service contracts” with the city. (That number, however, is a fraction of the more than $3 million raised by Slay for this election cycle.) read full article here
By Nicholas J.C. Pistor npistor@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8265
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