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Thank you for joining us for Last Call, where we get to the topics we couldn't get to in the first half hour.

Wendy, I want to ask you about a curfew.

We had a terrible situation at the soccer stadium, I think on Sunday, when shots were fired outside, and the people inside watching a soccer game had to shelter in place, and then things calmed down, they resumed action.

But just after that, the police chief said, you know, we need to have some sort of a curfew, maybe starting at 8 pm The mayor said, no, I'd rather have 10 pm, and I guess they compromised this week at 9 pm, so starting now, through Labor Day, there will be a curfew, because there's so much mayhem in American cities now with these teen takeovers, and unfortunately, around here, there's a lot of teen takeovers with firearms.

Do you think that this curfew, which I think is a good idea, should actually go beyond Labor Day?

I think it would be more, I don't know, just meaningful, let's just watch it more measured.

Let's take it to Labor Day, see what the response is, and then reevaluate at Labor.

I just don't see any need to say that from now until doom cracks, we need a 9 p.m.

curfew, because things might change.

I do think it's interesting, though, that because you'd had the shooting, then you had the shelter-in-place situation at the soccer game, where people could have really been hurt, because when people are screaming and running, other people start to scream and run, and there can be serious injuries in that particular situation.

But just by saying that we've got a problem with crime downtown, a lot of times you're accused of being a negative Nelly, and you're just not a cheerleader as you should be.

Our job is to look at reality, and the reality is that our perception is reality.

Well, no, I mean, you don't have to apologize.

The Citizens for a Greater Downtown St.

Louis, almost every weekend on Twitter, they post videos of the mayhem in downtown St.

Louis.

I mean, the people who live there, and this has been going on for a long time.

But on social media, there are a lot of people who think that you're... But what I'm saying is the teen takeovers have affected Chili Fest, Collinsville Fest, 13 Carnival, Sky Zone.

They're not going away Labor Day, so let's just keep it in place.

I'll say, I think this is maybe a little bit of a pipe dream, but I don't really like the idea of what's supposed to be a vibrant, urban environment telling any class of people, like, you can't be on the street, you can't be out with friends, you can't be in the park.

I feel like the solution more so, if we want to be a major league city, is just have sufficient security.

Have sufficient police, and then people can have great experiences, even when you're young.

Sometimes it's late, sometimes it's not.

But just have somebody on each corner, particularly in these commercial corridors.

It's been going on at malls.

Every mall has this policy now.

You can't get in after 3 p.m.

without your adult.

It's the fact of life around the city.

And for downtown, I agree theoretically with you, Jacob, I do, I really do.

Because he represents the business community, he really does.

And the young people.

I think he's 17.

Look at him.

Here's the other problem, though, is that you also still have this force that thinks defund police, which works the exact opposite of what you want to do in having security.

So to have it.

The other thing I would disagree with you is, I think when you talk about vibrant downtowns, you don't look at people 16 and under.

Usually when you talk about vibrant downtowns, you're talking about nightclubs, taverns.

That's more of your downtown crowd.

Now, other than going to baseball games and sports a lot of times with your parents.

But usually you're looking at adult entertainment as being your downtown kind of fun.

So the idea of removing 16 and unders, I don't have a problem with that.

I do like that they said just until Labor Day.

Because it gives you a chance to reevaluate, it makes you reevaluate it.

And present your cases, where if you say, we're going to do this forever, how do you backtrack off of that if it's not necessary?

So I think that was a wise, practical way to frame it.

The other thing is, there has to be some kind of consequences for these kids who have the teen takeovers or are shooting it up.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the shooting outside of the soccer dome.

Exactly.

If somebody gets arrested, and if so, what happens to them?

Well what happens, they go to reunification centers.

Not the shooters, of course.

And they get a juice box.

They get a juice box.

And a snack.

And their parents are supposed to be fine, sighted and fine.

But there was Dennis Boyd, who's a PhD candidate at the Wash U Brown School of Social Work, who wrote in your paper this week, Bill and Joe, that these kids are looking for connection.

They're looking for a warm village.

And what we need to do is understand where they're coming from.

They need something to do.

So they need a rec center.

They also should be part of a youth advisory council telling people how to run the city.

Let's bring back midnight basketball.

How about that?

That's actually a good idea.

And we can defraud the city once again with midnight basketball.

Actually midnight basketball is a good idea.

Yeah, until they started stealing the money from midnight basketball.

That was a bad idea.

So of course, I have never known a problem that a person with master's degrees in social work could not solve.

Okay?

But do they apply to real life?

Do they apply to real life, Charlie?

Within a warm family.

Warm village.

How about a warm family?

No, I'm saying a warm family.

They don't need a village.

It needs a family.

I don't care if that's two mothers, two fathers.

But they need a family.

Jacob, I want to ask you about what Mayor Spencer said to you on your podcast this week.

She said to attract more police officers, she'd like to raise the minimum pay for the starting officers, which now lags the suburban departments.

But to pay for that, she'd like to cut some of the lifetime benefits that they have, including lifetime health insurance.

She says that something like 113, 120% of salary goes to the police officer once he or she retires.

Does she have a point?

I think that she does.

I mean, the reason I say that is because I end up listening to these city budget things every year, and the budget director gets to say, yeah, the pension payments, they're pretty high.

They're pretty high here.

And by the way, truth in accounting gives us a D, city of St.

Louis.

So the city of St.

Louis in the 80s and 90s made a series of promises that it looks like it might not ultimately be able to keep for some of these public workers.

But I think you have to look at the context of her comments, because she's up against a police board that's actually in control.

She's only won one vote.

She doesn't get to redo this scheme.

I think she's trying to maybe lay down a negotiating position in terms of ideas.

Why should she have a vote?

She wasn't elected like they were.

Oh, never mind.

I'm confused.

It's a disaster.

I actually think it sounds like someone's willing to negotiate.

That's right.

I don't see what she brought forward as a disaster at all.

What does she have to negotiate?

She can tell Chris Saraceno, OK, if you don't give us, we're not going to plow the street at Southwest and Watson where Chris's Pancakes is.

No.

OK, is she going to go ahead and do it?

I don't know.

What does she have to negotiate?

The government.

She needs, the police department needs governance.

So you want a mayor that's like a dictator.

So I'll tell you, what do you think happens to her if she does not plow the streets in front of Don Brown and Chris Saraceno's place?

Other than watch votes fly out the door that she wants when she wants to be reelected.

I don't know how many Saraceno's family members live in the city of St.

Louis.

But she is clearly saying, hey, look, let's start by, I mean, she, to me, she is saying, let's sit down and talk.

And to me that, I agree with Joe, I agree with Jacob.

I don't think that the police board is in any mood to negotiate on this.

I mean.

No sign of it yet.

I mean, I listened to the last meeting and, you know, and she brings up the compensation package and you should look at the overall amount of money that we're spending.

And the police board was very much into, well, it's what the salaries are is what we're concerned with.

And the compression, you know, the sergeants are making as much as lieutenant.

And I didn't see anybody too eager to compromise.

I didn't see any negotiation.

There is some kind of negotiating position, Charlie, and I'll tell you why.

At some point somebody has to cut the check.

And they can delay that.

They could, you know, put that, push that down the road.

I mean, the police board doesn't get to write the check.

The city government eventually will have to.

So you can make things easier or we can go this other way.

Bill, final topic for this edition of Last Call.

The St.

Louis public schools are looking at closing schools again.

They have about 68 or so schools.

I don't know.

They announced they're going to close Nahead-Chopman, the international school.

So maybe they're down to 67 or so now.

But last year at this time they were talking about cutting 38 of them.

Now they're talking about cutting 22.

Soon we'll be down to 10 or 5.

What do you think?

Well, it's an awful thing to have to cut schools.

I mean, there's nothing sadder than walking past an abandoned school building and thinking, wow, this place used to be alive and now it's gone.

But they have to do something dramatic.

I mean, the enrollment has dropped to such a point that I don't know if it's 22 schools they have to close or 38, but they have to do something dramatic.

Close a bunch of them.

They have too much of their money tied up in this physical infrastructure and the maintenance when the actual money per pupil is not low.

It's actually higher than a lot of these very good performing districts in West County, Clayton, these kind of things.

So it's out of whack how they're spending.

So they're going to have to correct it, but they're actually going to have to correct it more aggressively than what they're planning to do now.

There's always this idea of, well, we want to keep as many of the neighborhoods intact as we can.

You might as well just rip the Band -Aid off and get this done so that more of the money is going to hopefully improving this district, actually, because they get 66 out of 100 points from the state in terms of is this a good district?

It's not good.

It's not genius financial strategy to realize if you have less customers, you need less stores.

There's less students.

You need less buildings.

I mean, it's that simple.

But buildings have to be closed or schools have to be closed.

Schools need to be consolidated.

So there's some sort of vibrancy in the buildings that you do have that they're not two thirds empty and that your teacher resources are all available to students and you have to get rid of those other buildings.

And there are going to be neighborhoods that will not like it understood.

And that's where we're at, though.

Well, I was encouraged by the sort of the one room schoolhouse approach where you've got you've got elementary, you've got middle, you've got high school in the same structure.

I think sociologists, just from a behavioral standpoint, what because a lot of those bigger kids have little kids at home.

I wonder, you know, just how that would change behavior patterns.

But if you close schools, even though they might be a third full, you're going to lose some residents and it's going to be a doom loop.

You close the schools, you're going to lose the residents.

And when you lose the residents, you've got to close the school.

So now we know where the Wall Street Journal story is.

You look at these Itner buildings, the maintenance is unbelievable.

So labor is 55 percent of the school.

No, but here's the thing, the way it sounds, Charlie, as you're saying, don't close any of them.

I'm really reluctant to close.

So pretty soon we're going to have what a big deal, but the neighborhoods are dying anyway.

That's why the schools don't have kids.

And then you close the school and it's an empty, vacant building full of what we're doing now is not working.

So, right.

So let's keep doing that is what you're saying.

Let's keep doing what's not working.

Oh, I mean, so not if you tear those buildings down and then you.

And then everyone moves to Ferguson floors.

They're already moving to Ferguson.

No, they'll be moving in greater numbers.

Well, the greater numbers are getting smaller because they've already gone.

Just because a problem seems like it's at the bottom doesn't mean that it is.

Well, but your solution to the problem, Charlie, is don't do anything.

You might want to.

That doesn't seem like a solution to close in the area where redevelopment is more likely.

And often I think in those areas, there's not a lot of kids being sent to that building anyway because it's a higher income area.

So that's something to think.

Jacob, your words are going to be the last one.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Alvin Reed will be back at he'll be back next week.

Right.

And we hope you will, too.

Have a good one.

Happy Fourth of July.