Suffers Economic, Legal Woes : Crumbling East St. Louis Stalled in Bid for Rebirth

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — The mayor calls this Mississippi River town “the safest city in America.”

But the mayor carries a gun.

He is accompanied, always, by at least one armed bodyguard. And, to see the mayor, one first has to get past two security checkpoints in City Hall--one at the front entrance, the other outside his office door.

For Mayor Carl Officer, the city is eminently safe. For the 57,000 or so other residents of East St. Louis, long one of the most troubled cities in the nation, the subject is open to debate.

Officer first won election nine years ago, at age 27, with the avowed aim of reforming a corrupt City Hall and turning the decaying town around. But today, East St. Louis is as troubled as ever. By most accounts, it is on the verge of collapse.

The city, which has revenues of $5 million yearly, is $35 million in debt. With creditors banging impatiently at its door, it cannot afford to pick up the garbage regularly. It cannot pay its workers on time. The state police have been patrolling the town for the last two years to help out the understaffed Police Department.

Although East St. Louis residents pay triple the taxes of citizens in the county’s other towns, some members of the 75-person city police force ride the gang-ridden streets in beat-up cars without the radios necessary to call for emergency assistance.

“You’ve got police cars with holes in the floors--I mean you can sit in them and watch the street go by,” St. Clair County State’s Atty. John Baricevic said.

“We’ve had multiple people killed because the police have not responded to calls,” he said. “Street fights have turned into murders because the police never showed up.”

Baricevic sued the city for reckless conduct earlier this year because, he said, the lack of working equipment endangered its police officers. A county judge dismissed the charge, saying it would be “judicial encroachment” to force the city to realign its priorities. The state’s attorney is appealing.

From the windows of his office in City Hall, Officer has a view of the St. Louis skyline across the river, and of the shimmering 630-foot steel arch that symbolizes the city’s self-appointed role as the “gateway to the West.”

Surrealistic Presence

From the St. Louis side, the arch is a surrealistic presence. Rising higher than any downtown building, it can sometimes be evocative of a giant McDonald’s sign, or--if the viewer is in the wrong mood--perhaps of a science-fiction movie.

But from East St. Louis the effect is all that the city fathers must have hoped it would be when the arch was built. It is an impressive sight against the St. Louis skyline. It can be seen from almost anywhere in this depressed town of closed factories, boarded-up storefronts and personal misery, a daily reminder of how far the smaller city lags behind.

East St. Louis, with a population that is now 98.7% black, sits on prime riverfront real estate. The city has long had plans to build there a marina and park, luxury riverfront housing, a shopping complex, a port and a trash recovery plant. But all have been stalled by litigation.

The mayor contends that the projects are now “right on target” and that construction should begin on the housing project next year, but Alderman Melvin Frierson does not agree. “All of the land has not even been purchased,” he grumbled. Even if the legal problems were cleared away, he said, he doubts if the projects will ever be started under the current Administration.

Mayor’s Resignation Sought

Frierson, accusing the mayor of mismanagement, arrogance and personal extravagance at city expense, has called for Officer to resign.

“I’m not saying Carl could’ve resurrected Jesus in this town and brought a miracle about, but the town has continually deteriorated since Carl became mayor,” Frierson said.

Officer accuses his attackers of racism. All of the town’s aldermen are black, as is Officer, but he says they criticize him because they are beholden to the county’s white Democratic bosses, who the mayor says want to drive him out of office.

The city’s decline began in the mid-1950s, when industry first started moving out. It accelerated in the 1960s and 1970s with white flight.

Now two-thirds of its residents are on public assistance and a quarter live in public housing.

When Officer became one of the youngest mayors in the country in 1979, he was hailed as the city’s savior. Corruption and mismanagement had been a part of city government for decades. The handsome, witty and ever-dapper Officer, a darling of the press, was seen as a reformer.

More Efficient Government

Even Baricevic, one of his harshest critics, concedes that Officer laid off hundreds of city workers, trimmed the budget and made government more efficient.

“East St. Louis had a history of bad politics when it was a white town,” Baricevic said. “Carl had a lot of charisma; he had a lot of ability; he was well-educated; he was good-looking--he could do it. If anybody could turn the city around, he could. I still think he could. But somewhere along the way, something happened to him. I don’t know what it was, but now we set up meetings with him and he doesn’t show up. He sets up meetings with us and he doesn’t show up.”

Chronically Late Paychecks

The city’s assets have been frozen by creditors three times so far this year, the last time in September by the federal government, which alleges that the city mishandled Environmental Protection Agency funds. A new creditor seems to rear his head each week, and the city has been chronically late with paychecks all year.

Despite these problems, Officer says the city will never declare bankruptcy. “Not under my Administration.”

Illinois Gov. James R. Thompson has appointed a task force to study the city’s problems. He has asked it to consider recommending legislation that would allow the state to provide loans and take over day-to-day operations.

Officer and his supporters in the state Legislature say such a bailout is unacceptable.

Such a plan, said Eric Vickers, the city attorney, would be the first step in a “conspiracy” by unnamed elected officials and private developers to wrest away control of the city and gain control of the land it is trying to develop.

Displacement of Poor Feared

If that happens, Officer and Vickers said, the poor people would be forsaken, systematically displaced to make way for affluent whites.

The men see proof of the conspiracy in recent plans to put a light rail station in the city. The transit line is being developed to serve the St. Louis Airport.

“I just can’t see why they’re going to put the most significant economic development project since the Gateway Arch in downtown East St. Louis,” Officer said. “Would you build a light rail system from Watts to LAX or to La Guardia from Harlem? Are we the only people who can afford to fly? Maybe they’re anticipating us going somewhere.”

Frierson scoffs at Officer’s charges, just as he scoffs at what he calls the mayor’s extravagant security measures.

“As far as I’m concerned, he’s paranoid,” the alderman said.

Officer says he is always accompanied by at least one bodyguard because he gets about 20 threats on his life weekly.

“He’s never here,” Baricevic said. “He’s always in New York or he’s in Chicago or he’s in Miami or he’s in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He doesn’t need bodyguards--he needs a travel agent.”

Earlier this year, Baricevic took Officer to court to recover $80,000 he says the mayor was paid during the last four years in addition to his $30,000 annual salary. Officer, who calls Baricevic a “racist fool,” contended in court that the payments all were for proper expenses, but he could not produce the records. He said they possibly were burned during a fire in City Hall.

Several of the mayor’s aides also have been charged with wrongdoing. Most of the charges were dismissed. However, a mayoral aide pleaded guilty earlier this year to a charge that he misused city funds to buy campaign advertising.

“Clearly the boys have been going after me for a while,” Officer said.