October 19, 2011

“My house was not for sale yesterday, it is not for sale today, and it won’t be for sale tomorrow.”

Those were the words of one of the homeowners being displaced by the Board of Police Commissioners’ decision to locate the new East Patrol Division station and adjoining crime lab at 27th and Prospect.

But this nosy newshound would like to know whose will the BOPC is following. It certainly isn’t the will of the community. Had that been the case, the new EPD would have been located in a more central location to the rest of the patrol district.

So, it must be the will of the most Reverend John Modest Miles, pastor of the Morningstar Baptist Church, interestingly enough, located directly across the street from the new EPD location. (Things that make you go hmm). Miles, also the chaplain for the BOPC (can you say conflict of interest?) has been a busy man of late.

Not only has he cobbled together two huge parcels of land directly south of the new station’s location, which is enough for this news-pooch to say something certainly stinks in the process, but early on in the selection process, before the general public had any hint of the new location, Miles leaked the then confidential location to his congregation during a Sunday morning sermon.

Miles then made the rounds of the neighborhood, visiting with those who would be displaced by the new facility. Some of those residents, not pleased about being uprooted from the family home, went on the record with our editor in chief. The money quote from those meetings from Modest John: “I’m going to be honest with you, I am going to get something out of this deal.” Our source told us she didn’t know what the pay-off is, but there is most definitely a pay-off. Well before ol’ Modest John gets his hand out for his cut of some city scratch, we’ll remind the good reverend of Missouri’s Blaine Amendment that prohibits Missouri tax dollars from funding any secular group, organization or church. Soooo, yer donating those lots, right Rev?