If you want St. Louis to be a destination city, we need to take better care of it

Change needs to start somewhere.

Let it ride isn’t a good idea when it comes to the future health of my childhood and current place of residence: St. Louis, Missouri. Waiting for something to change isn’t good practice.

It’s not an ideal situation when Kim Gardner, the St. Louis Circuit Attorney, can’t do her job; especially when her job is to PROSECUTE bad people. Her job is to keep the streets as clean as possible, especially repeat offenders. It was a repeat offender-someone who had violated house arrest as many times as I sip coffee in a week-who caused a horrible accident that altered a young woman’s life last week.

Young scholastic athlete Janae Edmondson had just committed to playing college volleyball, and was in town for a tournament. It was while walking on the streets in the evening that Edmondson, who was with her parents, was struck by a speeding driver named Daniel Riley-aka, the guy who didn’t understand (or care) what house arrest meant.

He hit another car and then struck Edmondson, severing one leg and damaging another one to the point where she would later lose that leg as well. Thanks to her father, who applied a tourniquet with a couple belts, Janae lived long enough to get to the hospital.

Folks, this isn’t a movie. There is no courageous lawyer or detective who will keep the streets safe. In real life, appointed officials are entrusted with keeping us safe. A city will do its thing no matter what, but making sure asshats like Riley don’t see the streets, much less a fucking car, is well within range of duties.

Gardner and her office of half-wit suits didn’t prosecute Riley on his earlier charges. Her weak as Colton Parayko’s toughness statement today can catch fart wind for all I care. It wasn’t a judge who screwed this up; Gardner did. She messed up several other cases. She’s as good at being a circuit attorney as I would be at staying clean shaven.

Attorney General Andrew Bailey cut the shit this week, demanding Gardner to resign and save herself the embarrassment of being dismissed like a kid who couldn’t fulfill an assignment she received years ago. If you’re defending her, create a Myspace page for that trivial garbage. She’s as guilty of being bad at her job as Riley is at being a model citizen. There should be consequences.

For example, if I screw up at my job enough times, I imagine being disciplined or let go wouldn’t exactly be a premonition. If we can’t hold elected (somehow) officials accountable for keeping the streets safer, what are we doing as a city resident? You can run off to the county for more space (and still shitty roads), or you can stay and fight this out.

Make your voice known this week. Please don’t underestimate the power of a single voice when change needs to occur. Imagine if Martin Luther King Jr. had just said, “ah, fuck it, I want to go be a quiet carpenter.” He stood for something, and doing so takes courage. All of us can channel our MLK voice, pushing back against an authority’s seemingly never ending.

Save me your “things won’t change tomorrow.” Only the weather changes tomorrow every day in St. Louis. If things can change next week, or even a month from now, the Lou will be better for it. Or, we can just elect her again in the next vote. More criminals will see the streets.

The last thing a city needs is a lazy or inept prosecutor. St. Louis is contending for Detroit for Shitville: not exactly the slogan we need. There’s a reason people wince when our town is mentioned outside the city limits. For every person who waxes poetically about the culture and beauty here, there’s four others who have already left the room.

It doesn’t have to be this way. St. Louis used to be great, right? Completely safe? Not possible. Safer than last week? Please, yes.

If nothing changes, there’ll be another innocent bystander permanently harmed. There’ll be another Janae Edmondson. If Bailey can’t stop it, we will have vote wiser in the next election.

Stand the fuck up, St. Louis. If not, we’ll always be a black eye, no matter how many sports we bring to the city. Staying safe has become a sport in itself.