Support for Donnybrook, Last Call, is provided in part by Design Aire heating and cooling.

Thank you for joining us for Last Call, where we broached the topics we couldn't get to in the first 30 or so minutes.

Sarah Fenske, your daily newsletter is outstanding.

Everyone in town wakes up to read it at 6 a.m.

or 610 or whenever you push the button.

Send.

Today, you had a story that Washington University employees, maybe some students, professors, I don't know, they are parking on the western end of Forest Park near the Norm Probstine golf course, irritating some golfers there.

I know they used to do that on the other side.

You could kind of see the March of the Penguins, the employees from the hospital walking to work if you ride your bike early in the morning, as I have in the past.

So, is this really a big conflict between Wash U and Forest Park, you think?

Well, I think Wash U is saying, hey, we want people to park where they're supposed to park, like leave Forest Park for people who are visiting it, but they have not provided enough parking spaces for employees to do that.

You know, they have a waiting list for these passes that cost people like $1,000 a year, and these are, some of them are lower paid employees.

So I have sympathy for these Wash U employees.

It's hard to get around in this town without a car.

They do subsidize passes with by-state, but like if you have to go pick up a kid at daycare or something, you can't take a bus home.

It doesn't work.

And so I think, you know, I get why these Wash U employees are doing this.

I also get why the park isn't happy about it, you know?

If you flip the script, and if golfers were making it impossible for Washington University employees to park, then I think you see both sides of the issue.

But at the end of the day, Washington University is one of, I mean, in terms of endowments, it is one of the most successful universities in this country.

And I think they should provide parking and shuttles, and I'm not sure exactly where they would do it, you know, where you could have that kind of a surface lot in the area.

But they should do that for their employees.

It's easy for me to spend their money.

I mean, one of the problems Wash U has is they're landlocked, and, you know, there's no place you can have a shuttle unless you're talking about in the loop.

Well, didn't they buy Fontbonne?

Like, couldn't they do a shuttle from Fontbonne, right?

Yeah.

There's a lot of surface.

I'm solving these problems.

You mean raise the campus of Fontbonne?

Oh, no.

Yeah.

In the Wendy Williams Alumni Parking Lot.

Well, it's sympathetic to the golfers.

I mean, and I live right by Forest Park, and I don't like to see cars parked everywhere in Forest Park.

But now, look.

I don't know what Wash U is supposed to do.

I get this.

Especially around colleges, people will find some free parking.

And I always thought that, look, that's ingenuity.

In fact, I can tell you where, like, free parking places are, near Bush Stadium within walking distance.

And I didn't even go say it on the air because I don't want people to find it.

But I think that's one of those things.

Now, if you restrict parking to three hours, if you're going to play 18 holes of golf, you can't get that done in three hours.

So how's that going to work?

Well, if you have three or four holes in one.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

If there's any group of people who should not be complaining about taking up too much real estate, especially in Forest Park, would it not be the golfer?

We have two golf courses there.

But you pay to golf.

The Triple A and the 27 holes for Probstine.

Wait, but you pay to golf.

Right.

You pay the freight.

Well, I'm sure that the Wash U employees are paying taxes.

What I'm saying is, this is a matter of real estate.

And the golfers already are doing pretty well if you look at all the space.

I think this is a problem, but at the same time, this is just like water.

It's going to find a place to go.

And so it's like parking.

You know, I will say, Wash U should subsidize and pay for parking.

I do agree.

There are a lot of construction workers who are parking on Skinker right now, as it turns out.

Yeah.

So they're taking up some spots.

Hey, who's next?

Alvin, I want to ask you about a new series.

It's called Suburban Wives, Private Lives.

Is that what it's called?

I think so.

I have not watched it.

I haven't either.

It's on TLC.

It starts Sunday night.

It's about a group of St.

Louisans.

This is not fiction.

This is the real deal.

It's kind of a documentary, eight-part series, where to make ends meet, these husbands and started adult content, adult spicy content, kind of like tarps off with cameras, right?

Yeah, a little more than that.

A little more than that.

And they're making a lot of money, but they've got some conflicts because some of the ladies are Christian and it kind of like violates some of their religious precepts.

That's the trailer.

What, the fact that it's being broadcast or the fact that they're doing it?

They're doing this for the money.

The Suburban Wives, Private Lives, or whatever it's called, is now on TLC.

Is this a good thing for St.

Louis or does it mar our image?

One of the stars of the show, we actually talked about on our show.

It was one of the teachers, I think, that lost her job because she was already involved in this career.

So, you know, if you look up, you know, like the term like notorious gangster, the gangster is the bad part.

Notorious is not necessarily a bad thing.

It just means you're just like in the news and whatnot.

So in a way, all publicity is good publicity.

I don't think this is the worst thing for St.

Louis.

It's just kind of like, man, you know, I'm not saying that people look at it and say like we're trashy, but I think people would say like, you know, St.

Louis is a cosmopolitan more place than I thought.

Point of order, it's called Suburban Wives, Double Lives.

I agree with Alvin that I think this is good for our image, but not because it makes us look cosmopolitan, because these wives do not actually live in the suburbs.

They live in the exurbs.

They are out there in like St.

Francis County.

The closest wife is like in Arnold.

Like I'm telling y'all, these are not what we think of as suburbs.

That's part of our region.

It's part of the region.

They are in the eight county region.

You know, these are not like Claytonians.

These are people who are out in the countryside.

But here's why I think this is good for us.

You know, when DTF St.

Louis came out on HBO, this kind of portrayed this portrait of suburban ennui like no one is getting any.

Did she just say ennui?

Yeah, okay.

But it's all this, it's this sort of sad, pathetic, like, oh, these suburban lives that nobody's actually getting sex or they're, you know, it's just this tawdry way of getting it.

This is like, oh, hey, people in Missouri are like having a good time.

That's what I'm talking about.

But of course, but of course, but of course, they're, they're Christian women who are really conflicted about what they're doing and all the, but this is just real housewives on TLC is what this is.

I mean, that's good for us.

For anybody to say that this like enhances our image or polishes the crown.

I mean, that is, that's why he laughed out loud because we used to have a pretty decent image.

But since Michael Brown and a million other things that have happened, we've lost the Rams.

We have, you know, we've gone from the NFL to the battle Hawks.

I'm sorry.

But people were too busy on Saturday night to go to the football games on Sunday.

That's right.

St.

Louis's image is built on, let's go back to river boats.

It was gambling.

It was women.

It was vice.

And we cannot deny that.

And according to her newsletter, it was also the veiled prophet, the executives, racism, all of the other things that made up St.

Louis.

It wasn't, you make it sound like we were just some speakeasy town.

I think it was a lot of ice.

I think it was.

It was.

Okay.

That's fine.

According, according to Barnaby Faraday, who wrote numerous books about St.

Louis history, the French were gamblers, but the Spanish were not when they were in town.

I'm going to write that down in my Hello Kitty desk diary.

Wendy, I want to ask you about moves by greater St.

Louis Inc.

That's the organization that is kind of made up of a bunch of organizations, many businesses that is trying to improve the region.

A couple of years ago, you and I on this program talked about the ambassadors.

It was a program designed by that group to kind of send these volunteers or others out throughout downtown St.

Louis to say, hey, for great pancakes, go to Chris's on the docket, go to Sugar Fire for your barbecue, that's where this tarp's off, or whatever.

They've eliminated the program.

What do you think?

I think it's tragic.

I think the business owner who was outlined in the newsletter, or was it the business journal?

It was our story.

Okay.

Who had to leave and move out to West County, she took advantage, and she has a skin care company, and she was doing very well with the help of the ambassadors and some of the funding, but I would not have known, if I had not read this story, that this woman was also being, you know, she was kind of under siege in terms of the homeless people that were coming to her asking for food, they needed bandages, they needed all sorts of things, that you just, you can't sustain something like that, that kind of humanitarian work, when you're trying to grow a business.

And I mocked the idea of the ambassadors who were being put in the area of public safety, because if you have a sash that says St.

Louis Ambassadors, I mean, that's almost like putting a target on your, so that doesn't surprise me.

I think it's just very sad, and I wish that we had a centralized, instead of all of these offshoots of these civic organizations.

But that's what Greater St.

Louis Inc.

was supposed to be.

I mean, they formed to bring these five organizations together, and one of them was downtown St.

Louis.

And that's why they've had this focus on downtown, and I think what our story was getting at is people are very worried that they've kind of let that interest flag, they no longer feel that's a priority.

I think with the ambassadors, there's maybe this perception amongst those who live further out west that downtown was so dangerous, it's more that it was kind of complicated.

Like there's people who kind of need help, they're not going to kill you, but they're going to try to say, hey, I need help on handling.

But there's not.

But there's people from West County, Sarah, I mean, with all due respect, they have lived here a very, very long time, and- I think they should just visit downtown more recently.

How do you know they don't?

You can't say things.

I'm not asking.

You have to put that ambassadors in a context, too.

I mean, that woman you're talking about who moved her business to West County said that there's also the problem that she can't reach people that she- Who helped her.

Who helped her.

Who she used to be able to get to.

And apparently- And it isn't just the ambassadors.

There seems to be a de-emphasis on downtown.

Right.

And also, there's a lot of people coming and going from GSL Inc.

And you're right, Sarah, they were supposed to be the anchor of all this.

And are they just chasing data centers?

What are they doing?

Well, they say more and better jobs.

So Ron Kitchens, who's their new CEO, you know, he worked in smaller towns before this.

I don't know that he's so interested in downtown the way that Jason Hall, the founding CEO, was.

And if you ask him, like, okay, why does downtown matter, he'd be like, well, more and better jobs.

We need jobs downtown, just like we need them anywhere.

I think Jason had a more specific argument about we have to make downtown feel vibrant or people aren't going to want to come here.

Did they not have any- I mean, honestly, did they not have any applicants who were younger than Mr.

Kitchens?

And more morbid.

No, no, no, no, no.

Are we going to discriminate?

Now, with all due respect, Sarah, you interviewed one business owner who doesn't necessarily replicate the views of everybody in downtown St.

Louis.

We talked to a lot of people for this story.

I'd like to see some data.

I would say it is not.

Since the ambassadors came out, I'm sure business has gone down in downtown St.

Louis.

I think the ambassadors were helping.

I think they really were.

Well, I think that a police officer walking side by side with another police officer on every corner, like we have on Beale Street, would be a better- But the police officers say they can't help.

They don't come when you call.

That's why we turned to the ambassadors.

That might be our real problem.

I don't know if the ambassadors are the answer.

Yeah, you can't turn to a civic organization to do the work that the police should be doing.

Hey, you know, we're going to talk about Mike Bush, but let's talk about Mike Bush.

41 years.

What a tremendous career he's had.

Wendy, you saw him when you started in this business almost the exact same year, right?

Back in what?

You came here in- 86.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I think so.

And we both went into the hall together at the same time, so that was nice.

He's had a terrific career, and he's been somebody who has been involved.

To say he's involved in the community is the understatement of all time.

You know, that was back when you did have really active organizations, and so he's going to be missed.

I adore Steve Sevard, so I was happy to see that he is going to be the one who succeeds Mike Bush.

I just hope that Mike and his wife, Claudia, have a brilliant retirement together.

When he switched over from sports to the anchor, people said, like, oh, a sports guy?

And I was one of those people that said, like, no, actually, he'll probably be- I didn't know Mike from anybody, but I said, actually, he'd probably be pretty good because people that have, like, general interest in sports and news tend to do well, so congratulations to him.

He's a classy guy.

I mean, our paths have crossed a few times, and he's smart and didn't seem consumed with himself.

Right.

So, a nice fellow, classy guy.

Did the MDA Telethon every year, the Jerry Lewis.

He started the Musial Awards, which is a fantastic program.

Even most recently, he was raising money for tornado victims this past spring.

I mean, he could have been, you know, just mailing it in his last six months.

Or golfing and taking somebody's parking space.

His boss, Alicia Elsner, told me that he is always volunteering to do things and generating new ideas for the organization.

I think he's going to probably ramp up his activity level in retirement.

Right.

Well, Mike, we wish you the best.

Yes, we do.

After 40 plus years, you certainly deserve a wonderful retirement.

Our best to you and Claudia.

That's it for this program.

Thank you so much.

We'll see you next week at this time, I hope.