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 by Elvis
8 years 4 months ago
 Total posts:   38381  
 Joined:  Mar 28 2015
United States of America   Los Angeles
Administrator

http://www.insidestl.com/insideSTLcom/S ... ep-Up.aspx

Gray: Time for Rams Fans, STL-NFL Supporters to Step Up

Shane Gray posted on October 29, 2015 11:42

Gray: Time For Rams Fans, STL-NFL Supporters To Step Up

If you read nothing else, I ask loyal St. Louis Rams and STLNFL supporters to do two things:

-One, communicate your support of the Rams and the STLNFL stadium proposal to the St. Louis City Board of Aldermen immediately.

-Two, come together on a united front to rally in front of City Hall at 9:30 AM on Friday, October 30 when critical legislation will be introduced.

Now, for the details...

If you witnessed or took part in the NFL Town Hall Meeting at the Peabody Opera House on Tuesday night, you can attest to the fact that Rams fans and STLNFL supporters stepped up, stood up and showed themselves and St. Louis proud while addressing a panel of high ranking league executives.

And while the quality and quantity of communications shared from the general public at the NFL hearing was nothing short of remarkable, a high quality/quantity showing of communication that is just as strong, just as united and just as passionate needs to go forth to the St. Louis Board of Alderman in the days and weeks ahead. In doing so, your efforts will help optimize the St. Louis Task Force's chances of fulfilling its multi-faceted mission of retaining the Rams, keeping the world's most prestigious sports league in town and redeveloping a blighted area of the region's central hub that borders the iconic and world renowned Gateway Arch.

You might ask, what exactly can I do to help the Task Force reach the endzone? What can I do to help ensure that over 3,000 jobs and careers averaging over $60,000 per year will come to fruition for locals, with long-term job opportunities for our citizens and small businesses? How can I go about assisting to ensure that the most comprehensive minority contractor inclusion ever for a project in the state of Missouri comes to pass?

On Friday, Board Bill 219 will be formally introduced to the Board of Alderman's entire body. It is being sponsored by 5th Ward Alderwoman Tammika Hubbard and 7th Ward Alderman Jack Coatar.

With that said, here are a couple concrete steps that folks can take that can absolutely make an impact upon this situation going forward:

No. 1, EVERY St. Louis resident backing the downtown development proposal should be contacting their particular alderman both to voice their own support of the pending project and to communicate a clear message that they expect their alderman's support, too. The bigger and more united voice, the better. People should be starting this effort to reach out now and continue it until the new venue development bill is voted upon. Be sure that YOU do your part and contact your alderman. Oftentimes, everyone assume that others will speak up and then very few ultimately do so. Let's not let that happen here. Be sure that YOU take care of your part first and foremost. (If EVERYONE does so, then the message will be sent in high quantity.) After making contact with your alderman, I would encourage you to urge family, friends and co-workers to do the same.

With that said, there are a variety of mechanisms available to reach the 28 men and women comprising the Board of Alderman. Any and all of the following would provide for appropriate means of communication. Feel free to use each of them:

-You can reach each individual alderman through the city's link to their individual office phones and email addresses. (If sending an email, please make sure to present a clear, concise subject heading such as "Comments on STLNFL Bill From A Constituent.")

-You can reach many of the city's aldermen via twitter. Twitter allows for public communication that cannot be 'hidden from' in a way that emails or phone calls potentially can be, and is a very effective tool. When sending tweets to any individual alderman, be sure to add a dot (.) prior to the individual's twitter handle (such as .@jcoatar.) If an initial dot is not added, the tweet will not show up on your main timeline and will only show up in tweets and replies and be seen by relatively few people.

If you have a twitter account (or will be adding it), the following are all of the alderman twitter accounts that I could track down. (Please note, it appears that the accounts for Ward 12 and Ward 19 may be inactive):

Alderman President Lewis Reed: @PresReed

Dionne Flowers of Ward 2: @2ndwardflowers

Samuel L. Moore of Ward 4: @AldermanMoore

Tammika Hubbard of Ward 5: @Citizens4THubb

Christine Ingrassia of Ward 6: @chryssi

Jack Coatar of Ward 7: @jcoatar

Stephen Conway of Ward 8: @AldConway

Larry Arnowitz of Ward 12: @LarryArnowitz

Carol Howard of Ward 14: @Alderman14

Megan Ellyia Green of Ward 15: @MeganEllyia

Donna Baringer of Ward 16: @STLDonnaB

Joseph Roddy of Ward 17: @JoeRoddy

Marlene E. Davis of Ward 19: @marlene19th

Cara Spencer of Ward 20: @CaraSpencerSTL

Antonio French of Ward 21: @AntonioFrench

Jeffery L. Boyd of Ward 22: @jeffreyboyd

Joe Vacarro of Ward 23: @Aldermanjoe

Scott Ogilvie of Ward 24: @Ward24stl

Shane Cohn of Ward 25: @shanecohn

Chris Carter of Ward 27: @ChrisCarter3 and/or @27thWardSTL

Lyda Krewson of Ward 28: @LydaKrewson

-Finally, you can reach out to the Board of Aldermen as a whole by sending a hand-written or printed letter to the following address:

Board of Aldermen of the City of St. Louis
St. Louis City Hall
1200 Market Street, Room 230
St. Louis, MO 63103

If you would like to reach an individual alderperson via mail, simply add the person's name and ward in parenthesis in the first line of address (as shown in the example below:)

Board of Aldermen of the City of St. Louis (Attn: T. Hubbard 5th Ward)
St. Louis City Hall
1200 Market Street, Room 230
St. Louis, MO 63103

-For those using email or sending a letter out through traditional mail, the following sample letter could be plugged in or used as a starting point before adjusting it as you see fit.

Members of the City of St. Louis Board of Aldermen:

I strongly encourage you to support the City’s role in financing National Car Rental Field – the prospective new home of the St. Louis Rams. As a person who cares deeply about the City of St. Louis and our entire region, I fully support investing in the new stadium development -- as it is essential to the long-term cultural and economic health of the City and metro area. This is an important opportunity to make St. Louis better, to retain a prized asset, to reshape the region's central hub and to revitalize a critical area along the North Riverfront -- an area next to the iconic Gateway Arch that should be one of brilliance and grandeur, rather than blight and decades of decay.

Some direct benefits and intangible benefits of this project include but are not limited to the following:

-This development would result in the single largest private investment for any project in St. Louis city history.

-This development would generate 3,000+ local jobs and careers that average over $60,000 per year over a three year period and -- according to Jeff Aboussie of the St. Louis Building and Construction Trades Council -- would be a "game changer" for the St. Louis Building Center and the largest single project in the history of the St. Louis region.

-The project would involve the most comprehensive minority contractor inclusion ever in Missouri while being comprised of a strong representation of minority and female owned firms and a workforce that reflects the diversity of St. Louis.

-The passage of this bill would optimize the opportunity to retain the St. Louis Rams, who brought us our only Super Bowl victory and who have been a staple in this great community for nearly a quarter of a century.

-The passage of this bill would optimize the opportunity to retain the world's most prestigious sports league, the NFL. Sports fan or otherwise, being one of the world's 31 NFL cities is highly significant.

-This project would free the dome and convention center to theoretically double its convention dates and revenues with it being free for an additional five to six months per year. Many of the larger conventions must be booked years in advance, and thus cannot be with the NFL schedule changing from year to year. The outdoor National Car Rental Field would serve as an ideal complement to the indoor dome/convention center and give the City much greater flexibility and ability to draw visitors and added tourism dollars.

-It has been expected that MLS would be part of this project. If so, this would bring added revenues to National Car Rental Field and the city through 17 regular season dates that averaged 21,574 fans this season league-wide.

-This project would bring all sorts of intangibles that cannot necessarily be measured monetarily. As Hall of Famer, former Rams Pro Bowler and current St. Louis pastor Aeneas Williams has expressed, there are so many things that divide communities, but sports unites communities and help bring people together.

In short, as a member of the St. Louis community who cares deeply about the spirit and economic health of the City, I am in favor of this project and respectfully share my expectation of your yes vote to help make this project a reality.

Regards,

[INSERT NAME]

Beyond contacting the aldermen, as mentioned in the preview, there is a second thing that you can do in the short term AND THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT:

EVERY individual in the region who backs this project and is able to should do what they can to show up at City Hall Friday at 9:30 AM to communicate their expectation of support from the aldermen via billboards, placards and your voice. With Friday being the formal introduction of the bill, a strong showing from STLNFL backers would make a strong initial impression and help build momentum as this process begins in earnest.

The address to the St. Louis City Hall is as follows:

1200 Market St, St. Louis, MO 63103

As always, thanks for reading...

 by OldSchool
8 years 4 months ago
 Total posts:   1750  
 Joined:  Jun 09 2015
United States of America   LA Coliseum
Pro Bowl

Interesting that he didn't suggest they fill seats with butts. Because you know, the NFL is watching.

 by Hacksaw
8 years 4 months ago
 Total posts:   24523  
 Joined:  Apr 15 2015
United States of America   AT THE BEACH
Moderator

This really represents their last gasp to make a difference.
Gray rallying the troops to sway the Aldermen. If they Aldermen fall for that they are shortsighted or frightened.

Lucky for them they aren't doing this Saturday as the area expects rain.

 by Elvis
8 years 4 months ago
 Total posts:   38381  
 Joined:  Mar 28 2015
United States of America   Los Angeles
Administrator

Like Oldschool said, they could just go to the games. Being last in the NFL in attendance is not helping the cause.

But truth be told, i respect what Shane Gray and others are doing to try and save their team. Just like i respect the BBTLAR guys for doing all they can to get the Rams back to Los Angeles.

It's funny, i've known about the BBTLAR guys for a long time. I remember (at least 10 years ago probably more) they were having an event in Orange County and Mike Lansford was going to be there. Some of my friends and i thought it might be fun just to see some of the old Rams but the idea that the Rams would ever come back was a joke. We didn't go.

And yet here we are. If the Rams do make it back, whatever effect, large or small, BBTLAR had will simply be amazing...

 by BuiltRamTough
8 years 4 months ago
 Total posts:   5357  
 Joined:  May 15 2015
Armenia   Los Angeles
Hall of Fame

Watching on tv it looked like 25-30k but that's just me. It's tough to say even watching on a big screen HDTV because it's so dark and gloomy in the Dome. You could barely see the upper deck it's so dark.

 by TSFH Fan
8 years 4 months ago
 Total posts:   699  
 Joined:  Jun 24 2015
United States of America   The OC
Veteran

 by OldSchool
8 years 4 months ago
 Total posts:   1750  
 Joined:  Jun 09 2015
United States of America   LA Coliseum
Pro Bowl

bubbaramfan wrote:Somewhere I read only 31,000 actually attended the Rams vs Browns game. Is that right?


Actual butts in seats that's probably right. I read there were 40,000 tickets distributed. Hell if we can't sell out the Dome this Sunday vs our hated rival the Whiners that will tell me all I need to know about St Louis.

Back to the article once again Mr Gray just doesn't get it. I don't think he ever will and I know he won't ever have an open dialogue with somebody who disagrees with him.

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14 posts Mar 29 2024