Parks again rejects Durbin's call for earlier night club closings
East St. Louis mayor Alvin Parks is again rejecting a call from Sen. Dick Durbin to institute an earlier closing time for the city’s night clubs and liquor stores
Durbin was in his hometown on Wednesday encouraging area ministers to push Parks for a 1 a.m. closing time. Durbin believes it would help curb the killings in a city that a federal prosecutor has called the nation’s most dangerous.
Parks says he welcomes the Senator’s help in revitalizing the city. But he says its problems lie more in drugs, "guns in the hands of the wrong people," domestic issues and vendettas. And he says the earlier closing times would put people out of work.
Dellwood to contract with St. Louis County for police services.
A months-long political standoff in the city of Dellwood is over.
The City Council vote last night to disband the police department is this North County municipality of 5,000 and contract with the St. Louis County police.
Discussions on contracting began in November. Four aldermen who opposed such an arrangement began boycotting meetings in protest, which held up other city business, including the new budget. But last week's elections gave those in favor of contracting a majority.
Corps to release report on flood storage
The Army Corps of Engineers is set to release a report today that will look at how much space it would have needed in its reservoirs to avoid last year’s flooding along the Missouri River.
The report will also look at how other uses of the river, such as navigation and recreation, would have been affected by storing that much floodwater.
The agency was forced to release record amounts of water from its upstream dams last year, causing severe flooding in northwest Missouri. Outside experts concluded the Corps did all it could to deal with the situation.
The Corps says nearly all of its reservoir space is available this year because of a warm, dry spring.
