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He actually came over.

Thanks for joining us for last call.

This is the program where we discuss the topics that we couldn't broach in the first half.

Wendy, how's your birthday so far?

Oh, it's fantastic.

It's great.

It starts tomorrow.

Tonight at midnight.

Yeah.

And then you're going to be on the big jet plane?

We're going to be leaving on a jet plane.

Okay.

I want to ask you about Brady Tkachuk.

He was playing for the Ottawa Senators and he told the Ottawa management, you can trade me to 14.

Right.

Yeah, really.

Have you been to Ottawa in January?

So he goes, send me anywhere.

But he didn't put St.

Louis on the list.

Do you think it's one more slight against the gateway city?

No, I do not.

I do not.

And maybe this is just, you know, because he's he's like my children's age and or maybe a little bit younger.

But I wouldn't want if my father, who has just been named to the Hall of Fame, the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Keith.

Keith Tkachuk.

But if my father has just been named to the Hockey Hall of Fame, he is an absolute legend in the city of St.

Louis.

I think this shows that this young man is actually kind of I mean, he's he's pretty smart.

I wouldn't want to, you know, think I have to fill those skates, have people comparing not at this stage of his career.

He wants to be a legend in his own right and in his own time.

And I don't know that I could see where I think the I think it's a you're so kind when I think it's a bold, I think it's a bold, smart move on the part of the young man.

Not off ice, but on ice as far as playing is concerned.

Right.

Tkachuk is considered one of the biggest jerks in hockey.

And you know what?

I think he probably is because he did not have to like rule out St.

Louis.

He could have said like, all right, I'm going to leave St.

Louis on there.

And because he could still turn down a trade to like, you know, I want to play with my brother.

I want to live in Florida.

But to just say like, I'm not even considering St.

Louis.

That's an insult.

And he's one of those people.

And I hate this where people chant overrated.

That's directed at him.

He won a gold medal.

Oh, yeah.

He won a gold medal.

Where's that Stanley Cup at?

Right.

I don't follow it close enough to know if he's overrated.

I think what I've read is he's a great hockey player.

But it hurt the idea that, you know, he wouldn't come to play in St.

Louis.

Well, let me ask you this.

Doug Armstrong, general manager of the team, told your colleagues at the Post-Dispatch, you know, one factor is the state income tax.

It's 4.7 percent in Missouri, right?

And if you're making $12 million in a year, that's about a half a million bucks.

Yeah, but they also want to get out of Canada because it's even higher.

And it's funny how players in free agency are popping up in Las Vegas and Florida, Carolina, because the weather is good.

Sure.

So that whole... Yeah, it seems crazy.

Oh, yeah.

You destroy your quality of life just to save half a million dollars when you're making $12 million?

Yeah.

I don't ever buy that.

I get that.

For me, that's a big amount of money.

But that's only making $11 million.

You know these players are looking at the numbers.

$500,000 is not a drop in the bucket.

You write a check for $500,000.

You can say to the Blues, you know, I want to take home $7 million or whatever it would be.

And if I'm here, I need to make $12.2 million, and they'd say, OK, Brady.

Usually it's the other way.

It used to be Mark McGuire and others took the hometown discount, or they took a discount to come to St.

Louis because they wanted to play with Tony La Russa and Walt Judson.

Well, there were reasons people wanted to play with Tony La Russa.

Right.

And there was a lot of reasons that we found out later why they wanted to hook up with Tony La Russa.

Because of Barry Weinrahmann?

I don't know about that.

I don't know.

Brew bar, brew bar, brew bar, brew barman.

He was able to do that with Jose Canseco in the restroom of the Oakland Athletics.

I'm not saying it was discovered in St.

Louis.

I'm just saying there was a lot going on.

All right.

Alvin, I'm going to ask you about Jason.

Jason Hall was the head of the Greater St.

Louis Inc.

It's an organization purportedly to help boost the region economically and otherwise.

He left about a year ago to go to Columbus.

Well, he didn't last long in Columbus, and he wants to move back, he says, because of personal reasons.

Family members are ill, etc.

Do you think that Greater St.

Louis Inc.

should rehire him?

I do, I do.

And I don't know that you tell Mr.

Kitchens to pack up and move.

Speaking of apartments, I hope he rented because he might be.

No, I think it would be Jason Hall knows the city.

He knows Greater St.

Louis Inc.

And I think it would be an opportunity to rehire him.

I don't think they should just leave him out there blowing in the wind when he could really help downtown and the region.

I thought that his note sounded like he'd just been pushed out of Columbus.

But the language of uniquely collaborative and this and that, you know, how gracious he was about leaving Columbus.

I like more the Johnny Paycheck attitude.

I mean, if they're going to push you out, just say you take this job.

Well, but he's probably going to have another job.

And I, you, between Kachuk and Kitchens, we're going to have to walk you to your car tonight, Sarah and I. Yeah, I was making some enemies here.

The cynical world of the newspaper editor.

I am somewhat cynical and this is not anti-Kitchens.

This is just pro Jason.

Remind me what Jason Hall did that would warn him to come back.

Well, he was very dedicated to, dirty word now, diversity and inclusion.

And that was a big part of Greater St.

Louis Inc.

I don't know that that's gone away.

He literally set up Greater St.

Louis Inc.

We had five separate organizations and he put that together to merge them, which in St.

Louis, you know, we have all these silos.

It's all so complicated.

He found a way to sort of streamline that.

And with the backing of the Taylors, was able to have the region sort of speak with one voice on the business front.

That was a big deal.

Now, he ruffled a lot of feathers.

I think as a manager, he was very demanding.

And that doesn't always go well when you're in one of these regional entities where maybe people are used to having a little more work-life balance.

You know, the reporting out of Columbus suggests that may have been the same thing.

I think when Jason left, I missed Jason because he had so much energy and he didn't mind just calling out where he would see things that were wrong.

He was, he said it more directly than most people in St.

Louis say that.

We need a little more dose of that here.

So I'm... And I thought... Let's not gloss over what the Columbus paper said.

It said that there was turmoil in his office.

Eleven people threatened to quit.

Right.

And that's the same thing when he left here.

People started saying, oh, yeah, the guy was no good.

Right.

I mean, there are certainly... He was not popular with his employees.

Well, that's a big deal.

Back in the day when we were not just a branch office town, there were a lot of people like that who were very aggressive.

I understand that employees are a little more delicate today.

That's what I'm saying.

I wonder, like I say, what actually was said and whatnot?

Because a lot of times, you know, the new employee comes in and says, oh, look, everybody's got to do something every day.

And there's people who work there and say, what do you mean I have to do something every day?

No, I'm not going to do that.

You're asking too much.

I'm not going to work weekends.

I have to work 37 and a half hours?

I'll quit first.

Oh, okay.

Well, oh, I'm a tyrant.

Sarah, last topic.

The county executive race in St.

Louis County, as far as I can see, is getting almost no press coverage.

Although News-West magazine did take a look at the debate in Florissant, where all three candidates, by the way, said they are not in favor of a city-county merger.

Okay.

Which I think is actually a big news story.

You have been taking a look at this race.

And aside from you, are you seeing any other coverage out there?

I mean, the coverage has been very minimal.

I think that will start to change in the next couple weeks.

You know, the thing that we are working on, it's a collaboration between St.

Louis Magazine and 9PBS.

That's not going to broadcast until July 27th.

We'll also have a substantial web presence at that point.

I think then you'll see other ideas.

Other outlets sort of get into gear.

I think part of what's going on, readers are not that interested in this.

Editors now know what readers aren't reading.

They're not reading a lot of stories about county politics.

They just don't feel that invested in county government.

They might care about Kirkwood government.

They might care about Maplewood government.

They don't care so much about the broad county as much as it's had some trouble.

That's because it's like Greco-Roman wrestling.

They don't want any part of that.

Well, I get that.

And because we have to cover it.

Not because we haven't, but because we do.

We follow it.

It's American in here too.

But just average citizen.

They are not paying attention.

They are rolling their eyes.

And I think the other thing that's going on, I just lost my train of thought.

Well, I will jump in then because I think it's deplorable that these editors are only covering stories which are popular when the county government has major crises right now.

It's $82 million in the debt.

The Animal Center is horrific.

And the roads are nothing but.

They don't care about the prisoners.

They care about the animals.

But the infighting in the county council.

People are trying to figure out who's who.

Or the prisoners.

People are very tired of that.

And the other point that I thought I was going to try to make is you're seeing, ironically, this race is almost too clean.

No one has gone negative.

There's not a lot of leaks of, hey, look at this bad thing this guy did.

Everybody's trying to stay positive in order to get people's attention.

But that's because the lame duck county executive, he's already dealing with all of that negativity.

It's early.

They'll go negative.

Since we made such a big deal that Sam Page, on his way out the door, said, hey, let's merge the city and the county one way or another, don't you think it's newsworthy that the presumed Republican candidate, Dennis Hancock, and the two presumed Democratic candidates No.

Because it's so wildly unpopular in the county.

The only reason Page said that is because he wasn't running again.

Right.

But that's a news story.

That's a news story that people are all talking about the chattering class.

They're all talking about merger one way or the other.

Oh, bring the city.

It'll be another city in the county.

And then the guys who are going to run the county are against it.

They're against Page, but not the county-city merger.

No, you said you thought it was laudable that he Oh, yeah, I did.

I did.

He was a Sam Page unplugged.

Right.

Everybody believes.

I've never favored a county-city merger.

And I don't think most people do.

And we're only talking about coverage of the county executive race.

It will heat up as you get closer to the race.

But right now, it's just not.

I mean, Brian Williams is running against Zimmerman and Angela.

Oh, and Angela.

OK, and that's all right.

I'm telling you guys, when the mayor runs in the city population 280,000, that gets coverage for a couple of months, maybe three months or more.

Pay a lot more attention to what's happening with the mayor.

How can we pay attention to it if you don't cover it?

We are covering it, Charlie.

But you're not seeing it show up on your feed because the algorithm is not picking it up.

I don't read feeds.

I read newspapers.

It's coming.

You're getting old, Sarah.

You should turn it over to your kids.

But I think that things have changed so dramatically in the region.

I think a few people who were very anti-merger have had second thoughts.

It's very small.

Her opinion, the opinion of the birthday girl.

Because I'm 29.

Happy 29th.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We'll see you next week at this time.