Word: st
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...financial stress worsened dramatically in April last year when city assets were temporarily frozen after East St. Louis failed to begin payment on a $3.4 million judgment arising from the beating of one local jail inmate by another in 1984. The city is now beset with dozens of lawsuits. Firemen have sued successfully to collect three years of back uniform allowances, only to be told that the award left no money in the till to pay their salaries. A bill making its way through the state legislature will erase the deficit in the current budget and finally...
...city fell $262,000 behind in payments to its trash contractor, and remains sporadic at best. Residents routinely dump garbage in vacant lots or abandoned buildings. As fast as buildings are boarded up to stop looting and dumping, thieves steal the plywood. Bob's Board-Up Service in St. Louis no longer accepts jobs in East St. Louis because customers there don't pay their bills...
Last December a task force appointed by Illinois Governor James Thompson declared a financial emergency in East St. Louis and noted, in understatement, "There is growing public concern over the city's ability to provide basic municipal services required to ensure public safety and the welfare of its citizenry." Protested Mayor Officer: "I do all I can with the revenue I have." The task force offered a loan but conditioned it on Officer's accepting a state-approved financial director with total control over city spending. So far Officer has not agreed to that condition, and the municipal crisis deepens...
Antiquated city pumps break down all too regularly, backing up raw sewage into East St. Louis High School and forcing the cancellation of classes. At the Villa Griffin public housing project, a persistent pool of sewage on a playground, dubbed Lake Villa Griffin by angry residents, led to the filing of criminal charges against the city to force sewer repairs. When Mayor Officer failed to appear at a hearing on the matter, a county judge clapped him into jail briefly for contempt...
...wasn't always that bad in East St. Louis. Katherine Dunham, a grande dame of the dance, was able to operate a studio in the city in the late 1960s. Heptathlon gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee recalls a happy childhood there and still returns occasionally from the West Coast to visit friends. But today the hottest ticket in East St. Louis is a ticket out of it. The two high schools produce perennial state champions in football and basketball, putting - a few gifted athletes on the road to college, hoping for stardom in the N.F.L. or N.B.A. For other youngsters...