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State health officials faced tough questions Wednesday from the board overseeing Missouri’s Medicaid program — with a focus on the persistently long wait times for applicants and heightened federal scrutiny …

by Jeremy Kohler

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

One of the nation’s biggest residential “clean energy” lenders has suspended making loans to homeowners in Missouri, citing economic conditions and a new state law that mandated more consumer protections and oversight.

Ygrene Energy Fund, based in California, said it will also stop lending in California, but will continue lending to homeowners in Florida, where it can make loans for wind and hurricane protection, a more viable business. No other states have large residential Property Assessed Clean Energy programs, although dozens of states allow them for commercial borrowers.

The measures in Missouri were signed into law last year, after a ProPublica investigation found that the high-interest PACE loans disproportionately burdened borrowers in predominantly Black neighborhoods.

A Ygrene spokesperson said Thursday that the company wanted to turn its focus to other areas of the country where it would find opportunities for profit. The spokesperson said that legislative reforms in Missouri were a “small factor” in the company’s decision to stop making loans to homeowners there, although a company executive said the reforms had likely contributed to a decline in loan applications.

In its investigation, ProPublica found that PACE lenders in Missouri, including Ygrene, charged high interest rates over terms as long as 20 years, collecting loan payments through tax bills and enforcing debts by placing liens on property — all of which left some borrowers vulnerable to losing their homes if they defaulted.

We analyzed about 2,700 loans recorded in the five counties with the state’s most active PACE programs and found that 28% of borrowers in predominantly Black neighborhoods were at least one year behind in repaying their loans, compared with 4% in mostly white areas. If loans are not repaid, the local government can seize a borrower’s property.

PACE was marketed as a way to finance energy-saving home improvements without upfront costs. Missouri law required the energy savings from each project to at least equal the cost of the loan, but many borrowers said they did not always see that much in savings. ProPublica found that while the state law authorized PACE programs to do audits to ensure that borrowers saved money on their energy bills, it did not require them, and PACE programs in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas did not typically perform them.

The programs targeted many vulnerable homeowners, including people who needed urgent repairs but had few options for credit. ProPublica found that some Ygrene loans in the St. Louis area were issued to owners of homes with exceptionally low property values; in several cases, the size of the loan exceeded what the local assessor said the entire property was worth. Ygrene and other PACE lenders had used private appraisals that were often much higher.

The new Missouri law required PACE programs to base loans on appraisals from local governments, a change that sharply curtailed the availability of loans to owners of homes with low property values.

The law also required that residential PACE programs be reviewed by the state Division of Finance at least every other year. Previously, PACE programs had to submit annual reports to the state, but ProPublica’s investigation found there was little oversight.

PACE officials and its lenders have said the program’s interest rates tend to be lower than those of some credit cards and of payday lenders, providing much-needed financing for home upgrades, particularly in predominantly Black neighborhoods where traditional lenders typically don’t do much business. Before the new law, Ygrene said, it beefed up its standards by making sure borrowers had a record of paying property taxes on time and by using more conservative property valuations to underwrite loans. The company said it has also reduced its delinquency rates since the program began making residential loans.

A Ygrene executive told the city of St. Louis’ Clean Energy Development Board on Wednesday that the company wanted a one-year break from making any new loans, starting Aug. 18.

“This is simply due to interest rates and economic conditions that are making the program not viable at this time,” Jim Malle, Ygrene’s director of government affairs, told the board. He also said the company had seen a reduction in new applications for loans “and we believe that is due to the Missouri legislation.”

The board, which only months ago had renewed Ygrene’s contract to act as its administrator for residential loans, said it could have found the company in default of its contract with the city but agreed to suspend the program for at least three months and reevaluate the decision quarterly.

Neal Richardson, executive director of the city’s development agency and a clean energy development board member, said the city would use money from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to help homeowners with energy projects and home repairs.

A representative for the St. Louis County PACE program, which also uses Ygrene, could not be reached for comment.

Ygrene had competed for market share in Missouri with another entity, Missouri Clean Energy District. While Ygrene dominated the market in St. Louis and St. Louis County, MCED operated mostly in St. Charles County, west of St. Louis, as well as across the state in the Kansas City area.

St. Louis County Assessor Jake Zimmerman, who has criticized PACE programs and last year urged the county council to “get out of this business,” said that while Ygrene's departure was good, he worried that other companies may get in the market.

David Pickerill, MCED’s executive director, said his district was still making loans but that business was “down quite a bit, I think, due to the economy and inflation and various factors.” He said it was possible “the people who were the best people to use the PACE program have already done so.”

Ygrene is not getting out of the lending business altogether. The company recently announced it had secured investments from two venture capital firms to expand other types of residential and commercial loans nationally, including those not secured with collateral. Ygrene also offers PACE loans for commercial projects; those loans have not attracted as much attention from regulators because they tend to involve borrowers with more experience and access to capital who aren't as likely as residential borrowers to default.

The company announced last year that it was offering PACE to homeowners in Ohio in a partnership with the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority. The port authority had run its own successful small-scale PACE program that offered affordable loans in the northwest Ohio city. But port officials said they needed a national company to help offer loans statewide. Ygrene months ago removed any mention of Ohio from its website. Port officials have not responded to questions about the project’s status.

The third installment of Aerosmith's five-week archival streaming concert series, 50 Years Live!: From the Aerosmith Vaults, premieres Friday at 3 p.m. ET on the band's official YouTube channel. The movie…

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Over the last few months, Republican politicians have been working on a nonsense plan to force their spam into your inboxes. This kicked off following some Republican operatives misunderstanding (whether through their own cluelessness, or on purpose) a study about political spam and how different email providers deal with it. Since then, Republicans have been […]

Thousands of kids are getting ready to head back to class and school safety is on the minds of many. This is especially true after the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas where 19 students and two teachers were murdered in a school shooting.

St. Louis is a beer town. According to beer historians, John Coons somewhat poetically opened the city's first brewery in 1809 at the site where the Gateway Arch now stands.

There are bars that serve beer, and then there are beer bars. You can recognize a beer bar by the number of taps.

A Wash U spokeswoman said the school decided to clear the structure "for safety reasons."

Here at the RFT, we know the importance of stretching a dollar. So for all you folks who want to hit up a bar for a good brew but don't want to spend a fortune, here are our recommendations for affordable beer bars.

These photos were taken at the corner of Home Ave. and Chapman St. in Edwardsville. EDWARDSVILLE - Road work has closed the intersection of Home Ave. and Chapman St. in Edwardsville for repairs. According to workers, the road is being re-done all the way up until N. Buchanan St. and is estimated to take about a month to complete. The road was officially closed off yesterday morning, August 11, to begin work. One lane will remain open on Chapman St., but motorists should use alternate routes. Motorists will be required to utilize State St., Orchard St., and N. Fillmore St. to avoid the closure. The City appreciates the cooperation of all residents during this process. Please contact Public Works at (618) 692-7535 with any questions.

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Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar 1004 Locust Street, 314-241-8141 thebridgestl.com A narrow, two-story restaurant decorated with dark wood, willow chandeliers, an elegant bar and shelves filled with bottles, Bridge has some serious aesthetics.

Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar 1004 Locust Street, 314-241-8141 thebridgestl.com A narrow, two-story restaurant decorated with dark wood, willow chandeliers, an elegant bar and shelves filled with bottles, Bridge has some serious aesthetics.

Several IndyCar drivers spent Thursday testing the track at World Wide Technology Raceway.

by Nicole Carr

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

A group of Georgia mothers has been trying to get certain library books banned by reading sexually graphic passages aloud at school board meetings. Now, after the board barred one of the mothers from attending, the group is claiming in a federal lawsuit that their First Amendment rights have been violated.

In essence, members of the group, which has dubbed itself the Mama Bears, are arguing that they’re being censored — in their own pursuit of censorship.

At a February school board meeting in Forsyth County, Georgia, Mama Bears member Alison Hair wanted to draw attention to a book that was available at her son’s middle school library, according to the lawsuit. Turning to a page from “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel about a 9-year-old boy whose father was killed in the 9/11 attacks, Hair began to read: “I know that you give someone a blow job by putting your penis ...”

That’s as far as she made it before Board of Education Chair Wesley McCall cut her off. He reminded her of “the rules that we talked about in the beginning” of the meeting concerning the board’s policy about “profane comments.” He also let her know that “we understand your point” and stated that the district already has a vetting system in place “so these books are not read out loud to students.”

Hair continued to try to speak during her allotted three minutes, asking that she be given back the time that McCall spent interrupting her. “Here’s what I’m here to tell you,” she said. “I am here to confront evil.”

McCall cut her off again: “Your time is up.”

Hair returned to the Forsyth School Board meeting the following month, again attempting to read from a book and again getting cut off. The board later sent her a letter banning her from school board meetings until she agreed to follow board policies: “It was clear that your intent was not to comment to the Board in the public forum but was to disrupt the meeting of the Board of Education to draw attention to yourself and your beliefs.”

The lawsuit, filed in late July by the Institute for Free Speech on behalf of Hair, Mama Bears of Forsyth County, and Mama Bears Chair Cindy Martin, claims that “the Forsyth County School Board, embarrassed by debate about its choices, has gone so far as to silence and banish from its meetings any parent who simply reads aloud from its schools’ library books.”

Del Kolde, a senior attorney with the Institute for Free Speech Institute who’s representing the plaintiffs, said of the lawsuit: “It’s not about censoring the books. It’s about reading from the books in a public setting. We don’t see any irony.”

“To me, the irony is if you’re putting books in the system, why can I not read them in a public setting?” Hair told ProPublica. “But again, this is not about books. This is about my right to speak to the school board about concerns that we have regarding our children.”

According to Kevin Goldberg, an attorney and First Amendment specialist with the nonprofit free-speech advocacy group Freedom Forum, “There’s at least some merit to the suit. The premise is valid.” (Forsyth County Schools Chief Communications Officer Jennifer Caracciolo said the district and school board could not comment on pending litigation; individual school board members did not respond to requests for comment.)

Goldberg points out that “the First Amendment provides a right for parents to petition.” And he notes that “the suit is not the first of its kind and likely won’t be the last, because it has legs.”

Below, Goldberg provides commentary on the lawsuit. ProPublica has provided relevant excerpts from the suit to give some additional context to Goldberg's analysis.

Lawsuit: Plaintiffs — mothers who wish to protect their young children from Defendants’ questionable choices — want to exercise their right to criticize the placement of pornographic books in school libraries by accurately reading those books aloud at public meetings. The books’ language, after all, best illustrates why the parents contend the books are inappropriate for school. Plaintiffs want to read these books aloud because they want to elicit in these elected officials, and in their fellow citizens participating in the debate, the same emotions that struck them when they first read these words; embarrassment and motivation to action. They want their audience, including elected board officials, to hear the jarring, unsettling, and sexually graphic words in their original medium. If Plaintiffs cannot read these excerpts, then the power of their message is lost, indeed, the message itself is censored.

Goldberg: Parents have a right — and frankly, we want them to have a right — to be able to speak during these meetings. They also have a right to speak as they want to speak, and that right should be very broad. That’s why I think this case has some merit.

Lawsuit: At the February 15, 2022 school board meeting, Defendant McCall adopted the practice of opening every Public Comment period by purporting to read from the Public Participation Policy though he added language that cannot be found in the policy. This spoken variation of the policy adds a new category of things the boards can censor: A reading from something “inappropriate.”

“We want to remind our citizens that public participation is to present issues or concerns to the Board” [the lawsuit quotes McCall as saying] “but in doing so we do not allow profane comments or comments which involve inappropriate public subjects. If your comments include anything that you might read tonight is … inappropriate to being stated in public you will be instructed to stop.”

Goldberg: The policy as written is problematic, I think, from a First Amendment point of view. But certainly when you go off script, it raises a host of First Amendment problems, primarily because it tends to be vague.

The biggest problem with vagueness is that I don’t know how to moderate or calculate my speech, which means I’m likely to self-censor to not get in trouble. That is a clear First Amendment violation.

Vagueness also leads to selective enforcement. What we end up seeing here is one side being told to be quiet because they’re being inappropriate or disruptive.

Lawsuit: Protecting the innocence of Forsyth County’s children is central to Mama Bears and its members. Barring the availability of pornographic materials in school libraries is among the group’s chief concerns. …

The Mama Bears have identified over one hundred books they believe are inappropriate.

Goldberg: A stated purpose of their exercising their First Amendment right in this issue is to bar the availability of pornographic materials in school libraries. But pornography is protected by the First Amendment, and there’s no clear evidence that any of these materials are actually pornographic.

The First Amendment right of the parents is absolutely necessary for them to speak, to be a part of the process. It’s what makes the process work. It’s what helps us come to a final decision. But the parents should not be making that decision. The parents should not be imposing that decision. And that’s my real concern, that when they are imposing their decisions, their preferences on everybody else, we run into another First Amendment problem. They are now seeking to use the process to restrict the First Amendment rights of other parents.

Lawsuit: On March 17, 2022 Wes McCall sent Hair a letter banning her from attending future public meetings until she provided a guarantee in writing that she would follow the public participation rules and his directives. …

Though Hair did not attend any meetings after March 15, on May 11, 2022, the full FCS Board sent Hair a second letter, signed by each individual defendant Board member, confirming that she is banned from attending public meetings.

Goldberg: I would hope that they [the school board members] would be pushing to keep as many of these books in the library as possible, but they are at the same time shutting down speech.

Cohen v. California was a really fun and interesting case from the Supreme Court that was decided about 50 years ago. It’s best known as the “fuck the draft” case, where the guy wears the jacket in the L.A. County Courthouse that says “fuck the draft” on the back.

The court said, look, I mean, one man’s vulgarity is another man’s lyric. If you don’t like it, avert your eyes. We do not think that the mere presence of bad words is sufficient to punish somebody.

Well, I think that applies here. If you can use the words “fuck the draft” in a courthouse, you can use them in a school board meeting.

On streets across the region hit hardest by flooding, piles of wet and molding trash could be seen — and smelled — for days.

Robert Merkle, 53, was indicted by a federal jury Wednesday on threatening and cyberstalking charges. The St. Louis man previously terrorized numerous local women and spent two years in prison for cyberstalking and sending women rape threats. Accused of three cyberstalking charges and two counts of transmitting a threat, Merkle could face up to 25 years in prison.

The award-winning restaurant served its last tasting menu dinner and is transitioning to an event space and launching agri-tourism programs to educate and give back.