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Lawyer Mark Pedroli wants a "crowd-sourced" investigation.
Fifty hours of previously unreleased audio from meetings of the St. Louis airport advisory working group have been posted online.
Lawyer Mark Pedroli, whose sunshine requests led to the audio's release, is hoping to do a "crowd sourced" investigation of the dozens of hours of content for any impropriety.
"Everybody loves transparency and accountability, so this is an opportunity for everyone to play a role in the process of holding their government accountable," Pedroli told the RFT.
"I think it's fantastic," said Alderwoman Cara Spencer, who was an outspoken opponent of privatization. "I think there will be a lot that is of interest coming out of these 50 hours."
She added: "I look forward to finding what's uncovered."
The push to privatize the airport began in 2017 and involved a number of high profile current and former elected leaders. The privatization push fizzled in 2020, when its supporters withdrew the issue from November ballot that year.
At the center of the of issue was the working group, whose meetings were closed to the public, which Pedroli alleges was a violation of the state's Sunshine Law.
"This was the first and largest attempted privatization of an airport in the United States, a process made all the more bizarre because it was funded by billionaire Rex Sinquefield," Pedroli said on Twitter.
Along with Sinquefield, former St. Louis City Mayor Francis Slay was a key leader of the the initiative to privatize the airport. Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed was also leading a privatization effort but with a separate plan that was also pulled from the ballot in November 2020.
Eventually, eighteen companies submitted bids indicating they would be interested in securing a longterm lease to run Lambert.
In a bizarre twist, in an August 2019 St. Louis on the Air episode about the ongoing effort, a listener identifying himself as "Dominique" called in to say that the initiative was "a process that’s not been concluded. There is no decision at this point.”
Forensic audio analysis later determined that Dominique was "very likely" Douglass Petty, the communications manager for the St. Louis airport advisory working group.
Perhaps that kerfuffle is addressed in the newly released audio.
When asked if he thought any of the fifty hours would be good to listen to first, Pedroli responded, "Hard to say, most of the best stuff is toward the end, but you never know."
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