Archive for the ‘Business as Usual’ Category

The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE} is expected to bring 5,000 people here Aug. 6-9 at America’s Center. Kitty Ratcliffe, prez of the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission (CVC) said, “Member associations dominate the $102 billion meetings industry spending more than $60 billion annually to hold meetings and conventions.”  About 3,000 association executives, 2,500 industry suppliers and 500 other participants will gather for the educational and networking opportunities.  There are estimated to be 900 associations in the St. Louis region including: Optimists International; American Soybean Association; American Association of Blacks in Energy.

Arlene and Dr. Phillip Korenblat

MoDot has presented a proposal to reduce staffing, facilities and equipment “to put more funding toward vital road and bridge projects. The proposal was sent to the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commish. . .Chez Leon was where attorney Gene Zafft and his wife, Maureen, entertained pals at their table d’hote, while the go-to barrister mentioned he’s now representing several descendants of brewery magnate Adolphus Busch in a trust matter. Nearby were Bob Green, walker for Lois Cook, whose ex (for 30 years)

Lois Cook

was famed banker Sam Cook, whose sobriquet was “Blythe Spirit.” Of Sam, 89, Lois sighed, “I still love him.” Sam once gave $2.5 million to Mizzou to fund a chair for research in the study of macroeconomics – chump change for one of the nation’s top economists. Chef Marcel Keravel’s signature popiete de raie, skatewing stuffed with artichoke mouse and lemon butter, was de rigeuer that evening. . . “Rusty” Carnahan emailed everyone on his lists to shoot down robocalls “distorting my record by

Elizabeth Gambaro and Mark Phillips

using a political stunt,” he wrote. The robocalls included this message: “After spending recklessly and maxing out the nation’s credit card, Carnahan demanded that Congress vote to increase the nation’s debt limit without making any spending cuts.” Rusty countered, “Republicans are prepared to spend big dollars spreading lies”. . U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill’s office has emailed invitations to attend a fundraiser for her reelection bid, that will be hosted at 150 Central Ave. in Clayton by Diane Gershman and Jimmy Jenkins. Guests are invited to chip in from $500 each to $5,000. Sniffed one of the recipients, “That’s enough to send her back for lessons at a flying school”. . .The conference of the U.S. Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph will be held July 12 at the Millenium Hotel, where nearly

900 Sisters from St. Louis and across the nation and the world will gather. The key objective will be to salute the hotel for its signing of the EPCAT code to combat human trafficking. . .Shaun Hayes‘ manse at 9 Fordyce Lane was slated for foreclosure, while he owns two other houses – on Glen Eagles Drive and on Collingwood Drive in Olivettte. . .Laurie Klayman has been dubbed manager of the Tumi boutique at Plaza Frontenac. The shop, which will vend luxury travel, business and lifestyle accessories debuts June 16. . .Over on The Hill at Viviano & Sons bossmen John, Sr., John, Jr., and Tony are offering Sapori Antichi,

gluten-free pasta in a spectrum of colors and cuts such as the Vatican, the Eiffel Tower and other landmarks. That’s where we espied lovely oenophile Valery Welp Starr, who reps Terra Firma Wines. . .Over at Adriana Fazio’s namesake dinery, she has named dishes after her heiresses: Tia, Diane and Suzanne. . .The Foundry Arts Center will pay tribute to Bobby Darin on July 15 with the music of Robert Shaw and The Stardusters Orchestra. . .Canoodles: Missouri Baking’s Gambaro family is still

celebrating the marriage of Elizabeth Gambaro to Mark Phillips, who tied the knot at St. Ambrose Catholic Church followed by a pouring at the Rose of the Hill on June 10. Parents are: Chris and Diane Gambaro; Charlie and Shirley Phillips of Affton. . Asthma and allergy specialist Dr. Phillip Korenblat and wife Arlene toasted their grandsons at Tony’s. . .On June 24, the ubiquitous musician Patrick Clark of Channel 11 will have a CD release party on June 24 in the Duck Room at Blueberry Hill.

Rumblings in the ticket broker community include whether there is a partnership between David Greene and disgraced stockbroker Joshua Gould. Greene is prez of Grand Slam Sports, which oversees operations on KFNS Radio and St. Louis Sports magazine.  Word is that he is a partner with Rams great Orlando Pace and Roland Williams in a ticket brokerage, The Ticket Block. The phone number of The Ticket Block appears to be the same as Gould’s former brokerage, The Ticket Nook, which owes the St. Louis Rams $50,000.  Gould personally owes the Rams more than $77,000 plus interest, according to a lawsuit recently filed by the Rams.  The Ticket Block was created in March and lists OROD.LLC as owner, according to the site of the Secretary of State.  O(Orlando) R(Roland) and D(David)?, was created a day before The Ticket Block, according to the site and lists Connie Walsh of Bryan Cave as organizer. Walsh was honored as paralegal of the year in 2009 by Missouri Lawyers Media. The Ticket Block lists 8045 Big Bend Blvd. as its official address on some documents, which is where the Webster Groves headquarters of both KFNS and Grand Slam Sports are located.

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Dr. Phillip Klemmer lunched this week at Il Bel Lago, where he said that kidney dialysis is being given to about 400,000 patients a year. In town to lecture at SLU’s Dr. Kevin Martin’s class at the school’s Nephrology Clinic, Dr. Klemmer attributed much of those who suffer from kidney disease can be faulted “for eating the wrong foods”. . . At another table, Hubbard Radio’s John Kijowski offered that the group’s ESPN 101 Radio is negotiating a 3-year extension of its 2-year contract to air Rams Football games. With him was his daughter, Jamie. . .Michael Duke, a one-time server at the restaurant. popped in to celebrate the opening of the Fenton store – the fourth in his portfolio of Missouri Gold Buyers & Jewelry operations. “Widows come in with hands-full of gold teeth,” he said. . .Later, we learned that Super Bowl Super Bowl XLVI, the 46th edition of the classic, which will be played – if it’s scheduled – Feb. 5, ’12 – in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, may become a bonanza for broadcasters. NBC has pegged 30-second television spots at $3 million each. FOX has already sold half the available spots to automakers on “FOX NFL Sunday.” A certain sell-out will be the Sept. 10 matchup between Notre Dame-Michigan on ESPN. Broadcasters on all the stations are hoping to bag upfront Super Bowl contracts to the tune of $9.2 billion. . . While Reliance Bank has foreclosed on The Lammert Center on Ladue Road, just east of I-170, descendants of the founder of yesteryear’s Lammert Furniture are insisting they must have the architecturally-designed weather vane atop the structure. One Lammert family member claimed, “It was built in 1861 and we’ll do anything to keep it!”

CLAYTON’S CROWNE PLAZA TO BUILD 18-STORY ANNEX
PONZI SCHEMER JOSHUA GOULD’S ANTICS

Playing it safe in his parked Chevy, former U.S. Senator Kit Bond made all his morning’s cell phone calls Thursday in front of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where he was to deliver a speech on infrastructure and transportation.  He was well qualified having served on the subcommittee on transportation, housing and urban development. After he jumped out of the car, Bond provided some nuggets for the columnist on:

• HIS PREDICTION OF GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES: “Mitch Daniels and (former Minnesota Gov.) Tim Pawlenty may be leaders, but don’t count out Paul Ryan.“

• LINDA BOND: “My wife is assisting Nancy Reagan with the Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration and she’s engineered celebrations in Krakow, Budapest, Prague and in London.” {Linda has served as consultant to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.)

• DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN SCANDAL: “Unfortunately, it will have many repercussions.”

• FAMILY: “I’m now the proud grandfather of Elizabeth Ivy Bond, who was born in February. My son, Sam, is now working for Baine Associates in Atlanta.”

Bond spoke before 100 members of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, who deal in all aspects of supply, transportation, bill paying and logistics.
The St. Louis Chapter is helmed by Tom Krenning and the event was organized by Neal Breitweiser.

Area titans of finance, labor and business are buzzing about yesterday’s chilling Wall Street Journal piece about Lee Enterprises, the Davenport-based parent of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  With Lee carrying $1 billion in debt from its top-price buyout of Pulitzer, Inc., in 2005 and teetering toward bankruptcy, WSJ reporter Matt Wirz says Lee seems to have outfoxed a flock of vulture investors who had been buying up Lee notes, hoping the company would default. Then they could up their ownership stakes on the cheap. Troubled as Lee is, it still turns an attractive $100 million in free cash flow,” Wirz writes, cold comfort to P-D employees who endure unpaid furloughs and increased workloads, retirees who’ve seen contractual health benefits evaporate and readers who wonder where the content’s gone. But Wirz says Lee may have lined up a refinancing package of high interest junk bonds. That’ll let Lee pay off the disappointed vultures that were so eager to start picking up a corpse. The columnist notes the irony that one of those vultures is a unit of Goldman Sachs, the investment banking giant that helped put together the Pulitzer-Lee deal in the first place!

Look for the hammer to fall on a prominent real estate developer, who forged the signature of a guarantor to obtain a $1 million loan from Sun Bank. The FBI and Secret Service are involved in the investigation.

The local media was put into a tailspin in KTVI, Channel 2′s 9 p.m. report with a premature celebration of East St. Louis mayoral hopeful Carl Officer. On the night of Tuesday’s election, the station popped on the screen that he had won the race against incumbent Mayor Alvin Parks.  For 10 minutes, KSDK and KMOV went into overdrive with the same info while the daily’s online folks tried to figure out what went wrong.  Half-way into the one-hour newscast on FOX2, a lame excuse was given that the absentee ballots had not yet been counted.  KSDK began rubbing salt into KTVI’s wounds with a spot that the station may not always be first on breaking news, but it is known above all for accuracy – unlike other stations. Oh, hell!