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Moving Forward On Racial Equity In St. Louis City, County Post-Better Together

From left, Wesley Bell, Cristina Garmendia and Wally Siewert joined Wednesday's talk show.
Evie Hemphill | St. Louis Public Radio
From left, Wesley Bell, Cristina Garmendia and Wally Siewert joined Wednesday's talk show.
From left, Wesley Bell, Cristina Garmendia and Wally Siewert joined Wednesday's talk show.
Credit Evie Hemphill | St. Louis Public Radio
From left, Wesley Bell, Cristina Garmendia and Wally Siewert joined Wednesday's talk show.

With the Better Together proposal that had sought to consolidate much of St. Louis City and County government now no longer up for consideration, what’s next for the region, especially when it comes to addressing racial equity issues?

FOCUS St. Louis is asking this question and more at a free event sponsored by the organization this Thursday evening at the Missouri History Museum. TitledEquity in City/County Reform: Political Representation and Criminal Justice, the gathering will bring together a variety of speakers from both city and county.

On Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air, St. Louis Public Radio’s Jonathan Ahl talked with several of them, including St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell; Cristina Garmendia, author of St. Louis’ Equity Indicators Baseline Report as well as a staff member at Washington University’s Race and Opportunity Lab at the Brown School; and Wally Siewert, director of civic engagement and the Impact Fellows program for FOCUS St. Louis.

Listen to the conversation:

Related Event

What: Equity in City/County Reform: Political Representation and Criminal Justice

When: 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 11, 2019

Where: Missouri History Museum (5700 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63112)

St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Alex Heuer, Emily Woodbury, Evie Hemphill, Lara Hamdan and Alexis Moore. The engineer is Aaron Doerr and production assistance is provided by Charlie McDonald.

Send questions and comments about this story to feedback@stlpublicradio.org.

Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.

Evie Hemphill joined the St. Louis on the Air team in February 2018. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English literature in 2005, she started her career as a reporter for the Westminster Window in Colorado. Several years later she went on to pursue graduate work in creative writing at the University of Wyoming and moved to St. Louis upon earning an MFA in the spring of 2010. She worked as writer and editor for Washington University Libraries until 2014 and then spent several more years in public relations for the University of Missouri–St. Louis before making the shift to St. Louis Public Radio.