Police chief eats shit sandwich

It's no fun to predict the future when you leave no public record of your prediction. I have been telling everyone who asked me that Deputy Chief Stephen Pollihan would get Police Chief Joe Mokwa's job when Shaky Joe eats the shit sandwich. And he did! At least the interim position.

How did I know this? Because his nephew Bill Pollihan was on the 2004 Fire Department promotion list over which Mayor Francis G. Slay (in effect) axed Fire Chief Sherman George when he wouldn't make the contested promotions. Black firefighters said at the time that Pollihan's uncle was a good Slay team player with some steam who had played some role in chucking Sherman George out of the way so his nephew (and the other good old boys) could get his hookup.

Let me try my prophetic powers now. I predict that Joe Mokwa will end up as director of homeland security for some distant city, on the federal payroll, while a piece of damaged goods from that distant city will come to St. Louis to head a similar position with federal money.

Why? Because I had a front-row seat for the attempted Sherman George payoff conversations, and one piece of bait dangled by a Slay surrogate was for Sherman to become director of homeland security for St. Louis on the federal payroll. Sherman didn't take the bait. If Slay's surrogate wasn't bluffing, then they still have that position and money to play with. I predict they will spend it on a damaged goods trade to get Mokwa out of town and keep his mouth shut.

By the way, anyone just now waking up to what a hot mess you have running your city government, the City's black firefighters have kept a pretty good online archive of news reports that have been telling you what you needed to know for years.