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Smelterville

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Kennedy says he's tried to keep the project under wraps out of fear that "speculators" the likes of Tom Kerr would attempt to purchase the PPG property and drive up the price. Yet Kennedy himself has teamed up with perhaps the most notorious real estate speculator in all of St. Louis in Dave Jump, who plans to build a train and barge depot on the PPG property. In the early 2000s Jump earned the reputation as the scourge of downtown St. Louis redevelopment efforts when he gobbled up scores of buildings on Washington Avenue and promptly placed them back on the market for double and triple what he paid. (See Randall Roberts' "Stranglehold," May 4, 2005.)

When the reclusive Jump dared show his face at a city council meeting last month, Jill Thomas and other C4 members assailed him with charges that his true intent is to build a massive ethanol refinery on the PPG property. "My only interest is in the railroads," says a bewildered Jump following the meeting. "Crystal City and the PPG property is the only place in the country where the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads intersect within a few hundred yards of the Mississippi River. I've been interested in that property as a barge and rail hub since the 1970s."

Kennedy, meanwhile, labels Thomas' allegations about an ethanol refinery as just the latest in a series of "absurd and unfounded" notions connected to his project. "It's like the television show CSI meets Beavis and Butt-Head," comments Kennedy. "These people take a half-baked theory and draw a half-baked conclusion."

But if members of C4 can at times come across as a tad paranoid, so too can Kennedy, especially when hinting at the technology he plans to incorporate into the smelter. Kennedy talks of capturing the carbon-dioxide emissions from the plant and feeding it to algae that he will grow in "giant, petri dish-like tanks" on the site. "You end up with a plant that is 40 percent oil," says Kennedy. "You press it and you have diesel fuel."

Other innovations — including ways to greatly reduce his energy consumption and create quality pig iron at a fraction of the cost of other smelters — are too sensitive to reveal at this time. "These are industries that don't like change," says Kennedy. "If they knew what we were doing, they'd spend all kinds of money behind the scenes to stop it."

The sale of the PPG property closed quietly on December 21, with Jim Kennedy's banks wiring Crystal City the requisite $2.2 million needed to acquire the land. Four days earlier the council held its last public meeting of the year. Only about two dozen C4 members bothered to show up for what would be the final, decisive blow to their four-month campaign.

Shortly after the meeting begins the council votes to gather in a final executive session to discuss the sale. As they wait out the closed-door meeting, the C4 members huddle around a Christmas tree that dominates the lobby of city hall. Someone orders a half-dozen Domino's pizzas. Someone else reads an ersatz Christmas poem titled, "'Twas the Night Before Closing."

Before you all close
And tie us up in your mess
Rethink what you've done
And decide what is best!

We'll continue to fight
We're not going away
Good guys always win
When it comes judgment day!

After an hourlong interruption the council ends its closed-door session and once again opens the meeting to the public. In rapid-fire succession the council approves two motions accepting the title to the PPG property and closing on the sale. Mayor Schilly strikes the gavel and the meeting adjourns. Just like that, the "good guys" lost.

Outside city hall, Jack Ginnever and others stand shell-shocked in six inches of snow. Tom Kerr soon arrives from a holiday party wearing one of his trademark Hawaiian shirts — this one with a surfing Santa Claus. "Actually, tonight isn't so bad," Kerr offers. "Before, we were just fighting the city. Now we can open it up to PPG and Wings. They're all involved now."

Buoyed by Kerr's optimism, the C4 group once more launches into talks about its recall effort and pending lawsuit. And for a moment it's almost as if the city council didn't sign off on building a smelter in the middle of town. In the frenzy of excitement, no one mentions a provision to the lease agreement that the council approved a week earlier. Should Concerned Citizens successfully get the courts to void the contract, the city must enter into a new lease agreement with Kennedy or allow him to purchase the PPG property for $1.

A few blocks away from city hall someone recently installed a sign in their front yard greeting visitors to town. The name "Crystal City" is scratched out. The sign reads: "Welcome to Smelterville."

Contact the author chad.garrison@riverfronttimes.com

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