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Councilman Sam Page and Councilwoman Hazel Erby join the latest edition of the Politically Speaking podcast to talk about the tumultuous year in St. Louis County government.

Page, D-Creve Coeur, and Erby, D-University City, are the chair and co chair of the St. Louis County Council. They’ve held those positions for two years amid tensions with St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger.

Since the beginning of 2017, Page and Erby have been part of a bipartisan coalition that’s clashed with Stenger on a multitude of issues. Earlier this week, the council passed a budget with roughly $35 million in cuts from what Stenger recommended. They also overrode his veto numerous times, including on removing a requirement that bidders for construction contracts be linked to apprenticeship programs.

Host Don Marsh talks with Sauce Magazine's managing editors Catherine Klene and Heather Hughes and art director Meera Nagarajan about what they consider to be the best new local restaurants – from fine dining to a breakfast-and-lunch café.

The longtime Missouri Democrat reflects on her time in the Senate and touches on a variety of political topics and challenges ahead as she departs office.

On Monday's St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh spoke with Cami Thomas, the creator of "Smoke City," a web series that explores a different St. Louis neighborhood in each episode.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson sat down with STLPR political reporter Jason Rosenbaum for a wide-ranging interview. The governor discussed healthcare, infrastructure and what it was like to take office after former Gov. Eric Greitens resigned amid multiple scandals.

Three St. Louis women  join host Don Marsh to talk about their organizations are creating environments for women to thrive and grow professionally.

On Friday’s St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh went behind the headlines on a newly published investigation by the Washington Post. That report found that 48 of the 148 women killed in St. Louis from 2007 to 2017 were murdered by an intimate partner – and that one-third of those men were publicly known to be a potential threat before the attacks occurred.

Wanda Ward. Jannard Wade. Malcolm Ryder. Those names probably don’t sound as familiar as Ruby Bridges or the “Little Rock Nine,” who are celebrated figures in the history of American civil rights. But during the same era in which Bridges and so many other black students were bravely challenging public school segregation in the South, some of their peers were also taking bold steps to integrate private institutions. That topic first piqued Michelle Purdy’s interest about 20 years ago, when she was an undergrad at Washington University exploring the history of education and particularly black education. Now a faculty member at her alma mater, she’s published a new book on the subject, and she joined Thursday’s St. Louis on the Air to discuss it with host Don Marsh.

On Thursday's St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh facilitated a discussion about homelessness in the St. Louis region with local activist Teka Childress of St. Louis Winter Outreach and city official Irene Agustin of the St. Louis Department of Human Services.

On Wednesday's St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh discussed efforts to link health and education with superintendent of University City Schools Sharonica Hardin-Bartley, director of Health Equity Works Jason Purnell and senior director of strategic initiative and partnerships at America’s Promise Alliance Monika Kincheloe. 

Audiences are collectively pretty familiar with falling through a rabbit hole to accompany a young girl named Alice on a strange trip involving everything from a queen to a cat to a jury composed of animals. But Metro Theater Company has added even more elements to Lewis Carroll’s classic story – in this case keyboarders, guitar players, bass players, an accordion, trumpet players and a clarinet, among others.

Amy Martin joins host Don Marsh to talk about how her environmental reporting led her to create and produce the Montana Public Radio show and podcast “Threshold,” which delves deep into focused environmental topics and issues.

St. Louis Alderman Terry Kennedy is the latest guest on Politically Speaking, where he spoke with St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum and Rachel Lippmann about his 30-year tenure on the Board of Aldermen.

Kennedy represents the 18th Ward, which takes in nine neighborhoods in central and north St. Louis — including the Central West End, Vandeventer and JeffVanderLou neighborhoods. He’s planning to resign in early January to become clerk of the Board of Aldermen.

A second generation alderman, Kennedy joined the board in 1989. He succeeded his father, Sam Kennedy, who served on the board for 21 years. During his time in office, Kennedy helped create the North Sarah development — a state, federal and private partnership that brought about new housing in his ward.

Kennedy was also the key backer of a Civilian Oversight Board for the St. Louis Police Department. That idea languished for years, until aldermen ended up passing legislation after Michael Brown’s shooting death in Ferguson. After the Jason Stockley protests, aldermen ended up giving that board subpoena power.

In their super-service quarter-century, Forest ReLEAF of Missouri has moved over 200,000 native species trees from seedlings to nursery transplants to solid ground in communities around the Show-Me-State.

ReLEAF works with Seniors to Young Friends to community folks. This intrepid non-profit trains and supports volunteer powered efforts to grow, track and maintain healthy Urban Forests. Community Forester Tom Ebeling talks with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi (some of her best friends are Trees) about this work, in a conversation celebrating ReLEAF's 25th anniversary and the many benefits of urban trees. 

If this interview inspires you to check out ReLEAF volunteer opportunities, don't resist! The work will grow on you. 

THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms Engineer

Music: Magic 9 performed live at KDHX by Infamous Stringdusters

Related Earthworms Conversations: Urban Forests: A Natural History of Trees and People in the American Cityscape with Jill Jonnes (October 2016)

Monday, December 10, 2018 marked the five-year anniversary of the merger between St. Louis Public Radio and the St. Louis Beacon. STLPR general manager Tim Eby and St. Louis Beacon co-founder and former STLPR news editor Margie Freivogel spoke with Don Marsh about the vision five years after its realization.

On Monday's St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh spoke with singer, actor and writer Storm Large ahead of her St. Louis visit. She will be performing her holiday cabaret "Holiday Ordeal" at the Sun Theatre on Dec. 11.

Elizabeth Stroble, president of Webster University, joins host Don Marsh to talk about her first trip to the university’s newest campus, located in the heart of Accra, Ghana. The five-year-old campus is currently the only U.S. college campus in Ghana.

For four seasons now, St. Louis Public Radio’s We Live Here podcast team has been telling community-driven stories for listeners “somewhere on the woke spectrum.” A couple weeks ago, co-producers and hosts Tim Lloyd and Kameel Stanley took that concept one step further and asked a handful of local young people to do the storytelling themselves. The fresh voices that were in the spotlight at We Live Here’s well-attended house party on Nov. 27 are also the focus of this week’s new episode of the podcast.

St. Louis Public Radio reporters Chad Davis and Ryan Delaney talk to Don Marsh about what the Ferguson-Florissant School District's redistricting plan means for Berkeley residents. 

Until a few years ago, Wendell Potter frequently crafted arguments against the idea of the U.S. government becoming more involved in health care. "I wrote a number of speeches for my CEO and delivered some myself that the government should get out of the way and let the free market work its magic in health care," the former Cigna executive says. "I came to realize the free market doesn’t work in health care like it does in other sectors of the economy … and that’s one of the reasons why we saw so many people who were uninsured and now a growing number of people who are underinsured." Potter discusses the status of advocacy efforts toward universal health care as well as the opposition at regional and national levels in this episode of St. Louis on the Air. Patrick Ishmael, director of government accountability for the Show-Me Institute, and Dr. Ed Weisbart, chair of the Missouri chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, also participate in the conversation.