Two-man race underlies split in Green Party

Article by Jim Merkel in Suburban Journals. Reposted to IPR by Paulie.

Years of infighting in the second biggest party in the city is breaking into the open, as not one, but two candidates are running for the Green Party nomination for mayor.

Donald E. DeVivo, 51, a real estate broker, is vying for the Green Party mayoral nomination against Elston K. McCowan, 46, an official of Service Employees International Union Local 2000 and a church pastor.

The winner will go on to the April 7 general election.

Green Party candidates have received small percentages in previous elections, but the large numbers of votes for Green candidates has made it the second largest party in the city. In November, for example, DeVivo received 13,260 votes, or 9.37 percent, when he ran against longtime city treasurer Larry Williams in November. He’s also run for President of the Board of Aldermen and sheriff.

But DeVivo said this is part of a party dispute that goes back half a decade between his group and the Gateway Green Alliance, which is for the entire metropolitan area.

DeVivo, who chairs the Green Party St. Louis Central Committee, said that about five years ago he was the treasurer of the Gateway Green Alliance, a group for the whole metropolitan area. He and others were forced out of the alliance leadership, he said.

But Donald Fitz of University City, the co-coordinator of the Gateway Green Alliance, said DeVivo was removed from the treasurer position because he was doing a poor job with the books.

DeVivo said what happened was there was a coup of the entire leadership.

“Democracy broke out is what happened in the Gateway Green Alliance,” DeVivo said.

DeVivo is the Green Party’s only elected official in the city.

He was elected 22nd Ward committeman for the Green Party in August 2008, a position he won by one vote – his own. No other Green Party members ran for committeman in any wards, except DeVivo’s.

His election automatically catapulted him into the central committee chairmanship.

Despite his chairmanship, backers of McCowan say DeVivo represents only a tiny number of Greens in the area. Fitz compared him to Bill Haas, a perennial candidate who commands little respect in the political arena.

However, the chairmanship put him in position to waive his $1,202.50 filing fee when he decided to run for mayor. DeVivo also waived the $333.37 filing fee for his ally, Maxine Johnson, the party’s aldermanic candidate in the 3rd Ward.

DeVivo refused to waive the fees for McCowan and four aldermanic candidates, Eugene Frison, Ward 9; Kenneth W. Hollenbeck, Ward 13; Mary Jo Maroney, Ward 15; and Timothy W. Kaminski, Ward 7.

The Gateway Green Alliance came forward and paid the $2,200 in fees for McCowan and three of the aldermanic candidates.

Kaminski dipped into his own pocket to pay his filing fee.

Of course, the two political rivals differ on how they think the party should handle the filing fees. Fritz says the money should be returned to the candidates while DeVivo disagrees.

Fitz called DeVivo a destructive force.

“I am a destructive force for his agenda,” DeVivo said, adding he considered the remark comparing him to Haas a compliment.

Aside from the political sniping, each candidate offers voters a political agenda heavy on social issues that often cut across political boundaries.

McCowan said he’s for expanding bus routes to lower greenhouse emissions, keeping all city schools open, eliminating what he called eminent domain abuse and developing green industries.

DeVivo said he would like to work to eliminate derelict buildings throughout the city.

“We’re going to try to repair the current tax base in North St. Louis,” he said.

McCowan’s willingness to work for social change has won him supporters. He was among those who pushed to have lead removed from the Wilkinson Early Childhood Center at Roe School, 1921 Prather Ave.

“I’m running to give a voice to the voiceless, to speak truth to power and defend the weak from the wicked,” McCowan said.

Green politics

The Green Party has claimed numerous successes on the national and local level since it came into existence in the U.S. in 1996 as the Association of State Green Parties.

— Activist Ralph Nader pulled in more than 2 percent of the votes when he ran on the Green Party ticket for president in 2000.

— Locally, the party received 21 percent of the vote in the 2005 mayoral race when Willie Marshall challenged Francis Slay in the general election.

— The party fought plans for a medical waste incinerator in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood in the 1990s and helped shut down another such incinerator in the North Side’s Second Ward in 2002.