Investigation of safety measures in municipal and district workshops

ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis City Treasurer’s Office is responding to criticism that a city-operated parking garage in the Central West End is unsafe.

A group of women who work nearby and use the Euclid Avenue garage operated by the Treasurer’s Office spoke to FOX 2. The women said they did not see security personnel at the garage. This makes Sarah Dunn feel insecure.

“No, it almost doesn’t exist. So someone has been sighted sitting in a truck standing out here with the windows open next to these dumpsters,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on inside (the garage). And once or twice I’ve heard of sightings from someone sitting in the security room.”

Barb Gotto feels the same way.

“It’s not safe. It’s not safe. “It’s terrible that we have to pay so much for security and we don’t get that,” she said.

St. Louis Treasurer Adam Layne insists the city has security guards at the garage.

“We have security in our Euclid garage,” he said. “We have roving security forces; So between Euclid and our garage down the street we have security, especially in high traffic areas.

“So we spent money on security, just in different ways. So we have full-time security, we have night security, we spend money on security at all our events to keep people safe when they attend events, and we also spend money on upgrades, but after our last assessment is we said we can actually do more, so we will do more.”

Layne says his office is spending another $900,000 to improve security. They are hiring more guards for the eight city workshops and will employ longer guards at the facilities, including the Euclid workshop. The city will also improve surveillance cameras and increase the use of mobile security services.

Layne swears it will make a difference.

“So we don’t have 24/7 security there in every single garage that we have, but we want to make sure we cover the high-traffic areas that are likely to have more incidents, but with that extra $900,000 Dollar we’ll make it.” “It’s even safer there,” he said.

FOX 2 surveyed a St. Louis County-owned parking garage to see what was going on there for security reasons. A spokesman for the County Department of Transportation and Public Works sent the following statement to FOX 2 late Tuesday:

St. Louis County has two parking garages; Both are in Clayton – the court garage under the County Courthouse and the Shaw Park Drive garage in Shaw and Meramec.

Our car park operations group takes care of parking assignments and the cleanliness of both facilities.

The Department of Public Works handles the maintenance of the grounds of both garages, while the county Department of Parks is responsible for the maintenance of the grounds of both garages (including snow removal).

Agreements exist between the County, Metro and the City of Clayton to share usage and maintenance costs for the Shaw Park Drive garage. Metro leases the bus stop side of St. Louis County’s Shaw Park Drive garage.

We do not employ security at the Shaw Park Drive garage. The City of Clayton is responsible for this facility.

David G. Wrone, Public Information Manager, St. Louis County Department of Transportation and Public Works