Rodney Hubbard says Jim Roos is a slumlord. That’s some loaded language. The Post-Dispatch describes Roos this way: “A seminary school graduate, Roos  founded Sanctuary in the Ordinary, a “housing ministry” that owns rental units throughout the city.”

This attack on Roos was brought on by the fact that he has been taking down some of Hubbard’s campaign signs–and making no bones about it. Rodney is pretty ticked off. His press release reads:

Jim Roos, a known slumlord and discredited activist has stolen and defaced a number of the campaign’s signs and advertisements.  This criminal conduct will not be tolerated and has been referred to the City’s Board of Elections.

If Roos has been stealing Hubbard’s signs, then indeed Roos should be ashamed of himself. Except, Roos wouldn’t call it “stealing”.

More on that idea shortly, but first the backstory: the two men are at odds over the eminent domain issue. Rodney is getting a lot of money from Paul McKee, a developer who wants to use eminent domain to complete the property packages he has accumulated in North St. Louis City. Roos opposes such taking of property.

In fact he opposes it so much that he has worked his fanny off this last year or more heading up a campaign to collect signatures for two petition initiatives he expects to get on the ballot this fall reining in eminent domain abuse. Roos has even gone so far as to have a huge mural painted on the side of one of his buildings, and that sign has been a bone of contention between himself and the city administration–thus Rodney’s use of the term “discredited activist”.

But enough about the mural and back to the campaign signs. Here’s Roos’s explanation:

Besides eminent domain abuse, one could charge Hubbard with “sign abuse”. His campaign, routinely, without permission, put up monster 4’x8′ signs in front of medium size food shops and service stations.  Many of these owners are foreign born.  They were confused and intimidated by the signs.  Some American Born owners just took them down or stopped the installers.  Other owners gave me permission to remove the signs.  I “recycled” three Hubbard signs to make a single large protest sign for stopping Hubbard and stopping E/D abuse and put it on our warehouse at 2750 Lafayette.

I guess the only way I could judge the truth of Roos’s claim for sure would be to take him up on his offer of talking to the owners and managers who had Hubbard signs put up on their property without permission. I have to admit I haven’t done that: it’s a trek from North St. Louis County to Bohemian Hill, and I’m busy.

I have an opinion about whether Roos is telling the truth or not, but I haven’t collected proof. Take that for what it’s worth.