Yes on E … but let’s remember how we got here.

No one has put more money into Mayor Francis G. Slay’s campaign committee than Rex Sinquefield. So it was probably no coincidence that, in 2010, there was hardly a peep from Slay about Rex’s $7.3 million statewide “Proposition A” campaign to put the City’s earnings tax to a vote every 5 years.

Here’s Ray Hartmann on Slay’s behavior in 2010:

While Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser has spoken out loudly against Proposition A, and his city attorney has tried to stop the measure in court, Slay has remained silent as a church mouse about a measure that literally threatens his city with financial ruin.

What a coincidence.

Slay’s blog post at mayorslay.com was outrageous. He predicted the measure would “do well statewide, and much less well here and in KC.”

Yet even after acknowledging that Proposition A would not “do well” with his own constituents — the ones it would endanger — Slay couldn’t bring himself to even muster a suggestion that voters oppose his benefactor’s pet project. Not one word.

Great moments in civic leadership.

In November of 2010, Missouri voters approved Proposition A, 68% to 32%.

The April 2011 municipal general election was the first time that Prop E was on the ballot in St. Louis City and Kansas City. In St. Louis, the Slay operation raised some $650,000 for the retention effort, called “Citizens For A Stronger St. Louis.”

The Yes on E effort in 2011 had the feel of a Slay mayoral campaign. Slay’s most trusted political operative, Richard Callow, managed the campaign. Operatives who would later have large roles on Slay’s 2013 reelection campaign (and then later in City Hall), such as Jack Coatar and Mary Ellen Ponder, had prominent roles on the 2011 Yes on E campaign.

Meanwhile, Rex spent nary a dime on a No on E campaign in St. Louis.

Richard Callow, campaign manager for the pro-earnings-tax campaign, dubbed “Citizens for a Stronger St. Louis,” said he knew of no organized campaign against the tax in St. Louis.

Still, Callow organized an army of paid workers, volunteers and city officials in what he called an “almost unprecedented flurry” of community meetings and neighborhood canvassing.

Slay personally spoke at 87 of 104 meetings.

[…]

Sixty-three “field canvas” workers knocked on doors, staffed phone banks and even visited Busch Stadium on opening day.

[…]

In total, the campaign raised about $650,000.

In 2011, St. Louis City voters retained the earnings tax, 88% to 12%.

In 2016, it’s a different story.

“It hit me out of nowhere,” Slay said to the Post-Dispatch regarding the $2 million Rex Sinquefield has poured into this year’s No on E campaign.

Well, perhaps not exactly out of nowhere, Mr. Mayor.

Sinquefield’s top political adviser, Travis H. Brown, who is helping run the anti-earnings tax campaign, said Slay shouldn’t have been surprised.

“As recent as three weeks ago there were negotiations (with Slay for Sinquefield) to at least stay neutral,” Brown said. “It’s disappointing for someone to act like there wasn’t a deliberate process.”

Brown said he has met with Slay and his staff at Sinquefield’s farm, the posh St. Louis Racquet Club and Sinquefield’s chess club to discuss ways to reduce the city’s reliance on the tax. Those discussions have produced few results, he said.

Slay’s campaign committee has transferred a comparatively paltry $100,000 into a Yes on E campaign called “Reinvest STL.” This time, there aren’t 63 “field canvassers.” This time, there isn’t an “almost unprecedented flurry” of neighborhood meetings and canvassing. There isn’t even a Yes on E logo this time.

Meanwhile, Rex’s No on E campaign is all over the airwaves and flooding our mailboxes.

I’m voting Yes on E this Tuesday. I urge you to do the same. But remember how we got here. We got here because Slay thought it was a good idea to cozy up to Rex so that Rex’s oodles of campaign cash flowed Slay’s way.

But if you literally and figuratively give a key to the City to an eccentrically ideological billionaire like Rex Sinquefield, then you should foresee that there will be a price to pay. Perhaps now we are paying it.

Slay calls Rex “reckless,” but this kind of recklessness takes two.