One morning late last month, about three dozen men and exactly one woman gathered at the St. Louis city tow lot to bid on 100 or so cars, most in various states of wreckage and decay. The city’s weekly car auctions had resumed the month prior after being put on hiatus following the release of an audit purporting to show $5 million worth of cars from the lot being “unaccounted” for.
The $5 million figure came from an audit, which had been quietly posted to the city’s website in March and began making headlines a few months later, adding to the tow lot’s illicit aura as a place where stolen cars go to be sold under the table by the city. One city official quips that he avoids the tow lot entirely—doesn’t even like talking about it—for fear that merely being near the place, even rhetorically, might somehow corrupt him.
In May, the city’s newly sworn-in comptroller, Donna Baringer, trumpeted the findings from her predecessor’s audit: $80,000 in loose cash lying around and later going missing from the lot offices, in addition to the $5 million worth of unaccounted cars. It became something of a totem for the old, corrupt ways of an old, corrupt City Hall. Baringer even referred the matter to federal investigators…