(bright music) - [Narrator] Every four years registered voters in the city of St. Louis have the opportunity to cast their ballot for mayor in both a primary and general election.

This is one of those years, and it's the second mayoral race using approval voting, a method in which voters are allowed to select any number of candidates they approve of rather than just one.

The primary election on March 4th will have four candidates on the ballot.

The two candidates receiving the most will appear in the general election on April 8th.

(bright music) Tishaura Jones is currently serving as the 47th mayor of the city of St. Louis, the first African American woman to do so.

Previously, she served two terms in the Missouri House of Representatives and was selected to hold the position of Assistant Minority Floor Leader.

Prior to being elected, Mayor Jones served as treasurer of St. Louis from 2013 to 2021.

Jones touts lower crime and historic investments as successes in her first term.

Cara Spencer was elected to the St. Louis Board of Aldermen in 2015.

She's campaigning on the city's need to improve services, such as public safety, the condition of roads, the inefficiencies concerning trash pickup, and the inadequate response to clear streets after the January snow storm.

This is Spencer's second bid for mayor.

She lost to Tishaura Jones in 2021 by 4%.

Michael Butler has served as the Recorder of Deeds for the city of St. Louis since 2019.

During that time, he also served as chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party.

Butler represented District 79 in the Missouri House of Representatives from 2013 to 2018.

Butler's campaign focuses on how he will reduce crime and vacant housing, improve government services, and use of the Rams money.

Andrew Jones is the only Republican running for mayor.

He is a retired utility executive who also ran for this office in 2017 and 2021.

His campaign message is change, and as the only person not currently working in city government, he says he can make change happen.

(bright music) Nine PBS and St. Louis Magazine have partnered to cover this race, but we left what we cover, the agenda up to the people of St. Louis.

Through online queries and virtual and in-person listening sessions, we heard from voters and stakeholders about what issues are most important to them and what they would like us to ask the candidates.

St. Louis magazine executive editor Sarah Fenske sat down with all four candidates to get their answers to the issues you identified as most critical to determining your vote.

(light music) The first agenda item focuses on transparency and accountability.

Participants express frustration over the lack of transparency in city government, particularly in how decisions about public funds are made and communicated.

- Hello, my name's Aminhan Lobster and I'm a resident of the Midtown neighborhood.

I would like to see more active ways in which the community can get involved and readily informed about the status of programming within the city of St. Louis, the status of the city services, for example, when citizens submit requests.

I would like a more active portal, so citizens can be aware of where those requests are and the status of being answered.

In addition, I would like more accountability.

I would like continue public hearings and forums in order for citizens of St. Louis to talk to, whether that be the board of Aldermen or even the mayor's office in regards to offering feedback and also getting status updates toward their concerns.

- Hi, my name is Emmanuel and I live in Ward 2.

I'd love to see the city take seriously the transparency and accountability over groups like the St. Louis Development Corp.

They're ultimately an unelected body and they have way too much power over deciding how our city's resources are used.

I wanna see the city reach out to citizens to be involved in those meetings and processes.

- Okay, first item: transparency and accountability.

So there's plenty of public hearings at City Hall, but there's a sense that decision makers don't really wanna hear from people, that they're just kind of checking a box.

or that there's not enough chances for people's voices to truly be heard.

What will you do to incorporate the voices of the communities you serve when you're making decisions that impact them?

- I think a lot of people have just lost faith in government.

They've lost faith when they submit a request to the Citizen Service Bureau that it's not just gonna go into a drawer and not be dealt with.

And so one of the things I'll bring to the table is a true accountability of citizen service requests, how long it really takes to fill a pothole, not just in a broad sense, but specifically.

I mean, I think we need to look at these things geographically.

When you see the population loss that we're seeing in the city coming out of a very specific geographical area, you know, it's very clear to me that we have got to address equity in city services.

- So residents also talked about the need for follow through.

They feel like the city is constantly commissioning studies.

They'll hire consultants to look at stuff, and then that seems to just lead to commissioning another study.

- Right.

- What will you do as mayor to move past that study stage and actually put things into action?

- Yeah, I mean, you know, we're talking right now about giving raises to city workers.

And this is coming of course, at the very end of session, after the Board of Aldermen really can, under our rules, without suspension of those rules, address raises.

And so it's coming at the 11th hour essentially, but it's also preceding a study, a comprehensive pay study that should be done this spring.

This is following a pay study that was done in 2021 that really went on a shelf and clearly did not address the pay parity or the lack of pay parity that was driving vacancies across city departments.

And this is a huge problem that plays out in a failure to deliver city services.

You know, it's also quantifiable.

We had an enormous surplus last year in our budget, $42.1 million driven by vacancies in city departments.

- So something else that residents brought up at these sessions is the recent very negative headlines about the St. Louis Development Corporation.

Also some of the scandal in the building division.

What can the city do to keep public funds from going to bad actors?

And do you feel like leaving the board of the SLDC that just opened the door to more potential problems?

- Under the current structure, you know, you have an organization that has a CEO, which is really chosen by the mayor.

You also have a board of directors that oversees the organization.

In this particular case, this administration, this mayor has chosen to have the chair of the oversight board be the CEO of the organization it's supposed to be overseeing.

And when you have that breakdown of oversight, I realized over the course of my service there that the oversight was truly a sham and it was not something I could continue under good conscious to participate in.

I think it's important that from a policy perspective, that we prevent that from happening ever again.

- Regarding accountability and having more citizen input, we have a quarterly cabinet and community that we take to different neighborhoods across the city, north, south, the west side, downtown.

And we bring all of our cabinet departments there, so people can get their answers in real time.

So after we do maybe a 10 or 15-minute update on projects that people may be interested in, then we open it up for questions and we get a lot of robust feedback and questions from citizens.

But the best part about it is when there is an issue, they can be connected to a cabinet member right on the spot and get followed up.

And the Citizen Service Bureau, we are improving and adding more features to City Works, which is the software that runs our Citizen Service Bureau.

You can check currently on the status on our website, if you retain the number after you in the request.

But you can also call the Citizen Service Bureau and check on the status of that request.

- Something else that a lot of citizens brought up is they'd like to see different parts of city government work better together.

And I'm wondering what can you do to work with other parts of city government?

- Yes.

So as people know, we have nine citywide elected officials and 14 aldermen.

And six of those offices are what we call county offices.

I have monthly meetings, open door meetings with those countywide officials to let them know what's going on in their city government, to let them ask me any questions.

We've been able to collaborate on several different projects, find money and federal grants, for example, for several different departments because we realize that even though, you know, everybody has their own sort of department, we can work together.

And so we are working with the license collector's office to make sure that they have what they need to upgrade their software as well, and trying to make sure that those departments are talking to each other as well software wise.

So that process is already happening.

And I instituted it because I came from the county side into the municipal side.

- When you were at the treasurer's office?

- Yeah, when I was the treasurer.

- So one thing we heard again from residents is they say they're frustrated by just how many times the city will put a plan together and then sometimes it'll put a plan together, that means we need another plan.

- Yes.

- What can the mayor do to propel these things forward?

- Well, we are taking some of those plans and putting them into action.

Our Economic Justice Action Plan, for example, which we started in 2022, is in action and residents in North St. Louis and parts of South St. Louis can see that through the investments that we're making, the houses that we're tearing down, the houses that we're building and generating mortgages, our transportation mobility plan, which is the first citywide transportation plan in decades.

When it comes to the springtime, they'll start to see our major thoroughfares and north south thoroughfares be repaved.

- Some of our focus group participants brought up some of the bad headlines that have come for the St. Louis Development Corporation, also this scandal that the building division has been involved in.

I know you asked the FBI to take a look at that.

What do you think the city can do differently to prevent public funds from going to bad actors?

- Well, I mean, as we saw, even with the Board of Aldermen, there's sometimes there's nothing we can do, but what I can tell citizens is when it hits my desk, I'm gonna fix it.

We're gonna act.

And just like with the building division, we fixed that.

And so now the FBI is investigating to see what other things are going on there.

And then also with SLDC, we took a step back, brought in a third party auditor, and that auditor also agreed with us that no funds were expended that shouldn't have been expended.

Our issue with that, and we take full accountability for that, is we announce the conditional awards too soon.

So we have taken the step back.

We will pause and make the corrective actions that need to be made, and then we'll continue to move forward.

- What will you do to incorporate the voices of the communities you serve when you're making decisions that affect them?

- People don't feel heard, it sounds like.

And I can attest to that.

There are people inside City Hall that don't feel heard as well.

When I think about accountability and transparency is, I think about audits, and my office has been audited by the state government once in the past six years and twice by the local comptroller.

And we've gotta be welcoming to audits for all of our departments 'cause audits, formal audits allow us a chance to change and not a chance for us to deflect.

- So you mentioned audits.

You know, we heard from people about recent headlines involving the St. Louis Development Corporation, the sort of scandals in the Building Division.

What does the city need to do differently to prevent public funds from going to bad actors?

- The city has to have better management and oversight.

So when you think about oversight, we think about legislative oversight, that comes usually after.

Preventive measure is that the mayor has to be on with the director and deputy director and dive deep into the processes that each of those departments use.

And that's the kind of mayor that I want to be.

I've got a master's in public administration, I've got a bachelor's in business.

What I've seen this administration do is use a lot of consultants do the work that the current mayor and their administration should be doing every day.

- So SLDC, Cara Spencer says she's lost faith in Neil Richardson, in his administration of that department.

How are you feeling on that question?

- I'm feeling that SLDC was at the leadership of the mayor, and quite frankly, a lot of the choices that were made were based upon relationships with elected officials, not relationships with the director.

I believe in the economic justice plan that has been presented, that was a part of the mayor's vision as well as part of Neil Richardson's execution.

I want to continue some of those economic justice play things that I think he had really made a good name for himself and I wouldn't want to tarnish that organization's important work that they've done and they can do with a big change on the first day.

I think there's still some good that can be done there with a better manager and better direction from the mayor's office.

- Better manager, meaning a stronger mayor.

- Correct.

- You also mentioned consultants.

This is something that residents are kind of aware of.

The city has a pension for planning.

They like to hire consultants to do reports, then that report might lead to another report.

- I would be present and I'd be more focused on doing that work in-house.

The most important here is that we need a sense of urgency in our government.

People are hurting and they want medicine to be from the city government to change their daily lives right now.

They can't wait a few months for a report to come out and then three months for legislation.

There are things that, if we are have day-to-day employees that we can change immediately, that the consultants can't tell us about.

- If you can recall, when I first ran for mayor in 2016, I was criticized and made fun of because I said that we wanted a comprehensive economic development plan.

Because in order to plan, when you plan, you plan on succeeding, you plan on providing all the intricate details on what and where we need to be, and we know who's responsible for those things.

I'm certainly for transparency, and the economic development plan will certainly do so.

So in order to move the city forward, we need to get all stakeholders involved, everyone involved contribute to the economic development plan so that we will have a clear understanding on where we are within the plan, doing a SWOT analysis, a Gini coefficiency, we have everyone's buy-in and input.

- What can the city do differently to prevent public funds from going to bad actors?

- Well, again, I'll go back to the economic development plan.

It secures all of the information necessary, so we know where the monies are, we know what the ideas surrounding those particular concepts and ideas and projects.

We have a clear understanding of what's happening, and that minimizes the opportunity for people to take advantage of certain things and, dare I say, some corruption to leak in.

But we have monies that are available now.

They haven't been suggested on what we're going to do.

We keep saying we're gonna do this, we pull back, we're gonna do this, we pull back.

When you have an economic development plan, it encompasses everything.

It's comprehensive in its scope and scale and that's how we'll keep up track on what's happening.

(bright music) - [Narrator] The second agenda item relates to city services, highlighting the impact of poor infrastructure on daily life, inconsistent trash collection, inadequate snow removal and safe transit options were cited as indicators of how little residents feel valued by the city.

They named water, sewers, and roads as critical needs that must be addressed.

Some residents question why many departments are understaffed.

- In recent years we've heard story after story about the difficulties hiring police officers and other first responders.

And during that time period they've gotten significant and well-publicized raises.

At the same time, we're now multiple administrations into not being able to have regular trash pickup and other basic services.

- Alright.

City services.

This is something a lot of people are talking about.

One of the things that they to bring up is they, residents, say they don't feel valued by the city.

That they feel like the level of services is almost an insult to them, because of the taxes that they pay and they feel like they're not up to snuff.

Do you think that's fair for people to feel that way?

- I would say in some instances, yes.

I think that's a fair feeling.

Are we trying to address it?

Absolutely.

Just like any other city in the country, we are also experiencing a labor shortage.

For example, we have 55 routes for refuse, but we have 39 or 40 drivers on a good day, and we're trying to recruit more drivers.

But as soon as we recruit a driver and train that person and that person has a commercial driver's license, they're being picked off by another private company because they can pay more.

And the city has not done a good job of keeping up with the pay scale to compete with private industry.

So we try to offer other benefits to try to even that playing field.

But we realize that we have to do more and we will do more, but we have to also fill a lot of those vacant positions and look at our pay scale.

And we are actually in the process of doing that right now with a comprehensive pay study.

- So the January 5th snowstorm seems to have engendered a lot of anger and frustration from residents.

I'm sure you've heard it.

What do you think the city could have done better in retrospect?

- Well, first off, for anybody watching this interview, I want to apologize.

We have used the same snow plan for previous years, and this particular snow storm, we found that it was inadequate to respond.

So I wanna apologize for not being able to pivot sooner, to call for help sooner.

And our citizens deserve an apology from me and the buck stops with me.

However, we are learning from this.

We all know that St. Louis doesn't get snowstorms like this.

So how can we prepare in the future and have the equipment that we need in the future, but not buy so much equipment that it continues to rot, right?

So there has to be a happy medium there.

And so we are studying the snow plans of cities similar to ours, making sure that we are prepared for this in the future and share that information with the public as well as what their expectations are from us.

- Take something like refuse, where maybe people don't wanna drive a trash truck.

They might enjoy working in the recorder of deed's office where it's this nice white collar atmosphere.

What can you do to deal with that in some of these jobs that might be the kind of jobs that are less desirable to certain people?

- There's only one way to make folks,& to entice people, to incentivize them to do a job that is less desirable, that's paying them more.

So making the job attractive for a salary and then being able to recruit more folks in that.

So we gotta have more than competitive salaries.

We gotta have better salaries than the other county and cities that are surrounding us.

- Do you think the mayor hasn't been aggressive enough about that?

She's definitely talked about the issue.

Could she have done more?

- Correct.

Not aggressive enough, absolutely.

We have a $42 million surplus for our budget each year, mostly because of vacancies.

We can absolutely be more aggressive with that kind of surplus.

- So you mentioned the city's snowstorm.

What do you think went wrong and what would you do differently if we get this kind of level of snow followed by cold?

- The first thing the city government did wrong was that we didn't prep the streets.

We didn't prep with salt prior to, enough salt prior to.

Now they'll say they did some, but no one can attest that they had salt down on the main street.

So, we didn't do enough prep work for the streets and we knew the storm was gonna be bad and there could have been days at least, at least two days of prep work knowing that that storm was coming.

The second thing we didn't do is that the city government didn't seem to want to touch side streets at first.

There is enough money in the budget to make sure that we can stack up, save some money about 400,000 every year to set aside in our special budget project fund.

And when we get to about $2 million, we have one of these big snow storms.

Every five to eight years, we'll have $2 million to hire contractors to come in and we'll already have contracts ready for them.

That will be probably the first place that they come to help with our side streets while we're doing the main streets and the secondary streets.

- Some of them said the inadequate nature of services provided by the city makes them feel like they aren't valued by the city.

Do you think that's fair?

- Well, you have gaps in services, streets, infrastructure, all the lack of retaining certain things.

People do feel like there is some type of gap in the services, so to speak.

I would hate to say that this is intentional, but it certainly seems like it or there's a level of incompetence or a mixture thereof that certainly lends itself to show that we need to really explore what it is that people are seeing and try to gauge whether or not it's intentional or not.

- What do you think went wrong after the snowstorm on January 5th and what would you do differently or do better if you were in charge?

- Being a former utility person, we coordinated with other systems in order to make sure that we are able to deal with potential ice storms, as that is a no brainer for us.

We have to coordinate and get information and get services from other utilities when they're not hit as hard, and we provide those types of services.

So we are looking at townships, municipalities that may not have gotten hit because of the storm, we can get those services and plan ahead and be comprehensive in those particular areas whatsoever, so that we can be ready for whatever happens during those particular times when those snows or anything happens.

You have to have those type of relationships built so that you can do so.

- Residents told us that the inadequate nature of services makes them feel like they aren't valued by the city.

Do you think that's fair?

- I do, yes.

Absolutely.

I mean, as an older person on the front line, you know, when somebody's garbage doesn't get collected and it's piling up and mine right now is absolutely piled up.

We are stockpiling our own garbage in our house, and I'm not kidding you, it is wildly disgusting.

- The two day blitz did not hit your- - It did not hit my dumpster and it did not hit dumpsters in Lafayette Square and other parts of the city that I represent, because I'm hearing from residents, I'm seeing the photos which are truly, truly disgusting.

You pay into these services and at the end of the day, I mean, municipal government is a service delivery operation.

You know, it's our job to provide basic city services, public safety, and a plan for growth.

It's very simple, and we're not doing those things in a way that folks feel is a return on their tax dollar investments in our community.

- So you were impacted by the January 5th snowstorm.

You've been very vocal about the fact you couldn't even get outta your house.

But then the mayor's people kind of snapped back and said, "You've been on the Board of Aldermen all these years.

If you didn't like our snow removal policy, why didn't Aldermen bring this up before then?"

Is that fair?

- Oh my gosh, it's not fair.

I will say that it is not fair.

It is absolutely ridiculous to point to the Board of Aldermen as needing to pass policies to do basic city services.

You know, it's interesting that the mayor said that, especially given, you know, you look at the comptroller issued that letter requesting that we call a state of emergency to hire additional contracts for snow removal.

And the mayor snapped back and said, "Thank you very much, but an emergency order isn't necessary.

We can do all this work without you."

Right?

- Yeah.

- You know, it would be crazy if we had a flood or some massive, massive emergency to say, "Well, the Board of Aldermen didn't tell us what we need to do here."

No, do your job of administering city services, be able to pivot and be able to serve the citizens.

It is not the job of the Board of Aldermen to dictate every single aspect of how the administration functions.

- [Narrator] The city has what's called a weak mayor system, but that can be misleading.

The mayor is much more than a ribbon cutting figurehead, and St. Louis has had strong mayors, but the power didn't always come from the organizational chart.

At the top, of course, are the citizens, the voters who elect the mayor, the Board of Aldermen, and a number of city and county officials who do not report to the mayor.

The mayor does oversee day-to-day operations, including streets, parks, and public safety.

But back on that top is a box, and that is where the mayor's power can be checked.

The Board of Estimate and Apportionment, the Board of E&A.

This was created by the New City Charter in 1914, a progressive era effort to clean up city government.

There's St. Louis himself armed with the new charter defeating the corrupt cabal known as the Big Cinch.

Today, power over major contracts and spending oversight sits with the board of E&A made up of three elected officials: the mayor, the comptroller, and the president of the Board of Aldermen, meaning the mayor can be outvoted.

And yet in the public eye the mayor is at the top.

And when the mayor speaks the city and the region listen.

The mayor can set the agenda, but to get things done, it takes support from the Board of Aldermen, the business community, the voters making deals, compromises, building coalitions, things that don't show up on the organization chart.

And yet, even if the mayor under this system does not have power over certain areas, say like public schools or public transportation, the voters might still look to the mayor and say, "Why don't you do something about that?"

- [Narrator] Addressing public safety and policing is a high priority.

Many submissions focus on crime rates, policing, and accountability.

Concerns include gun safety, law enforcement, misconduct, and strategies to improve safety in downtown and residential areas.

(light upbeat music) (light upbeat music continues) (light upbeat music continues) - Let's go to our third agenda item.

This is public safety and policing.

Jay Schroeder, the president of the Police Officers Association, says the police department has lost 512 officers since 2021.

That's the year that Tishaura Jones took office.

Do you think her administration is to blame for them leaving and what should she or could she have done differently?

- I think the number one thing that I hear from police officers, their complaint is that their equipment is not up to date and there are police cars that we're driving that shouldn't really be on the road.

And there are things that they've requested that they can't get, as far as equipment, and they feel that when we were under state control before, they didn't have those issues as much, no matter who the mayor was, and there was a different administration then.

So I think that we could do better as a city government providing the technology and equipment that police officers need on a day-to-day basis.

Not just police officers, everyone in the police department.

The number two thing is, while we have continued to increase salaries in a city like ours, we gotta be beating the other counties and cities in our region in order to retain those officers.

So there is a little blame to go around for not being aggressive enough, as we mentioned before on increasing salaries.

- So at the same time, some citizens have the perception that the city hasn't always held officers accountable when they violated civil rights, when they've behaved badly.

The Bar:PM case, you know, crashed this car into the bar and then arrested the bar's owner, the city is still pushing criminal charges against the bar's owner.

Should the city drop that, and is the city doing a good enough job of holding bad officers accountable?

- No, the city's not doing a good enough job, and it's easier to hold officers accountable when you're focused on quality.

When you are able to raise salaries and you're able to get people to come back to that department, you're able to be a department of choice in the region, then you can begin to terminate and move more folks out faster.

I'll focus on quality over quantity and make sure we have quality officers.

And if you don't meet the standard, then we gotta move you on because that's gonna continue to deteriorate the relationship between the community and the police department.

And our police department's done the hard work of trying to repair that relationship between the community.

We've gotta make sure that we're moving that forward.

And the city should not be suing bar owners based on things that they had no control over at all, which is a city employee running into that someone's place of business.

- So you'd like to see those charges dropped?

- Absolutely.

- So I can say that I think it's important imperative that we have a fully staffed police department.

I think we need to do a few things to make that happen.

We need to pay them in a way that is commiserate with the rest of the St. Louis region, in a way that can attract and retain officers.

And we need to be an employer that are police officers wanna work for.

Right now, our state, the state of Missouri is strongly considering taking back control of our police department.

And that's not something I support.

In fact, I strongly support local retaining local control.

And while we're having those conversations, I think the strongest argument, the best way for us to retain local control would be to be an employer that our city officers wanna work for.

Right now, both the POA and the Ethical Society of Police, the police officers union that represents primarily officers of color, both of those entities would rather have the state of Missouri be their employer.

- What would you do to change that?

- Well, sitting down and listening to the officers themselves and those organizations that represent their best interests, addressing the issues that would make them want to work for the state of Missouri.

And those include obviously pay, but they also include basic bureaucracy.

The hiring process is largely considered to be a major impediment to getting officers in.

Recruitment.

You know, empowering and really funding a recruitment through the ethical society to increase diversity in our police department.

It's basic things like ordering shirts, getting their police cars fixed, these aspects of being a police officer that under the city have become a lot less functional on the day-to-day lives of police officers that we can and we should have addressed long ago, so that our police officers would rather be under city control.

And if I'm elected mayor, that's one of the areas I'm gonna absolutely focus on is addressing those day-to-day issues that make our police officers rather work for the state than the city in which they serve.

- At the same time, you have some residents who are frustrated because they feel like the police are violating people's civil rights.

People bring up the Bar:PM case, where an officer crashed his SUV into a bar, then another officer came and arrested the owner.

Do you think we're doing enough to hold bad officers accountable?

- Abso... Well, first of all, the on the back end of that, you know, I think one of the best ways that we can support our police department is to call out bad policing when it happens.

And we need to do a better job of that.

And I absolutely don't think that we did that in this case.

You know, it was jaw dropping to me after the officers drove into the bar to have the administration say, "Well, it's just really difficult to drive an SUV."

I mean, it was so insulting to our police force as to identify that as the reason.

I can drive an SUV, okay?

I mean, we all can.

And it isn't difficult to do.

And I do think we have to call that out when it happens, because, you know, our good officers, and by the way, the vast majority of our police department are good officers, right?

It's offensive to not call out the bad actors within them.

And I think that's a gray area that we're gonna have to walk through.

And I will walk through.

- Jay Schroeder, president of the St. Louis Police Officers Association, he says the department has lost 512 officers since 2021.

That's the year you took office.

Do you think any left because of you or your decisions?

- I don't think so.

I think that they left because they were reaching retirement age.

You can retire from the police department after 20 years, which is not a lot of time when you think of it.

And at the time when I took office, the police department or the police officers association was at an impasse from the previous administration, and we work to get through that impasse and pass a really healthy benefits package for our officers.

And since then, dozens have come back and we've been able to hire a lot more through our recruitment program that police foundation has helped us fund.

Let's take a step back, nationally, a lot of officers are leaving this profession, so it's not just St. Louis.

I've seen with my brothers, sister mayors from across the country, some of them offering up bonuses up to $100,000 and nobody's taken it so great.

- Wow.

- Right.

Tacoma, Washington is offering $25,000 sign on bonus.

So there is, I would say, this is a national issue.

And St. Louis, you know, unfortunately is down officers as well.

But I also would like to point out that crime is still down despite being down officers.

So this is also a time to look at what is the right number of authorized strength, and our chief has been doing that to make sure that we have enough to respond to the violent crime that we do have in the city of St. Louis.

- So one of the more high profile incidents involving the police during your time as mayor was when these pair of rookie police officers crashed their car into Bar:PM and then another officer showed up, arrested the bar owner, allegedly beat him up.

The city is still pressing criminal charges against that bar owner.

Do you think the city has done a good enough job holding officers accountable when they violate people's rights?

- Yes, and we saw that just with recent news that happened in 2023 of the officers who encountered someone who was about to commit suicide in Forest Park.

Those officers are no longer with the force, even though that news just came out in 2025.

We handled that quietly, held those officers accountable, and they are no longer with the department.

Chief Tracy, like the kids say, he doesn't play when it comes to holding officers accountable.

He wants to make sure his offices are out in community rebuilding trust, going to hundreds of community meetings and making sure that they're available.

And I think that we can see that through our closure rate.

Our clearance rate, I'm sorry.

Nationally, the standard is 50%.

We are at 70% because of the trust that we built with community.

- Since 2016, I have been an avid, avid supporter of our police.

Everyone else that I know on this particular race, they are opposite of the police.

They don't want to see the support of police.

And I'm submitting that that is a negative.

Police are reasonable people, they read and they understand that they don't have those levels of support, and it's a detriment to the city of St. Louis in retaining those police.

- You mentioned this issue of state control of the St. Louis police.

That's something the governor has said he wants to do.

Do you support that?

- Well, under the current circumstances, I have to certainly consider it.

And if you had to make me make a decision as of today, I would say, certainly, I am in in support of it, because we are in dire straits.

(bright music) - [Narrator] The fourth agenda focuses on the revitalization of downtown.

Voters want to know what the candidate's plans are to address crime, negative perceptions, and strategies to bring vitality back to downtown St. Louis.

- Hi, my name is Ron Crooks.

I live in the Central West End.

I think we have to understand that and agree that there is a critical lack of momentum in the single most important demonstration of a city's viability, and that is our downtown.

We've gotta be asking ourselves some hard questions about this and really look into whether or not we're doing everything we can to build a downtown that is attractive to business and to residents and potential residents and tourism.

There simply must be a plan to improve both the reality and the perception of St. Louis's downtown viability to these strategically important audiences.

- So 10 years ago, I think it feels to a lot of residents that downtown felt like a more desirable neighborhood than it does today.

What do you think happened to that momentum and is there something the mayor can do to help ensure that people want to live there, want to work there?

- Well, I think the biggest thing that happened in that 10 year period was the global pandemic that we all went through, that emptied our downtowns across the country.

And so we are seeing conversions of office buildings into residential.

We've seen that even with the old Laclede Gas Building, which is now a residential high rise.

We are working with our partners at Greater St. Louis Inc. and SLDC to address some of the largest buildings that have been vacant for decades.

The Railway Exchange Building where people know as the old Famous-Barr or Macy's and the Millennium Hotel.

Back in September, I issued a call to action, or was it May, I issued a call to action to SLDC and GSL to bring me a plan within 90 days.

They did so and we have acquired the Millennium Hotel from the owners who were in Singapore.

And also we are in the last stages of eminent domain on the Railway Exchange building.

And we're gonna redevelop both of those sites.

We are also doing streetscape improvements to connect Ballpark village to the convention center on 7th Street.

So all of that construction should be done by the spring or summer.

We see reactivation in our public places through Kiener Plaza and the events that we have there.

So GSL has been a great partner in bringing people downtown, and our goal is to make downtown the cultural hub of our region, to make it vibrant and beautiful and active.

We want people to choose downtown to not only for sports, but we also have a retail incentive going to attract more retail downtown.

So these plans are going, it's just that people don't see them, but a lot of things are going on behind the scenes.

- We look at what's happening within the city of St. Louis.

And again, it was a detriment to me saying I was the planned man, but I understood it and know that in order to get things done, you must center it on those particular plans.

This is reason downtown St. Louis is boarded up or things are going the way that they're going, because people didn't feel safe at all.

And you can't do anything without the safety, that's number one.

But your plan has to be broad enough where you can attract those businesses that are necessary to be the lifeblood of the city of St. Louis, and you don't have to depend on windfall from Rams money or APA money, things of that nature.

We'll have continuous economic development because of the income that comes in from the taxes, the taxes from those businesses.

And we also have under the economic development plans, you also have a retention program.

I talked to businesses throughout the city of St. Louis, downtown St. Louis, no one's there talking to them to see what it is that they need to broker a deal, so to speak, where we can keep them there, we can keep them satisfied.

And once that's taken care of, you can also attract those businesses that will come here.

And I have a deep Rolodex of all those types of businesses who are considering St. Louis.

And we've always talked about St. Louis has the ways.

They have the ways, they have the airways, they have the waterway, they have the highways, and they have the railways.

We have everything that says St. Louis is a beautiful city, St. Louis is open for business, but if we don't utilize it and we don't plan on utilizing it, we're gonna fail and it's gonna be our fault that we didn't do so.

- So developers haven't really been sort of banging down our doorstep eager to take on some of these big projects downtown.

Do you think the city needs to do a better job of luring developers here, and do you think big tax breaks are appropriate if they can get downtown moving, if they can take over a block, do something big down there?

- I think like on a case by case basis, we can determine whether tax breaks or TIF is available.

We are definitely in a situation where we can't lose or we have to deploy every possible tax incentive that we can.

So yes, I do think that those are necessary.

But most importantly, I think, I would like those to be consumer-based.

I would like that those tax breaks and any incident that we give can be passed on the consumer to make downtown more affordable and make downtown more attractive.

So I'm not gonna be just focused on developers.

There's plenty of vacancy in our existing buildings that we can just spur folks to move downtown without having developing something new.

- So you would do things like tax districts where the revenue they generate then helps pay for the building?

Is that what you mean by consumer-based?

- No, I'm thinking more consumer-based like rent abatement and I've heard a lot of talk about rent control in the St. Louis region and it's something that's happened in other areas, like rent is a big deal to folks nowadays.

And as we increase population, rents will go up downtown.

So we gotta make sure that it stays affordable and that we marketing is a place that's affordable and easy living and we can't do that if rents start to go up and then people start to move out.

So I thinking long term.

- That feels like one thing that developers hate.

Are you worried that if you try to tackle the affordability of housing there, that the kind of people we need to invest are gonna run for the hills?

- Well, I think that developers will have the right incentive from us to make that happen.

I know that developers are looking at the most possible profit, and it's up as a government to be a check on that.

And our goal is to get the most possible population and not the most possible profit for a developer.

- And you know, look, there are some really impressive things going on downtown.

You know, the soccer stadium, what's happening on the Laclede's Landing is really, really impressive.

But we have a lot of challenges.

I'm lucky enough to have stepped into the eighth ward, which includes a portion of downtown, and one of the first things I did, Sarah, was issue imminent domain for the city's largest building, the Railway Exchange Building.

We did that over a year ago, about a year and a half ago, actually, passed that through the Board of Aldermen.

And it's been really disappointing to see the administration sit on it for over a year and finally move forward with imminent domain without a developer lined up, by the way, which I think is a huge mistake for the city.

You know, the issuing of imminent domain really could have been more effective if we put out a call to developers and had them lined up.

But, you know, I think we have to focus on downtown and we have to be bullish.

You know, issuing my statements related to the Millennium and the threat of eminent domain on that building really spurred the developers, the owners of the building to not only come to St. Louis and beg that we not move forward with him in domain, but they put it on the market and they sold it.

So now what is next with that?

That's why when looking at the RAM settlement funds, it's imperative that we invest a large chunk of those in downtown.

We have a vacancy rate right now of 23%.

It's a huge, huge problem for our community, much higher than the national average.

And not only that, but the rents for our downtown commercial space haven't moved in a decade.

This is a huge problem and should be a wake up call.

And for those of us who don't live in downtown, and that makes up the majority of our residents, you know, a successful city has a flourishing downtown that subsidizes the function of the rest of the community.

It's the beacon that visitors come and often, you know, is the reason why people are visiting our communities.

And I think it's imperative that we get serious about it.

(bright music) - [Narrator] The final agenda item focuses on the candidate's vision for the city's future.

Participants want elected officials to prioritize investments in children, families, and residents over corporations.

People wanna know how candidates plan to make St. Louis successful moving forward.

- My name is Ray Brown, I'm in Ward 7 and with the upcoming mayoral election, the issue that's most important to me is making sure that our public resources are supporting St. Louis public schools and specifically non-charter schools, but schools that benefit all kids in St. Louis over the long term.

- And make sure that we increase the availability of free pre-K for everyone that needs it, after school services and various city social services for the populations that need it most.

- The mayoral candidates and older persons.

You are our closest representatives, we need you to work with us.

We need you to work with we, the hardworking people to be passing legislation to make a tangible difference in our everyday lives.

- St. Louis Public Schools, this is something where the mayor doesn't have direct control, but it's so important for the health of the city going forward.

What can the mayor do to help right the ship with some of the problems that have been publicized at the public school district lately?

- Well, one thing that I would like to make plain and make absolutely understandable is that the city of St. Louis public schools are flush with money.

Now, they have lost money because of some of the things that have taken place, but historically, money has never been a problem for the city of St. Louis Public school.

The city has been absolutely flushed with cash.

Now what people do with it, corruption, things of that nature, that's a whole total different thing.

So when the gentleman mentions that the Rams money or things of that nature, (indistinct) money, some of the monies that we've been talking about here that are windfall monies should not go to corporations and things of that nature.

And they should go to schools, and schools are okay when it money.

We have cultural issues within the city of St. Louis public schools.

And that's a big thing that we need to take care of.

And I certainly will use the bully pulpit for the city of St. Louis to help bolster, to help parents with PTAs, PTOs, talking about those things that are necessary to get our children up to speed when it comes to education.

- Residents say they want a vision for a better St. Louis.

What's yours?

- Optimal performance.

We want optimal performance from every endeavor within the city.

From the police, we have to have optimal performance from those guys.

It sends a message to people that not only are you safe, it sends information and critical information that we will not tolerate anything from those who are breaking laws.

We are law abiding citizens here in this city, and we want people to follow those instructions.

We want optimal performance from our city administrators and all of the people associated with the city of St. Louis that we perform at a very, very high level, provide optimal services to people.

And that resonates with people when they can see just a small change in attitude.

And that is how we turn things around.

But you have to have leadership in order to do so.

- It's the St. Louis public schools, that has been a source of many bad headlines in the last six months.

It's obviously something where the mayor doesn't have much control.

What would you do as mayor to write that ship?

- I worked in St. Louis public schools.

I worked for the local teachers union.

My grandparents worked in St. Louis public schools for 30 years.

And my little sister is currently a teacher in the St. Louis public schools.

So I understand the needs of the St. Louis public schools.

I think it's appropriate for the city government to focus on wraparound services.

What I'd want to do is invest part of our Rams fund, has been part of my plan, $5 million a year, about 500,000 of that going to advocacy for wraparound services for our 20th most low income schools in the region.

That's both the north and south side.

And what wraparound services are is making sure you have a full-time therapist, a full-time nurse, and another full-time social worker so that our impoverished kids can get the services they need.

We know how poverty affects student achievement and it's upon the city government to reduce the effect of poverty when folks go into their classroom.

- People say the big thing they want from a mayor is they want a vision for a better St. Louis.

What's yours?

- First is that we gotta take care of home.

But the big vision, while we're chewing the gum and we're walking towards something, is I want to improve our riverfront.

I think the big product that folks wanna see is our riverfront be a space that people want to go to, a retail space, there are customers come from all over the region, and there are projects that we can support north of Arch and south of the Arch that approve our riverfront for housing, for retail, and a place that people can live, work, and play.

Improving the riverfront will will be something that we wanna support with funding so that four years from now we can say, wow, we have something nice and new that we can point to that this city administration has done.

- So many people leave as their kids get a little bit older, they don't see the kind of school that can work for them.

What would you do as mayor to deal with that situation?

- I'm the proud mother of a kid, a city kid who is attending a St. Louis public school and flourishing, doing really well.

And what I will do if elected is appoint a person in my administration to focus exclusively on education.

This last year we saw the lack of buses on day one.

Come out of nowhere.

I was surprised as a parent, the community was horrified about how their kids were gonna get to school.

This should never happen.

We should have some accountability in that space.

And having a member of the mayor's cabinet engaged in that process will prevent, I will never throw my hands up and say, "I just didn't know."

And the same is true of the budget issues and all sorts of things.

Being a part of the process and being part of solving the issues is gonna be a key component to making our St. Louis public schools successful.

- What's your vision?

- I think St. Louis harnessing some of our biggest businesses, the folks that have the most to invest, concentrating that in our downtown and in our city in a constructive way is my vision for St. Louis.

It's a downtown that's flourishing, that has residents from all over the world and all over the region visiting on a regular basis that are telling the story about St. Louis, including our downtown in a constructive way.

We have more top-notch universities than almost any city in the world.

Taking the concerns of the universities and their students, figuring out how to ingrain them into our communities, harnessing that enormous, enormous brain power that we're producing here and pulling it back into our communities.

- I believe that as mayor, it's my responsibility to take care of our children in their outta school time and their environment so they can arrive at school fresh, ready to learn.

Parents have what they need to help their families thrive.

So my responsibility is the environment that our children come from when they arrive to school.

And as mayor, I can't pick winners and losers.

I have to serve all of our children no matter what educational institution that they're going to.

And that's what our rec centers are for.

We've made robust investments in our rec centers and our youth programming for that time out of school.

So after school programming, partnering with Boys and Girls Clubs of St. Louis as well, recreational programming.

And then we have a liaison directly in the mayor's office that's a liaison to all of our educational institutions, including SLPS to let them know that we are here to help whatever they need.

And I will be totally honest and let people know that I was the one who called for an audit of SLPS.

- What would you say your vision is?

- My vision is a St. Louis that is safer, healthier, and stronger in the coming years.

I have a vision of expanding public transit, building a new airport, making that a world class facility because St. Louis is a world class city, making sure that our convention and visitors industry continues to attract big conventions and tourism to our city, and have a vision of equity to make sure that no matter where you live in the city, that you have the same opportunities and the same access to resources as anyone else no matter where you live, that your zip code doesn't determine your opportunity.

And so we are making those investments to make sure that that's the future that we wanna build for St. Louis, - [Narrator] Nine PBS and St. Louis Magazine engage citizens in St. Louis about what issues are most important to them during this mayoral election.

To see more of what the candidates had to say and read the full transcripts of the interviews, visit ninePBS.org/elections.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) This program is supported in part by the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation.