The four candidates running for mayor of St. Louis took the stage at Harris-Stowe State University on Thursday night to make their case to residents just five days before the start of early voting in the primary.
Mayor Tishaura Jones, 8th Ward Alderwoman Cara Spencer, Recorder of Deeds Michael Butler and retired utility executive Andrew Jones took questions from audience members for nearly two hours at the wide-ranging forum, organized by the school and 100 Black Men of Metropolitan St. Louis.
“Our crowds are getting larger and larger, and it shows how many people are really concerned about the future of our city,” the incumbent said as the event wrapped up. “Times are tough, but St. Louis is tougher. I am not the one that's going to quit when the going gets tough.”
Spencer called the number of questions inspiring.
“I’m running for mayor because at the end of the day, St. Louis can do better,” she said. “When I think about the purpose of a city government, what our CEO, what our mayor, should be focused on, to me, it's very simple. It's making the city a place people want to be, a place people can thrive.”
Butler told the crowd he decided to get into politics after playing a baseball game as a kid against a team he knew was cheating.
"My dad would say, ‘Life isn't fair,’ but something broke in me that day at that baseball game,” he said. “I decided to make life more fair for everyone, and I've been working hard since then to improve our city for everyone.”
Andrew Jones painted himself as the lone candidate who could actually bring change to the city.
“I have the tools necessary in order to evaluate a problem and look at it untethered by emotion, because the City of St Louis is in dire straits, and we need someone competent and capable in order to move the needle,” he said.
North side grants
Audience members posed several questions about a program to support businesses on the north side that has had numerous documented problems.
Tishaura Jones defended her handling of the grants, some of which were slated to go to businesses that do not exist or are not located in the city.
“I was the one that worked with [St. Louis Development Corporation head] Neil Richardson to make sure we did a third-party audit, to make sure that we were doing everything that the federal government required us to do,” she said.
“I would think of two words – reduce and remove,” Butler said of the grant program. “We can’t stop, because north city needs this money urgently. And the businesses that we know who they are, they will continue to get them. But the businesses and nonprofits that would deserve to be reduced and removed, my administration would do that immediately.”
Spencer, who quit the board of the city’s economic development agency over its handling of the grants, said she knew from the summer that they had been a failure and that the program had been set up to fail.
MetroLink expansion
The current proposal for a north-south MetroLink route in the city got a frosty reception from everyone but Tishaura Jones.
The five-mile stretch known as the Green Line would run along Jefferson Avenue from Chippewa Street to Fairground Park. It’s currently in the environmental analysis phase, which is also when costs are fine-tuned.
Spencer said the project had the potential to become an expensive boondoggle.
“At $6.77 per person per mile, four times what it costs to take an Uber, is this worth mortgaging out for the next 50 years, for five miles?” she asked.
And Andrew Jones said the city had much more pressing matters to focus on.
“Superfluous things like the Green Line, all of those different things are at issue, but you also have to take into consideration it’s not safe riding buses up north,” he said.
Police department control
For Andrew Jones, support for control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department remaining under local oversight was conditional. If he’s elected, Jones said, the city should be in charge. If his opponents are elected, the state should be in control.
“I have the experience, not only in being a leader, but I also have the experience in all of those other areas that's needed, and it's critical,” he said.
His three opponents were all against state oversight.
“We voted on this in 2012 and overwhelmingly, the state of Missouri decided that the citizens of St. Louis can govern our own police department,” Tishaura Jones said. “We know how to govern ourselves, and we've been doing a good job.”
She pointed to reductions in crime, including homicide totals that are at their lowest in a decade.
Spencer said it was important for the city to be able to set policies for the department in order to continue to regain trust in the officers. Butler agreed.
“We have to continue to keep the good relationship our police department has tried to build over the past 10 years intact, and we've got to get and we've got to build it even greater,” he said.
Endorsements
In 2021, Tishaura Jones and Spencer endorsed each other as the second choice for their supporters under the then-brand-new approval voting system, in which voters can choose some or all of the candidates in the race.
On Thursday night, it was Butler and Tishaura Jones who endorsed each other. She said she appreciated the improvements Butler had made at the recorder of deeds office.
“I went down there to get a birth certificate not too long ago, and it was the easiest process I’ve ever been through,” she said. "And I’ve been able to use his website to look up information regarding my family as I built my family tree.”
Butler noted that while he and the mayor did not always start from the same place, they generally come to agree on policy.
“Moving forward for north city, and trying to focus, get the attention on north city, are things that we have heard for a long time, and we’re starting to see action, we’re starting to see plans on,” he said.
Spencer and Andrew Jones each declined to endorse another candidate.
“I share that I have a lot of overlapping values with the mayor, but I mean, I've been very disappointed with the last four years and the execution of what the city really needs right now,” Spencer said.
Andrew Jones said he will run again in four years regardless of the outcome. But if he loses, “we are another step closer to the total demise of the City of St. Louis,” he said.
The top two vote-getters in the March 4 primary advance to the April general election.
