Joe Vollmer, St. Louis’ last bar owner-turned-alderman, prepares to leave City Hall

Alderman Joe Vollmer first went to St. Louis City Hall in 2003 because he wanted to help his neighbors on the Hill, where he had lived all of his life.

“You're the first introduction to any governmental entity, and you have the ability to be one-on-one with them, as opposed to a state rep who's gone five months sitting in Jeff City arguing all night,” he said on the latest episode of Politically Speaking. “There’s nothing better.”

But Vollmer is now 66, and he said Susie, his wife of almost 36 years, has a honey-do list that’s built up over 22 years. And he wants to get back to Milo’s, the bocce bar that he’s owned since 1989.

“It’s kind of like when you’re a pitcher and your curveball’s not curving anymore, you want to put it in the hands of somebody who has that interest to do it all the time,” he said.

Here’s what else Vollmer discussed on the podcast:

• He was at the cardiologist when he learned that former board President Lewis Reed and two other aldermen were facing federal corruption charges and had resigned, making him the president of the board. He said that while he could have turned down that role, “I wasn’t going to do that with someone. I was raised if that’s what I’m supposed to do, that you get a job and learn how to do it.”
• Though he oversaw the process of drawing the map that took the city from 28 wards to 14, he thinks the downsizing was a mistake because it made committees less thorough in their work.
• He disagreed with the change to the rules of the board that made internal leadership positions like vice president elected, rather than based on seniority. “If there's an election, you have people who see this person and that person getting in there, so this agenda can be brought to light, as opposed to, this is the person I have to work with,” he said.
• He’s excited about the younger members of the Board of Aldermen, especially “their enthusiasm, their intelligence level, and approaching things in a different way than maybe I would, just due to the way, how old I am and how I was raised in the world.”