Why Type of Mayor Do We Have in St. Louis

Civic Stretegies, the consulting group that indicated the Post-Dispatch was one of the worst urban newspapers, has an interesting section on their web page titled, Five Types of Mayors:

We think there are five broad “mayor types” today. None is the right way to be a mayor; mayors can be successful in any of these types. But we do believe that two types tend to wear better over a couple of terms in office, the managerial mayor and the urbanist/neighborhood mayor. And if you want to be mayor more than eight years, probably the urbanist/neighborhood mayor is the right type to be. Some of the longest-serving mayors today, Richard Daley of Chicago, Thomas Menino of Boston and Joseph Riley of Charleston, are urbanist/neighborhood mayors.

Their five types are Deal-maker, Ethnic-Champion, Managerial, Reform/Protest, and Urbanist/neighborhood. Their site lists descriptions for each type.

Clearly Mayor Slay is a deal-maker type mayor. I’d be an Urbanist/neighborhood type mayor — here is the description they give:

These are mayors who are focused on making downtowns and neighborhoods healthy. They delight in the details and can talk endlessly about neighborhood groceries and tree plantings. Result: Some think of them as small-thinking fussbudgets. Perhaps some are, but there’s a reason these mayors last so long in office.

I think they’ve hit the nail on the head with these types. What do you think?

Enjoy “Grovefest” in Forest Park Southeast on Saturday

This coming Saturday, the 23rd of September 2006, is a chance to party in the emerging area increasingly known as The Grove. From the Grovefest press release:

Forest Park Southeast is one of the most exciting areas of rejuvenation in St. Louis. The neighborhood enjoys many of the best proximities in the metropolitan area. Conveniently located between both major highways, 40 and 44, Forest Park Southeast is also adjacent to the finest cultural institutions the city offers; the Saint Louis Science Center, The Missouri Botanical Gardens, Forest Park, and all of the Grand Center attractions. The Washington University Medical complex is within walking distance and the Saint Louis University is just around the corner. An envisioned bio-tech corridor is progressing just across highway 40 under the Cortex initiative. And established neighborhoods nearby such as the Central West End, Tower Grove, and Lafayette Square serve as excellent role models for this neighborhoods revitalization.

Manchester Avenue as the central corridor to Forest Park Southeast offers similar building character and streetscape potential to another popular local urban and culturally diverse destination “The Loop”. A retail, dining, and entertainment district is indeed emerging along Manchester in Forest Park Southeast and is on track to become an important asset for St. Louis in much the same way The Loop has. The Forest Park Southeast Business Association has begun the grassroots work of positioning this stretch of Manchester Avenue as “The Grove” derived from adjacent Adams Grove and Tower Grove.

With this progression in mind it seemed an opportune time to hold an annual festival that celebrates the city and the uniqueness of “The Grove”. Known as the Grove Fest, the annual neighborhood showcase invites the St. Louis metropolitan area to enjoy a day of food, music, art and activities with a spot light on what’s new and what’s coming to Forest Park Southeast.

Proceeds will support the effort to continue the revitalization of Manchester Avenue by funding sidewalk and curb repair/replacement, sidewalk enlargement for outdoor seating, improved signage, streetscape trees and lighting, street furniture, parking lot improvements, and traffic light enhancements.
On behalf of the Grove Fest Committee (dedicated business owners and stakeholders in Forest Park Southeast) we whole heartedly invite you to explore this exciting neighborhoods possibility and support the 1st annual Grove Fest. This year’s event takes place on Saturday, September 23rd on Manchester between Sarah and Boyle noon to midnight.

www.grovefest.org

Manchester Road. Noon to midnight. Have fun!

What happened to the new McDonald’s?

After months of controversy over McDonald’s moving from its current location at the NW corner of Grand and Chippewa to the SE corner of Grand & Winnebego we’ve seen no evidence of anything moving forward. Not that I want the drive-thru moved adjacent to the homes in the Gravois Park neighborhood, but we were all given the impression that time was of the essence.

It has been nearly 3 months since the city’s Board of Adjustment denied an appeal by residents to prevent the McDonald’s from being built. Pyramid Construction was supposed to do a land swap with McDonald’s but a quick check of records for 3708 S. Grand indicates Pyramid Construction is still the property owner. The same records also indicate building permit application #358646 to construction the restaurant remains open, the permit has not yet been issued. With all the administrative hurdles jumped I just can’t imagine why three months would pass without construction starting.

It would appear that someone involved in the deal isn’t going forward. The parties are Pyramid Construction, McDonald’s corporate, the franchise operator and deal maker Ald. Jennifer Florida.

If the deal has gone south now is our chance to work as a community to envision what this street could look like. If you go back to my post from a couple of weeks ago using Photoshop to show incremental changes we can hopefully do a similar treatment for South Grand. If McDonald’s is staying where they are and the empty site at Winnebego is to remain empty or get another plan we need to bring everyone together to work on good solutions that are a fit for the community.

How to Run for Local Office

My last post, from earlier today, was an attempt to encourage you to run for local office — mostly the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. As I wrote the piece I realized the learning curve is quite high for first time candidates and local political groups such as the City Democrats are not about helping other get elected to office — they themselves are waiting in line until someone moves up the food chain, retires, or dies. So how do we improve our knowledge so that more are encouraged to seek office? Well, we start with a Google search.

In doing so I found an excellent site devoted to educating and training grassroots candidates:

Root Camp™ is a grassroots educational and training resource program supported by Grassroots For America, in conjunction with Latinos for America and is designed to help educate, empower and engage everyday citizens to be active in and influence community involvement in the political process on a local, regional and national level. By using Root Camp’s open-source tools and resources we can ultimately provide every citizen activist with the tools they need and we can do it in a time, energy and financial friendly manner.

Conceived as a grassroots training resource “seeding” program, Root Camp™ networks with grassroots leaders and organizers and works to connect them through out the progressive community and local political party activism. Root Camp™ is also a place where activists can find information useful in navigating the sometimes intimidating roads of political engagement.

The have produced some highly detailed materials including their Root Camp™ Training 101 and Root Camp™ Training 201. Both are excellent resources and will give you a good understanding of how to get started and what to do as you get closer to election day. The have additional materials in their tools and resources section.

I also found an interesting site called Creative America which is training creative types to seek office. They don’t offer much in the way of online resources but the site and concept is interesting. From that site I ran across a quote from the commencement address given last year at Stanford University by Apple CEO Steve Jobs:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

A good message from both Jobs and Brand. As Jobs said, “don’t be trapped by dogma.” And as people tell you it is foolish to run for office just smile and and know that perhaps we’d all benefit if more people were foolish enough to follow their heart.

I found a few additional resources such as the GrassrootsPedia and a book, which I have not read, called How to Run for Local Office.

Start with the open-source materials from Root Camp™ above first. Once you’ve consumed and understood that move on to other sources such as books. In the meantime I will work on putting together specifics applicable to our local situation as a supplement to the materials linked here.

• St. Louis Board of Election
• Missouri Ethics Commission; Be sure to view the materials in the Brochures and General Info section on some how-to info for reporting.

How Representative is St. Louis City Government of our Population

I’ve never been much of a numbers person but in grad school we’ve been looking closely at the 1990 and 2000 census for the City of St. Louis and the St. Louis region (site 1 and site 2). Many have theorized about the meaning of these numbers but I want to look at if those we have elected represent us in terms of race, age and other factors.

My goal is not to get into a big debate about racial make-up and what that means. It is clear from the city’s chart at right that the city is pretty much black and white. We are not a melting pot. Our city is 95% white & black. Still, we have a large asian and hispanic population, both of which I believe are on the rise. Through some methodology I don’t understand at this point, hispanics are classified in an “ethnicity” category separate from race. Hispanics are a hair over 2% of the population, presumably classified as “white” on the question of race.

Two aldermanic seats is equal to 7.1% of the population. I think we are just about there with asian, hispanics and others such as native american. Not that I want to create quotas or rig districts to create a couple of seats reserved for a certain race or ethnicity but our elected officials do not send the melting pot image to the world.

Currently blacks hold 12 of 28 seats, or just under 43%. This while having over 51% of the population in 2000. To be truly representative of who we are I could see blacks having an additional two seats on the board of aldermen.

Of course, these two seats plus the other two seats that, at least theoretically should be occupied by say an asian and a hispanic, would come at the expense of seats held by whites (current 16 down to 12). I could see a Bosnian person holding one of the remaining 12 white seats.

Currently nine aldermen are women (Alderwomen, Alderpersons). This is 32% of the total number of seats yet women made up 53% of our population in 2000.

I think what these numbers show is the composition of who is representing us doesn’t quite jive with our actually demographic make-up. Must we force these 28 seats to look like us? No. Can we conclude that our political system is heavily weighted toward white men? Yes, I think we can. And yes, duh!

Nearly 16% of our population in 2000 was comprised of adults aged 25-34 and another 27% ages 35-54. Are four of our aldermen under age 34? Another seven between 35-54? I don’t know their ages but I don’t think so. Just under 21% of our population in 2000 was 55 and older (which would represent 5-6 seats). The remaining 36% were 24 and younger (25 is the minimum age to run for alderman). Of course, someone has to represent those under age 25. Not only is our board of aldermen comprised of white men it is comprised of an age group that is smaller in number compared to younger groups. A number of current aldermen were elected while in their 20s or early 30s so it can be done.

But Steve, you are white male, you say. Yes, yes I am. I’m also openly gay, yet another group not represented at city hall. What is our gay population? 10%? What about 10.7%? Well, that would equate to 3 seats on the Board of Aldermen! Now, I’m not holding my breath until we’ve got three openly gay representatives at City Hall, but I’d like to see us have at least one openly gay alderman by 2009.

I would love to see a more diverse group of candidates seeking the office of alderman in the Spring 2007 elections, in the Democratic primary as well as in the general election. Where are the Republicans, Green, Libertarian and independent candidates? Where are the foreign born (that have been citizens for 5 years) the hispanics and the asians? Come on folks, we need to bring a more diverse viewpoint to city hall.

In the 2007 elections the even numbered wards are up for election, 8 are held by whites while 6 are held by blacks (yes, it was worked out that half of each would be up re-election so that it was not skewed either way). Only three of these 14 seats are held by women, one black and two white. Six white males will presumably be seeking re-election. Of these six Craig Schmid (D-20th Ward) probably has one of the most racially diverse wards with good doses of white, black and hispanics. While I seldom agree with Schmid on planning & development strategies I will concede that he is very passionate about doing his best to represent his constituents. Note: many other aldermen may be passionate as well but I’ve had more interaction with Schmid over the years so I’m able to characterize him better than an alderman that I’ve never even met. My point is a white male is seeking re-election in a very diverse ward. Do we re-elect him because of his past performance, ideas and work ethic or do we look to someone to help diversify the board of alderman? Your call.

We’ve had a good many immigrants since the 2000 census so it will be interesting to see from the 2010 census how our makeup has changed. Have whites continued to leave this city? Those elected in 2009, and potentially those elected in 2007 (if re-elected in 2011), will help create the new ward boundaries that will take us clear into 2021. These next two aldermanic cycles, first for even wards in 2007 and odd numbered in 2009, will have a long-term affect on our future.

Thinking about running? I want to help, even if you are a straight white male. Just try to find the most basic of information, such as when can I file to run for alderman, on the Board of Elections website. Go ahead, I dare you. Guess what, it is not there. You’d think the entity responsible for running elections in this city would provide a minimum of information on how to actually seek public office. You and me, the common people, are not supposed to know this information. Ssssshhhh, this is top secret stuff important to ensuring the longevity of their political careers. If people knew how and when to run for office they might actually do so, and then where would we be?

I will be doing a series of posts on some of the basics — when the filing period opens and closes, how to file, what are the costs, how to get organized, etc. This will likely lead into a workshop or two where you can seek out more information on grassroots campaigning. A little disclaimer, I am not even remotely close to an expert in this area but I may well be the only one willing to share what I do know in a public forum. Also, this does not mean I will support your candidacy over an incumbent or another candidate — I simply want to de-mystify the process so that more people will consider running.

Here are a few starting points. If you want to run in a ward you need to have lived there a year before the election. So, if you don’t already live in an even numbered ward don’t even think you can move and run in March 2007. The filing for the March 2007 will open in November (I don’t know the exact date) and it will close in January 2007 (again, I don’t yet know the exact date). I will get this detail at a starting point for the next post on guiding newbie candidates.