ACC; Reed May Challenge Shrewsbury for President’s Seat

The ACC is reporting Ald. Lewis Reed may run against Jim Shrewsbury for the President of the Board of Aldermen:

Lewis Reed, an alderman of Ward 6 which includes Lafayette Square and Tower Grove East among its neighborhoods, running for president has a number of significant implications for local African American politics. Currently, African Americans, despite comprising a majority of the city’s population, hold only twelve of the the twenty-eight seats on the Board of Alderman.

Neighborhood scuttlebutt has two possible replacements for Reed’s aldermanic seat: committeeman Patrick Cacchione and Christian Saller, an active resident with expertise in urban planning. Both are white. Assuming all other things remain as they are, the African American representation on the Board of Aldermen would drop to eleven seats. Before redistricting African Americans held thirteen seats on the Board of Aldermen.

I don’t know Patrick Cacchione but the fact he is the ward’s committeeman that makes me think he is too “establishment” for my taste. Christian Saller isn’t exactly a radical but I know him to be very level headed, experienced in development circles (he works for the St. Louis Development Corporation, SLDC) and fairly pro-urban. I would easily describe him as someone that “gets it.”

As I indicated yesterday, Lewis Reed has $385 in his campaign account and the campaign has $5K in debt. While seeking an aldermanic seat this is probably easily overcome but if he intends to run a city-wide campaign he will need to begin getting his message out to voters in areas other than the 6th ward where he is well-known. Shrewsbury’s last report indicated a tad over $177K in the treasury. Reed could still catch up and run an effective city-wide campaign but he is starting from behind the curve. It would have been interesting if Mike McMillan had run for President of the Board rather than License Collector.

Even if Reed does not run for the President’s seat I’d like to see Saller, or someone else, challenge him in the aldermanic race. Next year Reed will have served two full terms (8 years) as the 6th ward alderman.

Update 9/22/06 @ Noon: Jake Wagman of the Post-Dispatch confirms Reed is considering a challenge to Shrewsbury. I just happened to be sitting next to Wagman as Reed passed through the conference room adjacent to the board chambers. Wagman handed Reed his computer with the ACC post and asked for a comment. Antonio French of PubDef was also able to speak to Reed on the issue. As both are indicating and as I overheard, Reed has not declared his candidacy but is seriously considering making a run.

Get Involved in St. Louis — Run for Elective Office!

Now is the time to plan running for elective office in the City of St. Louis. Continuing with my series trying to drum up good candidates for the upcoming elections here is some additional information that you won’t easily find on any website be it the Board of Elections, politically inclined independent newspapers or a local political party. All these sources, no matter how progressive they may purport to be, favor the status quo of over the common person (that would be you and I) not knowing how to run for office.

I’ve had the benefit and pleasure of running for elective office after seeking the Democratic nomination in the March 2005 primary for Alderman in the 25th Ward. After just two short months from filing to election I didn’t do too bad, receiving 44.1% of the vote in a two-way race with an incumbent that outspent me roughly 5 to 1. More time and more money may have tipped the scale. What I didn’t have was the benefit of planning a good 5-6 months in advance, nor did I have this type of information at my fingertips when I started.

I believe our main elected body, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, is stagnant. They have been in office many years and are not energized to seek new ideas. Challenging them in the political arena will accomplish a couple of things. First, if they are challenged it will make them work for the job. Second it will be an opportunity to bring up issues such as the need for new zoning codes that will promote good urban design and remove some of the politics out of the development process. And finally it is an opportunity to get someone new in office that will bring a fresh perspective and new energy to the position. Tried and true is not getting us where we need to be.

Ok, enough lecturing —- you get the picture. The following is more information including dates to help plan your campaign.

Important Dates for upcoming elections — filing begins in November!

•Wednesday, October 11, 2006 — Deadline to register to vote in November election.
•Tuesday, November 7, 2006 —- Election Day (I will be in Chicago and must vote by absentee for the first time ever).
•Monday, November 27, 2006 — Filing opens at 8am for Spring 2007 elections (even numbered wards, some city-wide offices — I don’t have the full list at this time)
•Friday, January 5, 2007 — Last day to file for Spring 2007 Elections
• Thursday, January 25, 2007 — 40 Day Before Election Report due (for period through 1/20/07), except those running as an independent.
• Monday, February 16, 2007 — Last day to submit signatures to run as an independent candidate for April general election.
• Monday, February 26, 2007 — 8 Day Before Election Report due (for period from 1/21/07 – 2/22/07), except for those running as an independent.
•Tuesday, March 6, 2007 — Municipal Primary election
• Tuesday, April 3, 2007 — Municipal General election

Running as a party candidate (Republican, Green, Democrat…):

•Filing fee is 1% of the annual salary for the job. To run for the Board of Aldermen you’d pay roughly $327 (I think the total taxable income is $32,700/year). This can and should be paid from your campaign treasury.
• You do not need the approval of a party’s central committee to file and seek office.
• Filing starts at 8am on November 27th. Most likely candidates will have had someone waiting in line to hold their place before filing opens. This is so they can assure their name is on the top of the ballot, above any possible challengers.

Running as an independent candidate:

•You must collect signatures equal to 10% of the registered voters in your ward (or 10% of city if running for a city-wide partisan office). So, if your ward had 7,000 registered voters as of April 2005 (the last mayoral election) you’d need 700 valid signatures.
• These would need to be turned in by the 8th Monday prior to the April general election. I believe this would be February 16, 2007 if they counted the dates back the same way I did. Ideally these would be submitted earlier although you can run as an independent after filing has closed for those seeking a party nomination.
•Working the polls on November 7th would be an ideal way to collect the necessary signatures as well as starting to campaign. I will try to put together an editable PDF form that could be used for such purpose. Email me privately if you are interested in running as an independent.

• Independent candidates must file election reports as well, see the Missouri Ethics Commission calendar for dates related to the April 3, 2007 election date.

For the purposes of this post I’m not going to get into city-wide offices such as the President of the Board of Aldermen or the Circuit Clerk. Here are the fourteen seats on the St. Louis Board of Aldermen that are up for re-election (name/party/ward/years served as of election/# terms as of election/campaign fund):

• Fred Heitert; R-12th Ward: 28 years (7 terms); Campaign fund unknown, files “limited activity” reports
• Terry Kennedy, D-18th Ward: 18 years (4.5 terms); $385 as of last specific report (2003).
• Stephen Conway, D-8th Ward: 16+ years (4 terms); Less than $4K
• Stephen Gregali, D-14th Ward: 12 years (3 terms); $12,500 in 2003, limited activity since
• Craig Schmid; D-20th Ward: 12 years (3 terms); $4,7000 in 2003, limited activity since
• Lyda Krewson, D-28th Ward: 9 years (2+ terms); nearly $19K on hand
• Lewis E. Reed, D-6th Ward: 8 years (2 terms); $356 on hand, $5K in debt.
• Dionne Flowers, D-2nd Ward: 8 years (2 terms); Campaign reports due in April & July not yet filed!!!!
• Joseph Vollmer, D-10th Ward: 4 years (1 term); $13K on hand.
• Jeffrey Boyd, D-22nd Ward: 4 years (1 term); $28K on hand.
• Frank Williamson, D-26th Ward: 4 years (1 term); $13K on hand.
• Donna Baringer; D-16th Ward: 4 years (1 term); $14K on hand.
• O.L. Shelton, D-4th Ward; since June 10, 2005; No campaign committee as of July 06!
• William Waterhouse, D-24th Ward: since December 16, 2005; $2,500 on hand

A new round of quarterly reports will be due in the middle of next month so we will see who has kicked into campaign mode and who has not. Many of these have not really had to campaign in years, if at all. Some have a pretty substantial campaign treasury but that should not discourage anyone from running, it will simply make your campaign have to work harder and smarter.

I believe 8 of the 14 have been in office long enough, with at least two terms (8 years). There are people born since Heitert was first elected that are now old enough to run for the office themselves!!! But, as others will certainly indicate, if the voters think they are doing a good job they have the right to re-elect them. My feeling is we as engaged citizens need to step up and run for office and actually give voters a choice. It would be wonderful to see a couple of Democrats, a couple of Republicans, a couple Greens and an independent or so in each of the 14 wards. Of course, that ain’t gonna happen but one can dream.

For additional resources see my post titled How to Run for Local Office.

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?

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.