What I stand for
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Effective Public Safety

I plan to improve safety in our neighborhoods, downtown and citywide. While public safety is a complicated issue, I already know many things I will do as your alderman to make our community safer. 

Working with the city’s new police chief, I will strive to heal the relationship between our community and law enforcement so that victims and witnesses can share vital information needed to solve crimes. I will support the chief’s plan to work with the city’s new personnel director to recruit officers more effectively and, importantly, retain the high-quality officers, too many of whom are currently leaving the department. 

But public safety goes beyond policing. I will support safety in our community by holding landlords accountable for securing and improving vacant buildings. I will work to ensure liquor laws and nuisance laws are enforced, particularly downtown, where flagrant disregarding of those laws has been running rampant. I will also lead the city to invest in infrastructure to slow traffic and curb reckless driving that kills innocent pedestrians and wreaks havoc throughout our city. And of course, investing in our communities. 

Lastly, but maybe most importantly, as a vocal critic for years of our failing 911 system, I will support the purchase and implementation of upgrades to the system that will result in your calls being answered on the first ring. 

Improved Public Infrastructure 

The city desperately needs infrastructure that residents can count on. The old way of relying on funding to each ward to pave streets, improve parks and replace aging and broken dumpsters is a recipe for a system we know has failed. I support robustly investing in the infrastructure necessary for a city to thrive. I support expanding public transit to more neighborhoods, spreading access to the internet throughout the city and improving walkability through a commitment to getting our city to zero pedestrian fatalities.

My track record of investing in infrastructure ensures my interest in getting more done. I helped lead the charge to bring speed humps back to St. Louis by co-leading the enabling legislation and installing some of the first in the city in my ward. I helped bring the region’s first “calm street” to Louisiana Avenue – a $1.1 million federal project designed to slow the traffic on that residential corridor and provide a model of calming traffic to be used citywide once completed. I lead a $2 million investment in last year’s budget cycle for investment in sidewalk and ADA compliance as recommended by the city’s Commissioner of the Disabled. I also invested in our city’s parks by reopening Marquette Pool, replacing playgrounds in both Gravois Park and Minnie Wood Memorial Square and installing cameras to improve safety. 

I support a plan to invest equitably throughout the city to make facilities and infrastructure – such as our parks and recreations centers -- accessible, affordable, safe and fun. Equitable investment must extend to our diverse transportation needs, including roads and bridges, with a focus and commitment to non-vehicular transit. We must recognize that the city’s pedestrian fatality rate is 3 times the national average. That statistic disproportionately impacts low-income communities. The city must not only commit to improving our public infrastructure for our long term success, we must also outline a plan to invest the funding equitably -- and within an expected and reasonable amount of time.

Sustainable and equitable economic growth

The St. Louis regional economy has stagnated for decades. The City of St. Louis has been losing population for years, but the past two years have seen a population exodus 5 times faster than that of the previous 10 years -- 15,000 residents. Without sustaining our population we will not have the tax base to provide the basic city services that residents expect and deserve. We must invest in our city for it to thrive. 

During my 8 years as alderman the neighborhoods of the 20th Ward have turned from declining to growing. I helped lead the transformation of Cherokee Street into the vibrant, growing business district you experience today. Since I took office, building permits have risen dramatically and home values have improved. This can be difficult to do without displacing residents, but in all my efforts I have supported affordable housing developments, housing for the unhoused and other projects that have ensured long-term income diversity so that everyone can have a place to call home. 

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Just and Fair Climate Solutions

A healthy economy and a clean environment can and should co-exist. In many ways the city of St. Louis is well positioned to be a beacon for healthy climate growth. We have abundant access to fresh water; we are centrally located; and we have taken concrete steps toward making our city greener.

In 2017, I helped pass Resolution 124, which called upon the City of St. Louis to develop a plan to transition to 100 percent clean energy in the form of wind, solar and energy efficiency measures by 2035. This transformation of energy sources is vital to the health of our planet and our community. Burning dirty fossil fuels like coal and gas causes serious health problems from air and water pollution. As demonstrated in the St. Louis Environmental Racism Report, our communities of color are disproportionately exposed to and affected by environmental pollutants, as compared to the city’s white residents.

I supported the passage of energy performance standards for buildings, making St. Louis the first city in the Midwest to require owners of large buildings to reduce their carbon footprint or face fines. I also supported the implementation of the new building codes and am supportive of the effort under way to formalize energy disclosures. I strongly support expanding public transit, and I support the city looking into alternatives such as bus rapid transit as possibly a faster and less expensive alternative.

I led the effort to legalize residents raising chickens in our city and strongly supported the urban agriculture program in 2020. I have fully funded planting trees in my current ward and support the investment in trees citywide. I am dismayed that the city has not been recycling effectively for almost 2 years – an issue that I will be digging into this spring.

Housing as a Human Right

I believe we can end homelessness and greatly reduce those impacted by homelessness within a couple of years. St. Louis can join the many other cities nationwide that have greatly reduced homelessness. By working with our community of social service providers, removing bureaucracy and prioritizing a housing first model, we can build on the success of cities like Dallas and Houston.

I have already been working with efforts to house the unhoused through many means. Since taking office, I have actively supported the building of several housing projects in my ward, including one 2 blocks from my home. These projects have all been integrated into the fabric of our community and have added value to the neighborhood. I support increasing support and funding for winter outreach and permanent housing. I will continue working with the Continuum of Care program and its efforts to re-envision services for the unhoused in St. Louis. 

So many families in the city experience hardship with energy supplies. In addition to serving on the Board of Aldermen I am also on the board of directors of the Consumers Council of Missouri – an organization that advocates for low-income consumers and intervenes in rate cases on behalf of those whose voices are not often heard. We push for lower rates and energy efficiency programs to disperse funds equitably. I support the use of incentives to create green jobs and want to see all new projects be zero-net. I recognize that while we may not be there yet we should not stop pushing toward that goal.