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Saint Louis CitySide - an overview of the City Government of Saint Louis
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 St. Louis Front Page presents St. Louis CitySide, an overview of the City Government of Saint Louis. From time to time, we will take an indepth look at many of the projects in which the city is involved and how these projects will affect residents and visitors. Related Archived News: 
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the News Media, Does Mike Have a Chance? It doesn't help that the news media has been telling people here for a couple of weeks that the election is over with and that nobody should bother to come out and vote on April 3, because the race has already been decided. - Mike Chance By Bob Moore, Editor, SLFP.com Mostly I want to try to turn things around."It's a simple question, but a complicated answer," responded Chance. "Mostly I want to try to turn things around. St. Louis has such great natural resources here, a number of cultural amenities, sports center for the region. There is such potential here." "But, we've had a succession of mayors that really have not taken advantage of that and haven't provided the type of leadership necessary to get the entire city working again. We've seen them play one area off of the other instead of getting everybody working together. We can't continue to work in that type of environment or in that mode of operation. It's taken City Hall far too long to work with business and community leaders." "There has to be a wholesale change," he continued. "Bringing a Republican point of view back into City Hall and a whole new fresh face on all leadership at City Hall is probably going to be the way to go." "Not just simply the reality of a change. Fine, there's a new administration in. But is the perception of change really there. Quite frankly even before the primary, people that I knew in municipal governments out in the county who see the same potentials that I see in the city, were looking at the three front runners in the primary and they were saying, We don't see any change. It doesn't matter which one of the three won. Now, that it's been Mr. Slay, it's even more so. He's been part of city government, alderman or president of the board for fifteen or sixteen years now and they don't see that he's made a positive contribution to turning the city around," stated Chance. "Until there is that perception as well as the reality that there is a new day, a new complete change in leadership in City Hall, I don't think that many of the regional leaders will have much confidence in the city being able to manage its own house," he concluded. I am also winning over the progressive Democrats who are just tired of not having any progress coming out of City Hall.I put the question to Mr. Chance, "As a programmer, you are from the generation of high technology. If enough people of your progressiveness decide to make a change, they could actually swing this vote. The problem is, will they?" "Yes, that is our challenge - to get the message out and to reach as many people as we can," responded Chance. "The numbers are there to make it work. It's about twenty to twenty-five percent for Republican vote in the City of St. Louis. There's another ten to fifteen percent that can be considered independent swing voters. The challenge then is to get that last fifteen to twenty percent or so of the conservative Democrats." "I am also winning over the progressive Democrats as well who are just tired of not having any progress coming out of City Hall. They've heard the message that I'm trying to get out and have said, This sounds like what we want for the Mayor of the City of St. Louis. If all of those folks show up in those numbers on April 3, then yes, I have a very good chance of winning," he noted.
"It doesn't help that the news media has been telling people here for a couple of weeks that the election is over with and that nobody should bother to come out and vote on April 3, because the race has already been decided. That does a great disservice to all voters in the City of St. Louis because there is more than just the mayor's race on the ballot. It looks like we are going to have four contested aldermanic races. And there is the Use Tax on the ballot as well. So to tell people to stay home is really a subtle form of disfranchisement," he commented. "If you were to have had told one segment or another of the population back in October that the election is over with, don't bother showing up, there would have been howls of protest from all segments. There doesn't seem to be that in this case and that's really unfortunate and very troubling to me that some members of the press seem to be taking that tone. It think it's irresponsible especially at a time when we are trying to get the voting public more engaged in the election process." "It think it's something we have to get past," Chance continued. "This mantra that has been repeated for years and years - a Republican can't win. If you don't vote for them, no they can't win. It's an old technique. If you say something loud enough and long enough and enough people say it and believe it - whether it's true or not - it becomes sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. We have to sort of break that. Don't vote for somebody just because everybody says they are going to win. Vote for the person you think is going to do the best job. That's the principal way in this country. We should not let people tell us how to vote because this is the chosen candidate. That's not what America is about." Chance believes that his skills as a senior programmer/analyst bring unique qualifications to the mayoral race.Chance has twenty years of being a reality-based problem solver. "This is what my job is," explained Chance. Clients come to me with a problem. I have to draft a solution that actually works and solves that problem. The skills in doing that type of job have prepared me. Most of it is looking at the facts and the situation. Looking at what resources are available, looking at what people we can bring in and what their talent and skills are. Chance added that the city government as opposed to a computer system has a few more variables involved. "Humans don't work quite as logically a lot of times as computer do certainly," he said. "But a lot of the skills are the same. Bringing the right people together and the resources to draft a real solution that solves and eliminates that particular problem." "We are obviously facing a serious problem with our budget," observed Chance. "They are talking about cutting a hundred police officers off the police force next year. The public health budget has been cut repeatedly in the last couple years. We have seen reductions in affordable housing programs. Now we are being asked to divert more money out of the city budget to pay for a baseball stadium. At the same time we are still paying on a questionable kind of deal on the Trans World Dome. From the city's financial standpoint, we have to sit down and completely prioritize what are the important things that the city government should be doing. At the same time, we have to figure out how to work faster in dealing with the business and economic community." Chance state that there are a lot of companies who want to come into St. Louis and do economic development and open new businesses. "The perception is that it's too hard or too slow to do business with the city government in the City of St. Louis. That has to change and it starts with leadership at the top," he said. There has to be a completely different attitude that business as usual is not acceptable.Chance is proposing a reality-based type of government. "We have to look at the reality of what's out in the budget and the reality of what's on our streets," he emphasized. "We have a lot of neighborhoods where a lot of positive things are happening, including downtown and the near southside neighborhoods. There are also some hidden successes on the northside when you look at Northpoint neighborhood and Penrose. The neighborhoods that are far north on Riverview Drive and the new Hamilton Heights developments that are going up are successes that aren't being publicized very well." "We have to get past the northside, southside fractionalization of the city. Quite frankly I think the only way we are going to do that is to have a mayor with no allegiances to any of the old factions who can take good hard look at the city at the whole and say this is where we have to concentrate on. We have to bring up everybody in the city and not just pick and choose which neighborhoods are going to be successful and which ones we are going to leave behind." We are going to have to be aggressive about going after new development and get city hall working on Internet time instead trolley car time."It's going to take a lot of really hard tough choices," stated Chance. "Every neighborhood in St. Louis is different. They all have their unique strengths and unique challenges. Together, they form this beautiful mosaic that is St. Louis. So you have to operate on two levels. You have to work with the alderman to deal with that local neighborhood level. What are the unique challenges for each neighborhood," he reflected. "There also has to be some citywide planning that goes on. You are dealing with the main arteries and dealing with overall economic strategy. In some cases, we have to get competing aldermen to come to the realization that if they continue to fight, both of their wards are going to suffer. By extension, the entire city will suffer," he concluded. "I think you have to have a mayor in place who isn't naturally predisposed because of where their political base is to one set of aldermen or another. We have to get the aldermen working together to get this project moving forward," stated Chance. The mayor has to be out bringing the neighborhood groups and the church organizations into the discussion of what's possible for the neighborhoods.When asked if he was going to try to do something uniquely different to bring about some kind of coalition in the internal government in the city, Chance responded enthusiastically. "Absolutely. That doesn't seem to be happening now. You talk to a variety of aldermen and the comment you hear is that Mayor Harmon has been kind of distant and aloof. Mayor Bosley, before him, had his circle that he felt comfortable in and working with. Others, he didn't really want to give the time of day to. Vince Schoemehl was kind of the same way." "It's more than just the aldermen," added Chance. "The mayor has to be out bringing the neighborhoods groups and the church organizations into the discussion to get down to heart of what the people in those neighborhoods want to see for their neighborhoods. Let them know what the possibilities are. In many cases, there are programs and ideas that people in the neighborhood may have not considered or thought was possible in their neighborhood." Chance observed that the mayor's office and the city government has to be able to have two-way communication. "What do the people want. What is possible. Plus, we have to go and bridge a lot of divisions that we have - racial and ethnic. We are not going to be able to turn this city around and bring the revitalization back if we are not all working together," he stated. "The census figures show this out. The black and white divide is going to be very rapidly eclipsed by a multi-ethnic community where you have strong ethnic constituencies. You have the Asians, the Bosnians, a very large group of Hispanics that is growing tremendously, and an African immigrant population that is starting to get in a size where they can actually weld a small bit of influence," he said. Are you are saying that for the revitalization of St. Louis, there is more to it than just living downtown, I asked Chance. "The downtown is a critical piece. It's almost like a keystone," stated Chance. "You've got to have a downtown that is attractive not just to the people in the city and not just as a place to work but to attract people from all over the region to shop and for entertainment. We need more restaurants downtown that are open all week in the evenings as well as lunch time. We need to have more stores, small retail and more art galleries. We need more entertainment opportunities. Downtown has to be healthy from a regional perspective and that will provide opportunities for the surrounding area.Chance commented, "Reopening the Kiel Opera House is a critical piece of that could be a $10 million a year economic generator directly into the city coffers. It would compliment the entertainment district in Grand Center and not compete with it." "Downtown has to be healthy from a regional perspective and that will provide opportunities for the surrounding area," he stated. "We are already seeing new residential development on the edges of downtown - the King Louis development on the old Darst Webbe site; the new Riverside North development going up just north of Laclede's Landing; and the Jeff Vander Lou project around the area where the new Vashon is going to be built." "For these projects to be successful, you have to have a downtown that is healthy. That is where a lot of people living in those new neighborhoods are going to be working. They are going to want not only housing, but grocery stores, pharmacies, dry cleaners, video stores and all the things you find in twenty-first century neighborhoods," he emphasized. "Because these are urban neighborhoods, people want these conveniences close by, not where you have to drive ten or fifteen minutes to get to them. They want neighborhoods where they can walk to a restaurant or to the pharmacy or have a very short drive to a supermarket that has a variety of goods and services," he said. "Those are the kinds of challenges that we have got to meet. There are people who would love to come in and provide those kinds of things, but they don't see the city government right now as being particularly interested or as being particularly responsive. We have to try to turn that around," stated Chance.  Next Wednesday, Part II continues with Mike Chance and his observations on St. Louis' rich history, diverse neighborhoods and its revitalization.
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