ST. LOUIS — Voters will pick top candidates in 16 of the city’s 28 aldermanic wards on Tuesday, but only a handful of those contests, most in north St. Louis, will see an outcome affecting the April 6 general election ballot.
Under the city’s new nonpartisan, approval voting system, the two candidates receiving the most votes in each ward will advance to the general election, but only seven wards have more than two candidates on the Tuesday ballot — and in one, the 15th, one of the candidates said he’s leaving the state and no longer campaigning.
Alderman Megan Green says with the election of four candidates she is pushing, progressives can ‘set the agenda’ rather than play defense.
In two of the wards with active multi-candidate contests — the 12th and the 17th — Alderman Megan Green, a leader of the board’s progressive faction, has made endorsements in what’s being billed as an effort to “flip the board.” But Green has not endorsed in north side contests, where four incumbents, including the board’s longest-serving member, face multiple challengers.
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1st Ward
In the 1st Ward, Alderman Sharon Tyus faces two challengers in her bid to keep representing the area encompassing five neighborhoods along north Kingshighway and Interstate 70. Tyus, known for fiery debates and frequent criticism of the city’s use of development incentives in more affluent areas, represented the old 20th Ward in the 1990s until fellow aldermen approved a redistricting map, developed by Mayor Francis Slay’s office in 2001, that moved much of her ward out from under her. Tyus, who has never forgiven Slay and former colleagues for the move, was elected to represent the 1st Ward in 2013 and won reelection in 2017.
On Friday morning, she said she was busy helping constituents get access to doses of the coronavirus vaccine.
“More important than my election is getting more vaccinations up here in north St. Louis,” she said. Her campaign manager, she joked, wasn’t happy.
She faces Loren Watt, who recently retired as a video production specialist for the city’s local government access television station, STL-TV, and 1st Ward Democratic Committeewoman Yolanda Brown, who ran against Tyus in 2013 and whose daughter challenged the alderman in 2017.
Watt said his top focus is securing vacant and abandoned buildings. Solving those problems takes teamwork, he said. In his job at STL-TV, Watt watched a lot of Board of Aldermen meetings. While he’d like to have Tyus on his side “if I was in a dogfight,” he said her style makes it difficult to work with other aldermen.
“I think the 1st Ward would be served by an alderman who is not full of vitriol and name-calling and bickering,” he said.
Brown, who like Tyus lives in Kingsway East, said she wants residents to have more of a say in how ward capital dollars are spent. She’d like to help build a neighborhood association in Kingsway East, which doesn’t have one now, and reestablish block units.
“That’s the only way our neighborhood’s going to survive is if we reach out to one another,” Brown said.
Tyus, a lawyer, touted her experience and said she has plenty of political allies.
“I didn’t come downtown to get along with people,” Tyus said. “I came downtown to get things done.”
4th WardIn the ward largely made up of the Ville neighborhoods, Alderman Dwinderlin Evans ran unopposed in a June special election to succeed longtime Alderman Sam Moore, who died a year ago following health issues. Evans, a retired teacher and the ward’s Democratic committeewoman, was Moore’s chosen successor.
Now, she faces two challengers, Leroy Carter, a school bus driver, and Edward McFowland, an inspector with the city of Wellston whose late mother, Daisy McFowland, held the seat for 12 years. Both ran against Moore in 2019.
Evans pointed to her work on a plan from Laura Hughes of Fleur De Lis Development Corp. that envisions building and rehabbing as many as 300 homes in the area just north of Sumner High School in coming years. She also said crime is a major focus.
“I’d like to see an increase in police patrols in my area,” she said. “Just their presence can counteract criminal acts.”
McFowland said he’s lived in the ward his whole life and would focus on expanding job training programs for young people. He said his family’s political history and his work with municipal government means he knows “how the system works and how to make it work for the people.” There’s a lack of leadership and organization in the neighborhoods, he said.
“We need to organize blocks and precinct captains,” he said. “We need to organize our ward.”
Carter said he would fight illegal dumping and help organize neighborhood cleanups. He’s worked with organizations such as the Ville Collaborative and Greater Ville Preservation Commission to cite nuisance properties, he said.
“It’s become a dumping ground,” he said. “We can use all the help we can get.”
21st Ward
A six-way melee is underway in the ward that encompasses much of the O’Fallon neighborhood. Incumbent John Collins-Muhammad is fighting his first reelection bid after winning the seat vacated by Antonio French, who ran for mayor and is now an editorial writer for the Post-Dispatch.
He faces Laura Keys, the 21st Ward Democratic committeewoman; Barbara Lane, a retired employee in the collector of revenue’s office; Tavon Brooks, a restaurant manager; Melinda Long, a former alderwoman who lost her seat in a 2003 recall vote; and Ticharwa Masimba, who is part of a movement seeking reparations through heavy government investment in Black-majority areas.
Collins-Muhammad was recently in the news after an aggressive post on his Twitter account threatened opponents of his political ally, Alderman Joe Vaccaro, D-23rd Ward. Collins-Muhammad claimed his account was hacked. Twitter said it had no evidence his account was compromised.
27th Ward
Incumbent Pam Boyd faces former state representative Chris Carter, who narrowly lost the August primary for his Missouri House seat and whose family has a long history in the ward.
The seat was held for 18 years by Carter’s brother, Gregory Carter, until he died in a truck crash in 2012. He was succeeded by Chris Carter’s son, also named Chris Carter, who served until 2017 but didn’t run for another term that year.
In 2017, Boyd defeated another family member, Keena Carter, for the seat.
Also running is Mary Ann Jackson, who ran unsuccessfully for Democratic committeewoman for the ward and organizes volunteer clean ups in the ward that makes up much of the Walnut Park neighborhoods.