Cara Spencer, newly inaugurated mayor of St. Louis, has pledged to revitalize the city by focusing on core issues. Her plans address various challenges that have plagued the city, including infrastructure improvements, addressing racial divisions, and reversing population decline.
Spencer acknowledged significant obstacles, including a hostile state government interfering with city governance and budget reductions from the federal level. She plans to tackle these issues through a blend of strategic planning, collaboration, and drawing on the city's history of overcoming adversity.
Spencer's vision includes embracing core values of bravery, determination, visionary thinking, and tenacity to create a better St. Louis for all its citizens.
ST. LOUIS — Mayor Cara Spencer on Tuesday took the oath of office and began her campaign to fix St. Louis, promising to bring new urgency and creativity to the business of the city, from picking up trash and filling potholes to redeveloping north St. Louis and overcoming generations of racial division.
She said that under her leadership, the mayor’s office would use data and determination to deliver the basics that have sputtered in recent years, and maintain an open door policy to anyone interested in helping her. She said she would work to make sure everyone feels safe no matter what neighborhood they live in. And she promised bold strategies to reverse population decline and disinvestment.
“Good afternoon, St. Louis,” she told a City Hall rotunda packed with supporters and dignitaries, “and welcome to our city’s next chapter.”
The speech reprised many of the “back to basics” promises she made to voters on the campaign trail over the past 10 months.
It made some new promises: Spencer extended a hand to the Board of Aldermen to work on making the right decisions on the Rams settlement money, which she called a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” and reforming the city's century-old charter, blamed for much of the inefficiency at City Hall.
And it made some old promises, pledging, as did predecessor Tishaura O. Jones, to improve lives for St. Louisans, especially those in the long-troubled neighborhoods of north St. Louis.
Spencer acknowledged big obstacles to her agenda. State government, packed with Republicans hostile to the Democrats who run the city, is taking over the St. Louis police department and threatening to poke holes in the city’s all-important earnings tax. The Trump administration is working to slash spending that funds St. Louis universities, nonprofits, and a good chunk of the city’s budget. Entrenched problems, like poverty and crime, have deep roots and few simple solutions.
But Spencer pointed out that St. Louisans have overcome big things before. She recalled Dred and Harriet Scott, who fought for their freedom from slavery at the Old Courthouse just blocks away. And she referenced James Eads, who built his iconic bridge across the Mississippi River to bring railroads through St. Louis despite stalwart opposition from the steamboat lobby.
“A brighter future will require leaning into these core values: bravery and determination, visionary thinking and tenacity,” she said.
And she promised to be a mayor for all of St. Louis.
“Boundaries that divide us are barriers to the future that we all want for a better St. Louis," she said.
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