Cara’s Vision for Restoring Basic City Services

Every day, residents in every neighborhood of St. Louis say they don’t feel like the city is meeting their basic needs. Take one look at the requests to the Citizens’ Service Bureau (CSB), and it’s easy to see what people complain about: the condition of roads and trash piling up in alleys.

Basic city services are clearly not a priority of the current administration. Cara has plans to ensure that roads are well maintained and trash and recycling services are reliable.

Fixing the Roads.  The condition of our roads is getting worse over time. Potholes plague almost every city road. This not only impacts quality of life, but it also costs residents money for additional car maintenance and repairs. Cara has solutions to for these problems.

1. Staff up. The Street Department is terribly understaffed. About 60 of the 160 maintenance positions are open. These positions are budgeted and approved, and funds have been allocated. If staff can’t be hired, the department needs to contract with street repair services to supplement city staff. 

2. Overhaul the paving policy. When a utility company digs up a street, the current policy directs it to pay the city to repave it at a cost that does not cover the cost of paving, thereby leaving streets with steel plates for months on end. Following the lead of other municipalities and requiring the utility companies to repave our streets themselves will free the short-staffed Street Department to work on other projects, such as street repair. This should also result in faster and more complete repairs by the utility companies.

3. Establish a Transportation Department with a dedicated funding source. The city’s street director estimates that general maintenance of the city’s roads would cost between $12 million and $13 million a year just to keep up with wear and tear. The department currently allocates between $2 million and $3 million a year for such work, $10 million less than actually needed. Recognizing the lack of funding for street repair is a first step. Prop V, which created a Transportation Department and passed on the ballot in November, is a good start. But the proposal included no funding. City leaders and the community will have to work together to find a solution to making the new department a helpful reality –  not to mention determining a dependable funding source, given the current tax environment.

Picking up the Trash.  Garbage in alleys has been piling up with no end in sight. CSB complaints regarding collection during this current administration have almost doubled compared to the previous one. The problem is not only frustrating, it’s a serious public health concern. The city needs to staff up, change policies to streamline collection and save money, and use the money saved to contract for service to fill in gaps.

1. Staff up. The Refuse Department is seriously understaffed. It is currently operating with about a 40% vacancy rate. Positions are budgeted and approved, and funds are allocated. But workers have not been hired. If the department is unable to hire staff it  needs to contract for additional garbage collection services. City staff cannot be expected to work six or even seven days a week and still not keep up with the workload.

2. Honesty regarding recycling. Currently, the vast majority of recycling in alleys isn't being recycled. In fact, auditing the last three years shows only around 5% is actually getting recycled, a sharp drop from the previous five years. Residents are accustomed to seeing the refuse trucks pick up both the recycling and garbage and put them in the same truck. It's time to be honest with our citizens.

3. Expand the drop sites. The vast majority of the items residents drop at recycling spots is being recycled. Making it easier for residents by establishing more drop sites will result in more high-quality recycling items staying out of landfills and reducing the cost to dispose of the material. That would make the recycling program sustainable.

4. Opt-in Program. Piloting an opt-in recycling program would allow residents who want the convenience of home pick-up for recycling to pay an extra fee to help cover the cost of additional routes. Just as importantly, the program would identify people who are separating items for recycling from trash, thus enabling the city to collect clean recycling reliably. The city currently pays 4.5 times more for collecting recycling items, in part because of contamination from trash. Clearly separating recycling from trash would allow the city to cut costs. 

5. Beef up consequences for illegal dumping. Almost every neighborhood is plagued with dumped furniture, tires, and construction waste. Expanding the camera program to catch dumpers, streamlining the process of collecting the data, and focusing the legal department on prosecuting these cases will reduce the personpower spent cleaning up the mess, the tonnage fees for getting rid of dumped trash, and, of course, the quality of life lessened by living with illegal dumping. 

6. Modernize the Refuse Department. Right now, refuse workers are operating with old machines and paper maps. Even though the department is understaffed, drivers still show up to work and are met with an inadequate number of working trash trucks. This is unacceptable. Cara will prioritize unspent federal money investment in working trucks and equip them with tracking software so the department can keep track of blocks that are missed when routes get cut short. That way, areas won’t go weeks on end without garbage collection, as too often continues to happen.

Cara is committed to doing this work. Her plan goes beyond fixing roads and picking up trash. It’s about making St. Louis work. She believes the city needs a mayor who will put competent people in place, restore trust through transparency, and take action to solve the problems residents face every day. As mayor, she is committed to using reporting and transparency to rebuild confidence in city government, ensuring that residents know where their tax dollars are going and how services are being delivered.

Cara’s Vision for Transparency and Accountability at the City Justice Center

Since 2020, 18 people have died while in the City’s custody at the City Justice Center (CJC), commonly called the City Jail. This is an unacceptable record by any standard of incarceration in the United States. It is made worse by the mayor’s refusal to allow access to the jail for the Detention Oversight Board or to follow the law regarding access for attorneys.

In April, a circuit judge issued an order requiring jail officials to allow detainees access to their constitutional right to attorneys after repeated complaints of obstruction. The findings of the Missouri State Auditor’s investigation earlier this year further emphasized these systemic failures. The summary of the probe noted that the Detention Facility Oversight Board, formed to review complaints and provide accountability, has been consistently blocked from performing its duties.

St. Louis Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah, appointed by the mayor to run the CJC, has been on an unexplained leave for more than two months. The administration has yet to comment as to whether she will return. This lack of clarity raises serious questions about who is accountable for overseeing the jail's operations – while the number of deaths is rising.

In response to these alarming statistics and incidents, activists, social justice groups, and concerned citizens are united in their calls for urgent and sweeping reforms. The Justice Center must address its systemic issues to prevent further loss of life and to restore public trust.

As Mayor, Cara will: 

• Replace St. Louis Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah.

• Ensure the Detention Facility Oversight Board has access to the facility and relevant records to conduct independent audits, monitor conditions, and hold the facility accountable.

• Ensure that detainees' grievances receive a proper review. A thorough and transparent process must Include grievances being taken seriously, addressed promptly, and not retaliated against. The lack of such oversight has contributed to a climate of fear and disregard for basic human rights within the facility.

• Increase transparency and accountability of the administration of the CJC and ensure accurate reporting.

• Improve conditions at the CJC. Immediate steps must be taken to address the deplorable conditions. This includes ensuring access to medical care, improving sanitation, and providing adequate food and water to people detained.

A Once in a Generation Opportunity Slipping Away

How will the deployment of historic ARPA funds be graded by future generations? 

The City of St. Louis was awarded just shy of $500 million in pandemic relief money through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). This was more than any major city in the U.S. per capita because of our city’s vacancy, population loss, and lack of economic opportunity for residents. A historic and once-in-a-generation opportunity for our community.

Here we are, a few months shy of four years since we received these funds, and as of this morning, the city has only spent $155M. That’s less than a third of the awarded funds.  

While the funds don’t need to be spent until 2026, they do need to be obligated by the end of 2024. That’s just 10 weeks from now. Today, we have $316M obligated. That means we still have $184M on the table that is still unaccounted for, with the expiration date drawing near. 

The mayor's chief of staff, Jared Boyd, acknowledged last month that it was too late to get new requests for proposals out—a devastating blow to projects promised but not yet contracted for. So what does that mean? 

Here we are at the finish line, and the administration is presumably putting together an omnibus bill to obligate a whopping $184M in the last two months of a 48-month timeline provided by the federal government. This is happening without any public communication about how they plan to allocate such a large amount of funding. As Chair of Budget and Public Employees, I can confirm there has been no communication with our committee about the mayor’s plans.

ARPA funds were an enormous opportunity to invest in our communities—and, just as importantly, to build trust. We have seen the opposite of that. From a failure to deploy funds in a reasonable timeframe to the debacle with the North Side Grant Fund and, just today, egregious oversights are coming to light in the Private Building Stabilization Program. What's next is a last-minute dash to the finish line with no time left for robust community discussion or even thoughtful planning. This is no way to spend $184M. 

The current administration’s actions do not optimize results. Where was the data-driven decision-making we were promised? Maximizing results takes careful planning, true transparency, and competent and timely deployment of resources.

Cara’s Vision for Restoring Trust and Transparency in City Government

Trust and transparency are core tenets of democracy and critical to a functioning society. Without trust, a system cannot work well, jeopardizing its legitimacy, stability, and the collective well-being of its citizens.

The past several years have seen a troubling but consistent lack of transparency in the functioning of St. Louis City government: failure to respond in a timely manner to sunshine requests, failure to allow for oversight into the very troubled jail system, and most recently, failure to disclose records around some of the largest awardees of federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.

Failures in transparency have real consequences. A recent lawsuit against the St. Louis Division of Corrections has led to a judge determining that the facility “purposefully violated the Sunshine Law.” This not only results in statutory penalties against the division but also a breakdown in trust in the criminal justice system — a system that badly needs trust.

More recently, the failures of transparency in the North St. Louis Small Business & Non-Profit Grant Program, funded by ARPA, have badly damaged the impact $32 million will have in North City. As a member of the St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) board, Cara refused to vote on the program. She stood with the public, who continue to have concerns and questions about the distribution of the money, as outlined by both the St. Louis Post Dispatch and KSDK. It's unacceptable that two years into implementing this program, these questions remain. 

As mayor, trust and transparency will be more than words used during campaign season. They will be core tenets of Cara’s administration. These are some of the objectives Cara will prioritize from day one:

1. Providing transparency in the jails. Allowing members of the Detention Facilities Oversight Board into the city jail and working to improve, not hide, conditions in the detention facility. 

2. Enforcing conflict of interest policies. Developing and adhering to real, disclosed conflict of interest policies across city agencies, including quasi-governmental entities such as SLDC. 

3. Complying with the law. Complying with the state Sunshine Law across the board in a timely manner and reasonable prices. Period.

4. Building reliable reporting systems. Making it easier for citizens to engage and report problems by implementing a 3-1-1 system for nonemergency issues and finally fixing the 9-1-1 system so citizens can have a trusted set of reporting options.

5. Sharing data to provide accountability. Publishing data related to city services through a platform similar to Baltimore’s CitiStat program to disclose performance metrics and hold city government accountable.

Residents deserve to know how and where their tax dollars are spent and how the city  government is operating its departments. As mayor, Cara will use transparency and reporting to build trust and improve systems. 

Hard No: Cara’s Statement on the Transparency of the North City Small Business and Non Profit Grant Program

“The more we learn about the North St. Louis City Small Business and Non Profit Grant Program, the more troubled I become with the program. The Post Dispatch reported that some of the businesses appeared to be vacant, abandoned buildings, among other issues of transparency and due diligence. Yesterday, I was a hard no on reallocating funding dedicated to the administration of this program. If we still haven’t vetted these businesses before awarding businesses the city has more work to do.

“The lack of transparency in this process has impacted the trust and validity our institutions have in our community: we must ensure that the organizations we empower to handle our development and growth are held to the highest standards. The ongoing concerns make clear that the residents who need these funds the most are now worried they may not have been given a fair shot.  

“In the coming weeks you will hear more from me on why transparency and trust are important pillars to uphold in our government. We need to implement measures that will help build back the faith our community demands; I will share how I plan to do just that.  

“We have work to do and transparency should be our top priority. 

“If you can, help fuel our campaign to make transparency a priority in city government through a contribution or volunteer to help us spread the word about my commitment to good government.”

– Cara Spencer

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If you'd like to read more on the situation, check out some of the articles below:

• St. Louis Post Dispatch 

• St. Louis Post Dispatch

• KSDK

• Business Journal