urbanSTL

Baltimore Jack wrote: ↑

Jan 31, 2025

Auggie people have given you reasoned answers as to why they want to give Spencer a chance as Mayor.

I mentioned Spencer's sponsorship of the bill to impound the vehicles of reckless drivers. I think drivers blasting through lights, drag racing and "blocking the block" in our central business district hampers downtown development and tourism. If curtailing that behavior is not important to you fine. But it's an example of Spencer showing leadership that this mayor has lacked in my opinion.

I don't think Jones has been a disaster as Mayor and many on here might be surprised to see me defending her from the irratiinal haters on Nextdoor.

But I think we can do better. Jones has made some unforced errors that I think Spencer would avoid. I could be wrong betting on that. But you could be wrong betting on a second Jones term.  

It's the insinuation that anyone who supports a challenger to this mayor must be motivated by race and the obsession with who someone voted for mayor 20 years ago that gets old.

No, they haven't. Citing one single bill introduced by your candidate is not "reasoned" or "comprehensive". Especially when that bill wouldn't change anything since state law already allows law enforcement to impound vehicles for reckless driving. In fact, Mayor Slay's PD took advantage of that by impounding way more vehicles than they needed to, and then letting kids of the higher ups use people's impounded cars for their own personal use.

Jones did take action to stop the "block the block" crowds downtown by putting up barricades on the blocks they were doing it on, and it actually worked quite well from what I remember.

I haven't insinuated that you support Spencer because she's white, but reality is that she's going to get a lot of support because she's white. Especially in areas like SW city. That's just a fact.

True.

It's also (likely) true that the name "Virvus Jones" repels more voters than it attracts.

If he wants to work behind the scenes and use his political connections, he could probably help her campaign. But directly associating his name with her campaign would probably hurt it.

CS seems to be running her campaign without diverging too par from the policies of TJ. The only policy differences I've really heard about is that CS would probably focus resources more towards downtown while TJ would push more towards north city. CS is really only differentiating herself by complaining about the effectiveness of city services.

I would really like to see her propose some actual bold, progressive, policy. IE land value tax on surface parking downtown, eliminating parking minimums, and legalizing multifamily construction citywide

Just for funsies what do people think Andrew Jones will get in the primary? More or less than he did 4 years ago? (Which I think was 14%)

4 years ago he had a campaign account and was spending money. This time he isn’t, probably illegally

That's funny because he has a fan club on Nextdoor that insist he's serious this time.

Unlike the 4 other attempts I guess.

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: ↑

Jan 31, 2025

CS seems to be running her campaign without diverging too par from the policies of TJ. The only policy differences I've really heard about is that CS would probably focus resources more towards downtown while TJ would push more towards north city. CS is really only differentiating herself by complaining about the effectiveness of city services.

I would really like to see her propose some actual bold, progressive, policy. IE land value tax on surface parking downtown, eliminating parking minimums, and legalizing multifamily construction citywide

Any politician that wants to do a LVT in any capacity has my vote.

^Second that Harv!

I gotta say - I am okay with the alders that are fighting for downtown to get the money. I always was in the camp that 100% should be put towards downtown. So I don’t think any more money should be pulled from downtown. This money should be put downtown and into our riverfront - that’s where the rams money was supposed to all go anyways.

I am for TJ. But a change of the head of BOA would be welcomed…

As ALL of you know I live in Downtown, 8 years now and many more to come and I support the $74,000,000 in board bill 153CS but fixing downtown roads and making them pretty will do absolutely nothing to change anything in any way.  GSL and the larger business community had an opportunity to make other commitments for this money like jobs and office leases.   I got texts from many months ago of me saying to their leadership the only way this passes is if you commit a match but very specific match and not some vague thing. They’ve gone with a vague thing but it would have been impossible for Green and anyone on BOA to say no if the match was “city invests $100m in downtown and business community adds 10,000 jobs to downtown” heck even 5000 probably would have done it

There are many things you could use the funds for, not just streetscaping. I don’t even think it’s outrageous to say that the city could certainly spend $294 million in infrastructure downtown and on the riverfront

Just spitballing/brainstorming w/o digging in - fund to back TIF financing for projects downtown, fund with interest for future Broadway/Wash Ave/14th streetcar, eminent domain money to pursue and purchase neglected properties in and around downtown beyond Railway Ex, fund with interest for complete capping or removal of i-44 in downtown, a starter fund for the redevelopment of a building like the Municipal Courts for a new civic use. You couldn’t do all of these but you could definitely do quite a bit with $294 million downtown and it still wouldn’t cover everything to get where we want. I’m okay with how some of the other allocations shake out, but I think there shouldn’t be another dollar taken away from the downtown portion, especially $14 M (and think the $50 million for city workers and $40 million for water would be better spent in downtown for the things like I list above but I won’t fight tooth and nail about it)

So I disagree with Green and think the $14 M is better spent on more downtown projects rather than the worker fund

I generally don’t find her to be effective

dbInSouthCity wrote:As ALL of you know I live in Downtown, 8 years now and many more to come and I support the $74,000,000 in board bill 153CS but fixing downtown roads and making them pretty will do absolutely nothing to change anything in any way.  GSL and the larger business community had an opportunity to make other commitments for this money like jobs and office leases.   I got texts from many months ago of me saying to their leadership the only way this passes is if you commit a match but very specific match and not some vague thing. They’ve gone with a vague thing but it would have been impossible for Green and anyone on BOA to say no if the match was “city invests $100m in downtown and business community adds 10,000 jobs to downtown” heck even 5000 probably would have done it

Couldn’t this suggest just how bad the situation is?The perception is so bad that they can’t convince anyone, even with a commitment from the city, to match?

They can’t just say “poof, 10,000 jobs” then shake hands.

You mean to tell me that urban, low income black voters feel most affected by a collapse of city services and a mayor that sticks with a CA that allows property crime to run absolutely rampant??

Wealthy white progressives in TGS:

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Feb 01, 2025

If I recall, polling in the city has historically been fairly inaccurate. Not sure I believe these. Especially Jones being under with Black voters.

Depends which firm, if it’s Remington that it’s widely off, they had Lewis Reed at 60% and winning in 2021 and he came in 3rd with 38%.

If it’s Show Me Victories, it’s much more indicative. Idk who did the poll above.

Aesir wrote: ↑

Feb 01, 2025

You mean to tell me that urban, low income black voters feel most affected by a collapse of city services and a mayor that sticks with a CA that allows property crime to run absolutely rampant??

Wealthy white progressives in TGS:

Wait till you learn where Kim Gardener's base of support was, it's gonna blow ur mind.

But Remington was actually much closer than SMV in predicting Jones and Spencer’s results.

SMV was closer at predicting Reed’s


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Will Cara Spencer Be The Next Mayor Of STL?
VOP News will sit down with her Sunday February 2nd in the 2pm hour to discuss why she is running for mayor and more
Got questions? Email them to therealvopnews@gmail.com or ask them live.

I think she will. My current expectation is 55%-45% in favor of Spencer.

In Trump vs Harris, I expected Trump to win. In Bush vs Bell, I expected Bush to win. So I don't necessarily have a good record of predicting recent elections.

It is increasingly important to ensure that the votes are counted properly.

^do you have any reason to believe they won'tbe?

Yeah I’m feeling less and less confident about Jones’ getting reelected. That poll mentioned earlier was pretty telling.