Shortly after winning re-election to a fourth term, Mayor Francis Slay celebrated his victory by holding a party for himself and asking supporters to back a potential campaign for mayor.
Yes, Slay is already talking about running for a fifth term. City Hall is falling apart—literally—so who knows if it will be standing for as long as Slay could be in charge.
Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed, who lost to Slay by blowout proportions in this year’s mayoral primary, announced last week that he too is raising money. He will run for re-election for his current seat and also announced he could take another shot at winning the mayor's seat in 2017.
First things first: He has to settle the $10,000 debt he has left over from his loss to Slay. Reed raised about $700,000 for that campaign, but with no money left in his account, he could lag behind anyone who challenges him for president of the Board of Aldermen. Reed recently announced a fundraising event with a suggested donation of $500.
Trust me, Slay will have a well-financed and well-connected candidate of his choice running against Reed in the Democratic primary in winter of 2015.
In a move that didn’t receive much media attention—from me included, quite frankly, because I missed it entirely—24th Ward Alderman Scott Ogilvie and 25th Ward Alderman Shane Cohn have offered a bill that would limit contributions from individuals or groups for future aldermanic and mayoral races. The limits would be $10,000 in races for mayor and aldermanic president, and $3,000 for aldermen’s races.
I doubt that impacts Reed as much as it would Slay. Rex Sinquefield tossed the mayor a tidy $200,000 for this year’s primary race. Well, it was technically his Missourians for Excellence in Government group that made various donations.
The limitations could make for fairer fights—even if Slay is not in the running for office in the future.
Reed had better raise as much cash as possible if he wants to retain his seat as president of the Board of Aldermen or if he dares to challenge Slay again. He can’t start asking for donations to his campaign coffer soon enough or often enough.
I think Slay will keep running until he’s offered a seat on the federal bench or given a federal office, like the position as head of the Department of Transportation that went to Anthony Foxx, the mayor of Charlotte, N.C.
If I were Reed, I’d also follow some other financial numbers—those that will come out in the federal fraud case against Joseph Vacca, deputy commissioner of the St. Louis Parks Division, and Thomas Stritzel, chief of the St. Louis Park Rangers. The men allegedly “defrauded the city of St. Louis of approximately one-half million dollars by submitting false and sham invoices purportedly for materials and services supplied to the Parks Division,” according to the FBI.
In August 2011, the mayor’s son, Francis Slay Jr., received a ticket in Forest Park. According to the Post-Dispatch, “The next day, the chief park ranger, Dan Stritzel, sent an email to three city staffers, all of whom indirectly answer to the mayor: a court secretary, the senior city attorney in municipal courts, and the court administrator, Cathy Ruggeri-Rea. Stritzel titled his email 'VOID ASAP.' It listed the case number, the officer's name, and one sentence: 'Hi, I have another that went down today that needs to be voided before it gets into the system.' And he closed the email like this: '!!!!!'"
Regarding the parks officials accused of stealing money, Slay told KMOX, “Based on the information that they have, this was kind of done offline, so it’s nothing that our normal processes of supervision and auditing would have caught.”
The trial should determine who knew what and when. This might be the kind of thing that a challenger for mayor could find useful during a campaign against the incumbent.
Commentary by Alvin Reid
