A future worth fighting for

I believe you deserve to feel safe on our streets and in your home. Our city needs to provide services and infrastructure that show we care about our people. As a city, we need to work to lower speeds, increase visibility, provide more effective traffic education, expand public transit, and improve enforcement. As your alderperson, I will:

• Build out our city’s first Department of Transportation, making sure it has the funding, personnel, and policies to ensure safer and better maintained streets and sidewalks.

• Advocate for reform of the inequitable ward capital fund system, which creates patchwork, low-quality infrastructure.

• Work towards a Vision Zero goal to end traffic fatalities in St. Louis, and expand public transit options, including a North-South transit line, MetroBus, and bus rapid transit.

• Prioritize pedestrians, cyclists, and Disabled people in our road design. When we protect those who are most vulnerable, it makes everyone safer.

• Actualize traffic calming infrastructure investments, like separated bike lanes, raised crosswalks, and bus stop improvements.

• Support enforcement that prioritizes safety, holding reckless drivers accountable through the use of technology.

• Explore the incentivization of driver education throughout the city, producing safer conditions by creating safer drivers.

Whether you own your home or rent, you should be secure in your housing. Renters in our city do not have the same rights as homeowners, and everyone deserves to raise their families and live in safe housing. Housing justice is also intrinsic to racial justice, as Black Saint Louisans are nearly twice as likely to rent as white Saint Louisans and twice as likely to be severely rent burdened. As your alderperson, I will:

• Work to fund the right to Counsel in Housing Court, ensuring people aren’t evicted illegally or without representation.

• Support the establishment of an Office of the Tenant Advocate that is responsible for tracking tenant issues and ensuring tenant’s rights.

• Responsibly regulate short-term rentals like Airbnbs, keeping our neighborhoods balanced by prioritizing people who call them home.

• Improve our neighborhoods by ensuring that landlords who violate renters rights are held accountable .

St. Louis has a shortage of housing that can only be solved by building more housing. Let’s make sure it is built to last. We need to raise the standards for development to build a place that not only attracts population growth, but also supports the people who already live here. Unpredictable development processes favor large developers over small ones, creating barriers to those that lack the funds or political connections to navigate our complicated system. Our city is facing a 35,000 unit affordable housing shortage. All of that needs to change, and as your alderperson, I will:

• Work with the Mayor’s office and other alderpersons to create a modern city-wide development plan for our city, fostering a common understanding of our goals for St. Louis.

• Set clear expectations for development review with an eye towards streamlining the process for smaller developers, like home-rehabbers and infill projects.

• Fully fund and staff our building division and update our building codes so that inspectors can ensure the quality of our housing.

• Work to streamline and speed up inspection and permit processes so that good projects don’t die from bureaucratic inefficiency or politics.

• Address ethics reforms related to aldermanic powers for approving and denying projects.

• Support increasing the construction of affordable housing, and reduce permit barriers for homeowners to improve their homes.

• Work with the community to ensure that developments are positive additions to their neighborhoods by including neighborhood residents in the decision process. I set up Development Review committees in the neighborhoods I represent to ensure community input and fair engagement for developers.

Following the collapse of federal funding for urban projects in the 1980s, St. Louis turned to private entities as partners to fund its growth and offered subsidies to incentivize desired outcomes. In present day, we need to modernize our approach by addressing our city’s over-reliance on subsidies and decreasing the barriers to building. As your alderperson, I will:

• Be extra judicious in the use of public subsidies, understanding the trade offs for abatements and the impacts they have on funding for our public school system and other city services.

• Support alternate incentive mechanisms by working with our city’s Planning and Urban Design Agency on zoning reform, permit waivers, pre-approved building plans, community land trusts, and more.

• Identify ways we can lower barriers for community members to become developers with a focus on bringing our vacant buildings back to life.

• Check with our public schools when tax incentives might affect their taxing district. Good projects add more funding to our schools, and the school board deserves that dialogue so that everyone is on the same page.

St. Louis was stronger when our unions were stronger. Unions can be a part of everyday life again. Today, we are seeing a groundswell of organizing from baristas to gig economy workers, but our right to organize is constantly under attack. I will stand with workers. As your alderperson, I will:

Our city and its government should be accessible to all, regardless of Disability status, race, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic level. As your alderperson, I will work to:

• Fund capital improvements to sidewalks so wheelchair users can safely navigate them.

• Increase seating in public spaces.

• Explore ways to address food deserts, so that everyone has access to healthy foods.

• Increase the number of city inspectors to ensure that buildings are safe and ADA compliant.

When people lose their housing, their lives are turned upside down. Banning people from public spaces does not solve the problem. The solution is to treat them with respect, and find them housing and wraparound services so that they are no longer homeless. Black St. Louisans are four times as likely to be unhoused as white St. Louisans: we need to house people if we want to address racial injustice in our city. As your alderperson, I will:

• Support legislation that uses a Housing First strategy, prioritizing shelter for people as a means to getting them back on their feet.

• Urge the mayor to open shelters, especially in extreme weather conditions, and continue to be supportive of organizations that provide services and support.

Saint Louis should be a place where everyone should have control over their own reproductive healthcare. As your alderperson, I will:

• Work to protect people and keep their reproductive decisions private. Your body, your choice.

Missouri has been aggressive in its attacks on the rights of its people, and anyone who doesn’t fit our State Government’s radical dogma. Saint Louis should be a place where everyone should have control over their own reproductive healthcare, and where we all stand up for our LGBTQIA+ community. As your alderperson, I will:

• Work to protect people and keep their reproductive decisions private. Your body, your choice.

• Push to update the city website and publications in line with Prop R’s charter change, removing gendered language (e.g.: Board of Alderpersons).

• Standing with our community members to confront any threat that comes out way. We’re not going back.