ST. LOUIS — Mayor-elect Tishaura Jones on Wednesday signaled that she is open to possibly appointing new city members to a long-stalled city-county Board of Freeholders that was supposed to study changes in the structure of area government.
Jones’ spokesman, Matt Rauschenbach, said in a text message that Jones “looks forward to asking the city counselor to give a legal opinion on the freeholders situation.â€
He didn’t elaborate other than to say regardless of what the evaluation is, Jones would work with “our partners†in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County “to move our entire region forward.â€
Jones met Wednesday with County Executive Sam Page in Page’s Clayton office but Page spokesman Doug Moore said the freeholders matter didn’t come up.
At issue legally is the meaning of a state constitutional requirement that the freeholders board, which was spurred by a petition drive in 2019, must submit a possible plan to voters “within one year after appointment of the board.â€
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Mayor Lyda Krewson and Page in September 2019 quickly named nine people apiece to the board. However, Krewson couldn’t win Board of Aldermen approval of her appointees and various substitute names amid months of wrangling with an aldermanic committee.
The issue was put aside because of the pandemic and other pressing issues but Krewson aides had said last summer that she intended to try again with a new set of appointees. That never happened and her four-year term ends on Tuesday.
Jones said in February that while she supports the idea of freeholders boards to consider key regional issues, she didn’t believe making new appointments to the 2019 panel would be legal because its one-year time period expired last fall.
Aides to Krewson and Page have interpreted the yearlong period to begin when all city and county appointees are confirmed.
Page’s nine appointees and one named by Gov. Mike Parson, who made up a 10-person quorum, held an initial ceremonial meeting in November 2019 but never met again.
Rauschenbach gave no indication Wednesday what if any issues Jones would want the board to consider if she decided to make her own appointments.
Krewson’s city counselor, Michael Garvin, has said he expects Jones to name someone to replace him and that he would return to his former position as an attorney in the office.
The , made up mainly of ºüÀêÊÓƵ County municipalities, had initiated the freeholders petition drive as an alternative to the now-discarded Better Together plan.
That proposal, created and promoted by a private organization, aimed at merging the city, county and county municipalities into one entity.
After Better Together collapsed, the Municipal League’s executive director, Pat Kelly, suggested that the freeholders board look at allowing ºüÀêÊÓƵ to re-enter the county as one of its municipalities. Last summer, he said fighting crime regionally and regional airport governance were more urgent issues.
Steve Ables, the league’s assistant director, said Wednesday that the organization still believes “these discussions are worth having about how the region’s going to function.â€
He said “we think it’s worth pursuing†a legal opinion on whether the freeholders board can be cranked up again.
Moore, Page’s aide, said Page still supports the freeholders idea but has yet to talk with Jones about it.
Moore said among topics discussed in the two leaders’ 90-minute meeting Wednesday were the city’s jail problems and the need to get more residents “in our most vulnerable populations†vaccinated for the coronavirus.