ST. LOUIS 鈥 A lawsuit seeking to throw out a candidate for alderman in the new 11th Ward will not be resolved before Tuesday鈥檚 election.
Alderman Laura Keys has accused community organizer Carla 鈥淐offee鈥 Wright of not living in the new ward for a year before the election and not paying her city taxes and fees. Aldermanic candidates are required to do those things to be eligible for office.
At a hearing Monday, Keys鈥 attorney Rufus Tate ran through his case against Wright.
But Judge Jason Sengheiser said he couldn鈥檛 rule Monday because defendants generally have 30 days to respond to such a lawsuit, and she was only served 11 days ago. And, the judge said, Tate didn鈥檛 file a motion for an emergency ruling that would supersede that.
That means residents of the new 11th Ward, which runs from Midtown to O鈥橣allon Park on the North Side, could be waiting for weeks after the election to know who will represent them on the new Board of Aldermen.
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Or not. Keys led Wright by a wide margin in the March 7 primary, with support from 69.9% of voters compared with Wright鈥檚 38.3%. Tate said the suit would be moot if his client won at the polls Tuesday.
When Wright filed to run, she claimed to live at a house in the 4500 block of Holly Avenue. City tax records list her as a co-owner of the property for each of the past three years.
But Keys questions whether Wright really lives there, noting that records show there is no city water service at the house and that Wright wasn鈥檛 registered to vote there until late December.
The lawsuit also says the property had outstanding water bills as of late January and accuses Wright of concealing from city officials her ownership of another house, on North Newstead Avenue, where property taxes have not been paid in at least three years.
Wright has denied the allegations. She says she moved to her house on Holly Avenue in March 2022, when a lease expired at the home in the Vandeventer neighborhood. She concedes she doesn鈥檛 have water service on Holly Avenue but says that鈥檚 because she uses captured rainwater.
She says she has no idea why there would be any outstanding water bills on the Holly Avenue house . And she says she didn鈥檛 own the house on North Newstead, with the unpaid taxes, when she filed for office.
City land records indicate Wright signed paperwork giving away the house a week before she declared her candidacy.