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Historical November–December 2019 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
The Board of Aldermen returned from break in September.
We immediately took up the question of whether to lift the residency requirement for city employees.
The current city charter requires all city employees, including police officers, airport employees, and everyone in between to live in the city. It’s been a couple of decades since that decision was affirmed at the ballot box.
A measure to put it back on the ballot was defeated by the Board in September.
I voted in favor of putting it to a public vote after seeing how the number of vacancies at City Hall affects everything from trimming trees to patrolling city streets.
There are many things we can do to incentivize residency if the requirement were lifted, such as prioritizing applicants in the city.
In the meantime, the city needs to work on improving its recruitment and training efforts so we can provide job opportunities for our residents and improve the level of city services. One initiative that passed the Board this fall was a measure to fund “Cure Violence,” a crime prevention program that uses local community members to interrupt violence before it happens.
The program establishes neighborhood centers in communities experiencing the worst gun violence and utilizes existing relationships by training local community members to intervene in conflicts that are likely to lead to shootings.
This program has had success in other cities and was brought to the attention of many lawmakers by citizens looking for alternatives to increased policing and incarceration.
While I am hopeful that Cure Violence will stop more people from being killed, we need to do more to prevent people, especially our young people, from getting to the point where they want to pick up a gun.
A recent presentation from the St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission to the Public Safety Committee stressed that health care is violence prevention; education is violence prevention; and workforce development is violence prevention. Over half of gunshot injuries in St. Louis affected people under the age of 24. Cure Violence will help us intervene now and stop those shootings from occurring but we will need more to cure the despair and trauma that are at the root of violence. You can follow Board of Aldermen meetings and committee meetings online at StLTV or watch on YouTube.
I look forward to sharing more updates as the Board tackles these and other issues.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November–December 2019.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2019_11.pdf, printed page(s) 6; PDF page(s) 4.
