With an almost unanimous vote, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen finalized a historic new ward map Tuesday cutting the number of the city’s wards in half from 28 to 14.
Tell you what, no matter what The Post-Dispatch or anybody says, you guys have done something historic here today.” — Aldermanic President Lewis Reed
Aldermanic President Lewis Reed and 27 alderpeople voted in favor of the map. Alderman Jesse Todd, Ward 18, was present but abstained from the vote.
Todd represents parts of several north city neighborhoods, including Academy, Central West End, Covenant Blu Grand Center, Fountain Park, JeffVanderLou, Kingsway East, Lewis Place, Midtown and Vandeventer.
He told The St. Louis American he did not vote because he had a conflict of interest
“I have spoken with and have been working with a few groups, it is those groups [that are] considering filing a lawsuit to keep 28 wards,” Todd said. “If they do, I will support the lawsuit. Therefore I have a conflict of interest. Reducing the wards will make aldermen and [alder] women less accessible to their constituents and less accountable.”
Todd also noted he believed reducing the wards would mean higher campaign costs.
City voters passed the ward reduction in a 2012 election, which stipulated the new 14 wards would be redrawn after the 2020 census.
The vote comes after seven weeks of public engagement, meetings and several map drafts.
“Tell you what, no matter what The Post-Dispatch or anybody says, you guys have done something historic here today,” said Reed after the vote. “When you think about what you’ve just done, in terms of cutting the wards in half—and you all were able to put your own personal preferences aside and vote for the betterment of getting this bill done for everybody in the city of St. Louis. That’s just awesome, so I just want to thank each and every one of you for that.”
The aldermanic president said he believes municipalities across the state have less complex redistricting tasks in front of them and have not gotten through the process like this board has.
Alderman Joseph Vollmer, Ward 10, was in charge of the committee redrawing the ward boundaries. He spoke after Reed and thanked the city staff who worked on the project throughout the process and his legislative committee members.
“And last but not least, to all the citizens who actually took the time to participate in this process,” Vollmer said. “This is something that has not happened in 100 years and hopefully won’t have to happen unless they decide to double or triple the members of the board as the population continues to grow in the next 20 or 30 years.”
The map needed today’s vote before heading to the mayor’s desk to be signed into law.
The board was required by law to pass a new map by Dec. 31. The map will go into effect in the April 2023 election.
During her vote Tuesday, Alderwoman Sharon Tyus, Ward 1, said she never thought she would be voting in favor of the map, but she did.
She’s previously said she did not believe the new map was a good map or a fair map for North St. Louis, but she was prepared to vote in favor of it because the committee did the best they could with what they were handed.
The committee releasedfive other map drafts before finalizing the sixth one. Some activists said the process was not transparent enough and did not involve the community to an appropriate level during that process.
The new map keeps 85% of the city’s neighborhoods in one ward, and only two wards represent each of the other 15% of neighborhoods. The wards are split with seven Black-majority wards and seven white-majority wards. Each ward has approximately 21,500 residents.
Vollmer has previously noted during discussion three of the white majority wards cross north over the Delmar divide.
After reviewing the final map, St. Louis City Counselor Sheena Hamilton said she believes the map would likely survive a legal challenge, including one under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.