Four years ago, St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch and then-Councilman Steve Stenger were joined at the hip as Stenger campaigned for county executive. Now, with both McCulloch and Stenger running for reelection and facing formidable primary challengers, it’s hard to find the two men in the same room. They are both conservative Democrats with keen political instincts, and their instincts have led each to the same conclusion: McCulloch is too toxic for Stenger, and Stenger is too toxic for McCulloch.
In 2014, McCulloch was Stenger’s biggest booster. He led an aggressive charge against Charlie Dooley, the first black to serve as St. Louis County executive, with unsubstantiated accusations of corruption and unfounded rumors of criminal investigations. McCulloch appeared in advertisements for Stenger’s county executive campaign, citing alleged federal investigations into county government and a $3.7 million construction contract being awarded to a Dooley appointee.
In one ad, McCulloch stated, “This kind of corruption is a disgrace.” Despite having the full power of the law behind him, McCulloch never found anything on Dooley, as demonstrated by his failure to bring any charges against Dooley. Yet he continued to stir up rumors of corruption about Dooley despite the absence of evidence. McCulloch even gave $100,000 to Stenger’s campaign fund.
Since then, there have been no reports of the Stenger/McCulloch relationship souring. And the two have worked together on some initiatives, some controversial, like dramatically increasing McCulloch’s salary and pension. But the two have not been seen together on the campaign trail. Which leaves one to wonder: Why are they avoiding each other this time around? The best answer seems to be that they are afraid of each other’s political baggage.
McCulloch is anathema in the black community and among civil rights advocates. Although long a controversial figure, it was McCulloch’s handling of the Darren Wilson case that tipped the scales in the black community as well as among progressives. Aside from sometimes criticizing the municipal court system, the only times McCulloch has entered the public dialogue in the past four years have been to selfishly seek more and more money. First he tried to secretly increase his pension so that he would collect a pension that was $10,000 more than his current salary, and then he backed Proposition P, a sales tax increase that boosted McCulloch’s salary and that of his top staff.
Since his re-election campaign began, Stenger has tried to make inroads into the black community. He appointed the county’s first chief diversity officer, signed an executive order banning the felon box on county job applications, and has started popping up at black churches. Surely Stenger knows that the closer he is seen as being aligned with McCulloch, the harder it will be to win black votes.
And there are plenty of reasons why McCulloch would want to avoid Stenger. Stenger’s tenure as county executive has been marked by division, insider deals, absenteeism and mismanagement. The insider deal with the biggest price tag – a roughly $75 million lease that Stenger gave to his largest campaign contributors – dwarfs the $3.7 million construction contract that so outraged McCulloch about Dooley.
The County Council’s Ethics Committee conducted a months-long investigation into the lease and found that normal and customary practices in County government were not followed. The Ethics Committee referred further investigations to the Missouri attorney general and the U.S. attorney. McCulloch – so keen to allege corruption of Dooley – has shown no interest in much more blatant evidence of possible corruption by Stenger.
Stenger also failed in his move to redevelop Jamestown Mall. County taxpayers own Jamestown Mall, but Stenger decided to invest $75 million with his campaign contributors at the old Northwest Plaza. That left Jamestown Mall to languish, until Stenger promised a new effort to revitalize it. Then his administration botched the bidding process, resulting in the county only receiving one bid: a developer (who, it won’t be a surprise, is a Stenger campaign donor) with plans to turn Jamestown Mall into a trucking center. When the County Council held a hearing to look into the bidding process, nobody from Stenger’s administration showed up to answer their questions.
Stenger has tried to rebuild a bridge the leads to a campaign donor’s house. The rebuilt bridge would have led to a 10,000-square-foot mansion on a stately six acres. The mansion is appraised at $2.2 million. The bridge alone, which Stenger asked taxpayers to fund, would have cost $2.5 million. And public records indicate that the county had previously taken the position that the county did not even own the bridge. Luckily for taxpayers, the bridge project never made it through the County Council.
Then there was Stenger’s decision to give police officers a raise while leaving other county employees at status quo. It is hard to reconcile Proposition P’s goal of increasing salaries for public safety workers with Stenger’s decision not to increase the salaries of those who work directly with prisoners in the county’s criminal justice system – a largely black workforce. Stenger vetoed the County Council’s attempts to correct his mismanagement and is now refusing to honor an ordinance passed overriding his veto.
Stenger can’t even seem to get the simple things right. Although the County Charter requires the county executive to attend County Council meetings, Stenger completely missed a large portion of council meetings in 2018; when he does attend, he routinely leaves halfway through the meeting.
Several weeks ago, Stenger met with Republican Governor Mike Parson. When he finally did show up for a County Council meeting following this meeting, Council Chair Sam Page asked Stenger to report on his meeting with the new governor. Stenger promised he would provide the council a written report, but has failed to do so.
So it is that Stenger has become toxic to McCulloch. The irony of seeing McCulloch appear in Stenger ads about law enforcement investigations and corruption this time around is simply too much, even for Stenger and McCulloch. Both are saddled with political baggage and are at the mercy of African-American voters, who form a huge segment of the vote in a Democratic primary.
“McCulloch and Stenger are just different sides of the same coin,” Councilwoman Hazel Erby said. “As long as they’re in office, St. Louis County will be stuck driving in reverse.”
