“Today, the city is safer, stronger, and healthier than we were last year. And next year, we’ll be safer, stronger, and healthier than we are today.”- Mayor Tishaura Jones
Whoever orchestrated Mayor Tishaura O. Jones’ “State of the City” address Tuesday night could be complimented. It wasn’t just an event where a politician delivered a stale, prepared speech about her/his accomplishments.
No, it was a multi-dimensional presentation seemingly orchestrated to invite St. Louisans to believe, to dream, to imagine and participate in creating a new revitalized metropolis.
This not-so-subtle message was evident upon entering the auditorium of the Sun Theater in the Grand Arts District. A silent video played above the stage as people took their seats. On screen, a golden butterfly fluttered over a re-imagined city with blocks and blocks of new businesses, houses, and clean streets with lots of greenspace. Departing from the visions of mayor’s past, the locales weren’t limited to tony parts of the city like the Grove or the Central West End. No, the butterfly soared above long-ignored streets like MLK Blvd., Sarah, Vandeventer, Cass and Jefferson Blvd.
Before the mayor even took the stage, the audience was primed for possibilities as Rev. Lauren Bennet of Metropolitan Community Church offered a prayer asking the crowd “to imagine what we can do together…to incline our ears and hearts toward creating a community where everyone has enough…where no one goes to bed hungry…and no child has to fear violence in our homes, schools or streets.”
The theme of collective possibilities continued when the Grand Center Arts Academy Dance Ensemble performed an interpretive ballet to Music Soul Child’s “Optimistic.”
“As long as you keep your head to the sky…you can win…as long as you keep your head to the sky…”
Before introducing the mayor, Fatimah Muhammad, executive director of Be Well Farmers Marketplace, told a story that emphasized how dreams really can come true. She recounted how she met Jones in 2017, who was the city treasurer at the time. For seven years, the two shared their mutual visions of a revitalized, vibrant North St. Louis. When Jones became mayor, Muhammad said her administration provided support and resources to help new and aspiring farmers and small businesses grow and deliver affordable, locally grown, fresh food and she stressed how more small businesses will lead to an economic resurgence in the Hyde Park neighborhood.
Planned or not, by the time Jones took the stage, the audience was well prepared for a positive verbal ride. And Jones didn’t disappoint.
After thanking those who came before her and acknowledging elected officials in the audience, her staff, cabinet members and those who braved the steady rain to attend, Jones summarized the state of St. Louis:
“Today, the city is safer, stronger, and healthier than we were last year. And next year, we’ll be safer, stronger, and healthier than we are today.”
The mayor compared the city to the revitalized 100-year-old Sun Theater, which had sat “empty, abandoned and neglected for decades” before its renovation in 2014.
“As I worked with my team to deliver on my campaign promises,” Jones said, “I saw that too many parts of our city were just like the old crumbling walls and missing roof of this theater-forgotten, abandoned, neglected.”
She then detailed how her administration “worked tirelessly to face challenges head on and begin the work of making changes that you can see and feel…so we can build a safer, stronger, and healthier St. Louis.”
Jones shared stories of her “personal health journey,” to illustrate how the city is like a human body. She revisited her surgery in 2020 to remove fibroid tumors and how, in 2022, she was diagnosed as a “pre-diabetic” with abnormally high blood pressure which, she added, “can set the stage for type 2 diabetes.”
“Last year, I stood before you feeling like a busted can of biscuits. Today, I’m feeling much better,” Jones confessed, adding that improving her life required taking charge of her health and making “big changes” while committing “to never going back to her old ways…to keep working to make sustainable change.”
Making a comparative, collaborative pitch, Jones added: “Our beautiful city is like the human body…and she has some health issues that need to be addressed. The roads are her major veins that keep people and commerce flowing, and small businesses are the heart – they keep her blood pumping. Taking charge of our city’s health will require all of us to make big changes and that change…has to be sustainable.”
The mayor went on to cover much of what she previewed during a public safety town hall meeting last month (see link below). By utilizing American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds, she said there have been “paving, lighting and traffic improvements” on streets like Goodfellow, Kingshighway, Union and Grand Blvd. She also touched on the $1.1 billion, Metrolink Greenline extension project-a 5.8-mile light rail system designed to connect residents to job centers, educational opportunities, and healthcare services throughout the region.
Followed by enthusiastic applause, Jones ticked off a litany of accomplishments in her three years as mayor. Crediting her appointed Police Chief, Robert Tracy, she boasted of the “lowest homicide rate in a decade and the largest year over year reduction in crime in 90 years.” Juvenile shootings, she added, have been reduced by 50% and there’s been a 36% reduction in car thefts over the last year.
As with her town hall meeting last month Jones explained how her administration has used “almost half a billion dollars” in ARPA funds to tear down 1,000 abandoned houses, renovate homes and streets near St. Louis Public Schools; help homeowners repair their homes; assist small businesses gain access to capital through the STL Small Business Grant Fund and complete “Monarch on MLK”-a 15-acre site designed to prepare residents for “high-paying, in-demand careers.”
In a detour from the positives, Jones jabbed Jefferson City legislators who she said are “restricting access to abortion, attempting “to take over our police department and put it back under the control of a corrupt, Confederate-era state board” while “trying to hurt our city financially by reducing or outright eliminating our earnings tax.”
The mayor thundered: “We’ve seen that before. Our answer to that is also, ‘NO!’”
The program ended on a crescendo of collaborative positivity with Jones urging the hyped audience to join her crusade to adopt positive verbiage about the city.
“I’m asking you – the next time you hear someone talking trash about St. Louis, straighten your spine, look them in the eye, and tell them… ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about! St. Louis is my city, and she is in the middle of a renaissance!’”
The city, Jones argued, has “the best sports fans in the country; the best in arts and culture; great restaurants; world class universities and healthcare and the best tasting tap-water you’ve ever had.”
“You tell them every day we’re doing the work with a capital W to make our city safer, stronger, and healthier for many years to come and, most of all, you tell them that St. Louis has a mayor who loves this city and its people with all her heart.”
Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.
