St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer said her first few months in office did not go as planned.
“While these first 100 days have not looked like what I envisioned for when I was sworn in to office, we still have a lot to celebrate,” Spencer said.
A tornado swept through the area just a month into her tenure, causing her administration to shift its focus to tornado relief.
The mayor has also dealt with the new police oversight board, criticisms of her management of Sunshine requests and several paused projects.
Here are takeaways from Spencer’s first 100 days in office.
Tornado relief
In the days following the tornado, Spencer’s office issued a state of emergency and prioritized restoring water and electricity. She also emphasized the effort to clear the roadways and said city employees and construction workers removed nearly 6 million cubic feet of debris.
“While that is just an enormous amount of debris, it really only represents a fraction of the debris that we have to remove, and we are committed to removing, from our communities to make our communities whole again,” Spencer said.
The city launched stlrecovers.com as a tornado relief information hub. It also opened a disaster recovery center at the Chaifetz Arena, which Spencer said served over 8,500 people in the first few weeks. Now, there are three other FEMA disaster recovery centers in north St. Louis to help those most impacted. She also recently announced four new tornado recovery programs. She said the Electricity Reconnection Program is up and running.
Spencer secured $100 million in disaster aid from Missouri. She said people should start receiving some of that funding in mid-August, and she hopes to distribute the $19 million in Rams money sooner.
One major problem on the day of the storm was that the sirens did not sound because someone made a mistake. This led the city to examine its system and find that some of the sirens weren’t functional. Spencer said the city has restored functionality to 90% of its sirens, and it has plans to update the city’s tornado sirens.
“We have expedited plans to fully modernize our tornado siren system,” Spencer said. “We have identified the required funding and the contracts are secured for that.”
Going forward, Spencer said a full recovery will take years.
“We have a monumental task ahead of us,” Spencer said.
Infrastructure improvements
Spencer said the city has filled over 1800 potholes since April 15.
It also recently debuted its improvements to 7th Street and the crossing near Ted Drewes on Chippewa Street, though most of that work was done during the administration of Tishaura Jones. The 7th Street project was part of a greater effort to revitalize downtown, which includes the transformation of the Millennium Hotel lot.
Future projects include repaving parts of Union Boulevard and Kingshighway.
Problems at the city jail
In June, Spencer reinstated the Detention Facilities Oversight Board’s access to the City Justice Center.
Previously, the board had been struggling with access – in August 2023, former board member Janis Mensah was beaten unconscious and arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest for attempting to visit the facility on behalf of the board. Mensah’s charges were dropped Thursday after a lengthy battle. Spencer drew criticism from advocates for not dropping the charges before the court hearing.
“Mayor Cara Spencer, even in her short term, could have done everything she could, or anything, to stop this,” Mensah said. “I think that her promise to be transparent around the jail could have met her practice by dropping these charges.”
The jail has also been steeped in other controversy. Early this week, the 20th detainee since 2020 died at the facility. Spencer said she will release the videos of the detainee, Samuel Hayes Jr., right before his death “as soon as possible.”
It is also facing allegations of staff hitting inmates with projective pepper spray pellets. Spencer said she wasn’t aware of those claims.
“I’m horrified to think that somebody who is employed by our jail would be involved with something that is reckless and endangering the lives of those in incarceration,” she said.
Deputy Commissioner Darnel Spear was placed on leave last month, but it’s not clear if that’s related to the allegations.
Spencer also shared several programs she implemented at the jail, including expanding access to mental health care, launching the honor dorm initiative and increasing book access.
Other items
Spencer shared several personnel changes, including the appointment of several new leadership team members and expanding hiring in city departments.
She also said there have been “fair criticisms” of the speed with which the city handles requests for public records, or Sunshine requests. She said she is working on improving that process.
Over the next 100 days and beyond, Spencer said the city will continue with tornado relief but also move more focus to other areas of the city.
