By Tom Weber, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – Jim Shrewsbury's loss at the polls Tuesday means he has about a month and a half left as St. Louis's Aldermanic President.
In that remaining time, he says one of his duties will be to appoint one member to a new three-person oversight board for the St. Louis Public School District.
"That'll be my appointment assuming there's not a lawsuit filed," Shrewsbury said Tuesday night. "No that'll be my job and I'll do it."
But the man who unseated Shrewsbury says no one should be picked until after next month's School Board election. Alderman Lewis Reed says he wants to make the pick, and plans to talk to Shrewsbury about slowing down the process. "I would be open to talking to [Shrewsbury] and factoring in some of his opinions but for the most part it's a person that I will have to live with, so I would want that selection to be mine at the end of the day," Reed said this (Wed.) morning.
Shrewsbury's reasoning is that he still has six weeks in office, and he thinks the transitional board should be named before then.
The state's Board of Education will meet later this month and is expected to consider whether to revoke the district's accredication, a move that would shift the transitional board's role from adviser to manager.
NEW YOUNG ALDERMAN
Another result of Tuesday's elections is that one of the St. Louis's newest aldermen will also be the youngest.
Kacie Starr Triplett, 26, won a three-way race yesterday to succeed Lewis Reed in the 6th Ward.
Triplett says her win is a sign that voters want new energy and fresh ideas at City Hall: "They like the idea of having a public official that's visible to them and accessible to them. I think our message resonated with the voters and they acted on it."
Triplett says one goal is to find a developer for the site of a shuttered Foodland grocery store at Jefferson and I-44.
Her win Tuesday came exactly 34 years after her grandfather, John Bass, was elected the city's first-ever black Comptroller. Bass died less than two weeks ago.