Midterm elections are just two weeks away, and St. Louis city residents will be voting for the new Board of Aldermen president to replace Lewis Reed, who was indicted earlier this year for bribery and fraud.
Democrat Jack Coatar, the current alderman for the 7th ward, is running against 15th ward democratic alderwoman Megan Green. Coatar joined KMOX in studio to talk about his vision for the city.
Coatar first addressed the shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts high school on Monday.
“I'm a new dad, this one hit a little closer to home than some of the ones we've seen in the past, just knowing now I've got a kid as well,” he said. “But my heart goes out to the families and the students and the teachers and everybody affected by this.”
Coatar said he hopes to combat gun violence, though as a city official he’s more limited in what he can do, since gun laws are made at the state level. However, he called on the state legislature to make changes. He said that while Missouri’s gun laws might work in rural areas of the state, they don’t work for cities.
“At some point, I hope the legislature and the governor and the state will wake up and say, you know, one set of rules might work in rural Missouri, but not necessarily in the cities where high powered rifles and high capacity magazines are literally killing people,” Coatar said.
As for other issues, Coatar said the main problems he hears about from constituents is crime – and not just related to guns.
“Gun crime is a big issue in a lot of neighborhoods. But what else is a big issue is the complete lack of enforcement of other laws,” he said. “I mean, I hear from folks every day, in every corner of the city, about how people are driving like complete lunatics — running red lights, speeding, going 100 miles an hour on our streets. And it is a life and death situation.”
Coatar said he’d be the best pick for President of the Board of Alderman because he has relationships with his colleagues that would allow him to get things done – things residents have been complaining about for a long time.
“I think we're all frustrated with what's going on right now. You call 911, you get put on hold. The trash isn't getting picked up. There's potholes in the street that seemed to never get filled. We got a police department that's critically short staffed, we got an EMS department that's also critically short staffed, we've got a lot of major issues,” he said. “And frankly, we're not having an honest conversation about these issues. And we don't seem to be making fixing them a priority. And so if elected, that's what I'm going to do.”
Hear more from Alderman Jack Coatar on his plans if elected Aldermanic President:
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