St. Louis Alderman Jack Coatar joins the Mark Reardon Show to discuss why the St. Louis Board of Alderman is still meeting virtually and is prohibited from meeting in person with very few exceptions.
“We had one in the spring when we swore in some new alderman, but I mean we've maybe had two in-person meetings since the pandemic hit in March of 2020,” explained Coatar
He continued, “Apparently the reason is um I guess the health department has determined that our chambers, which doesn't have any air conditioning or central air and has really poor ventilation. I guess they've determined it's not safe. I don't entirely understand um, the position I get that maybe we need to do some H VAC upgrades in our building. Maybe it's finally time to do that.”
Coatar later added, “There's a lot of city buildings in the city's portfolio. There's other places we could meet that's not City Hall. I mean, that's the part that I don't understand. I understand Interim President Palmer wants to sort of leave this up to whoever is going to be in charge of the board, whether that's me or my opponent, but I think it's important we get back in person. Frankly, we get a lot more done when we're together.”
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