As the August primary election approaches, KMOX is talking with the candidates for St. Louis County Executive. On Thursday, Republican Shamed Dogan joined Total Information AM to talk about his plans for the county.
Dogan, a Representative in the Missouri House, would be the first Republican to hold the County Executive position since January of 1991. He told KMOX that he's running because he's watched the county deal with crime and corruption and wants to turn things around.
He said the biggest issue facing the county is crime.
"The first responsibility of county government is to keep people safe. And we have had a lack of public safety," Dogan said. "The last 10 years violent crime has doubled. We've had record high murder rates the last two years."
Dogan said he feels like current County Executive Sam Page isn't letting residents in on the reality of crime in the area.
"Unfortunately, right now Sam Page is just trying to gaslight voters and telling them that crime is actually down," Dogan said. "When we can look in front of our eyes and see what's going on in our neighborhoods, and we know crime is up."
Dogan also said he believes Sam Page has been too heavy-handed with his pandemic response.
"With lockdowns and shutdowns, some of them ended up being struck down as unconstitutional, like the shutdown of churches," he said. "And some of them were clearly not based on science, like the shutdown of restaurants when you saw restaurants stay open in St. Louis City and in Illinois, and everywhere else, and it just unfairly hurt our county restaurants."
Dogan said he would have taken a more collaborative approach, and done a more in-depth cost-benefit analysis before shutting things down.
As for population growth, Dogan said that it's important ot make sure that the county is a place that welcomes diverse groups of people and makes people feel like they can expand and grow their businesses.
"We do not have that atmosphere now," he said. "And I think having new leadership in this job, somebody like myself, who's worked with the business community, throughout my career, somebody who's just been a good salesperson for our region. And who can do that without being caught up in the scandals and the embarrassments that the current county executive has been."
Listen to Dogan's full conversation on Total Information AM: