St. Joseph mayoral candidates make pitch in community forum as February primary nears
Cameron Montemayor
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (News-Press NOW) — A packed crowd of local voters got the first chance this week to hear from the full field of candidates vying to become the next mayor of St. Joseph.
A large gathering of people were in attendance at Bandanas BBQ for the first mayoral forum Thursday in advance of the Feb. 3 primary, with candidates including incumbent mayor John Josendale, Jonathan McClain, Larry Miller and Kenneth Reeder there to participate.
Candidates were asked a total of eight questions by a moderator during the near hour-long forum, ranging from plans for attracting news businesses, retaining and growing residents — a key subject amid the city’s population decline — improving public safety, budgeting and addressing homelessness.
St. Joseph native and entrepreneur Jonathan McClain is seeking his first public office and said he hopes to bring a youthful viewpoint to the position, prioritizing open communication and transparency with residents, promoting city development and achievements while modernizing City Hall processes, part of his plan to try and reduce the city’s population loss.
“I think one place to start would be to evaluate inefficiencies in what we have going on already at City Hall,” said McClain, a Lafayette High School alum. “I’m a citizen who has one belief that St. Joseph’s best days are in front of us, but only if we change our approach. That comes from the safety on our streets, it comes from showing off our vibrant community of people.”
He highlighted the fact that he has no political or corporate affiliations and isn’t serving any special interests, promoting his ability to lead, learn and work with others to make improvements and further areas of growth like jobs.
“Over the past few years, we’ve actually had an increase in job growth of about 7%. So I wouldn’t diverge from that path. I think working with the Chamber who’s doing a wonderful job is definitely the right way to go,” he said. “We have the job growth that’s here, but we can’t keep the people. So to me, this says that the entire city narrative needs rewritten.”
When asked about his vision for the city, incumbent Mayor John Josendale said it includes building on a wave of changes during his four years to streamline and improve processes — from communications, budgeting and equipment replacements — as well as city-wide gains in areas like parks, jobs and workforce development, adding that areas like housing, population decline and infrastructure present challenges he intends to focus on.
“Our young people have left for jobs or for way of life. We have to make this a community that is a destination that people want to come to and attract new businesses,” Josendale said. “We are doing some very positive things on the economic development side, with jobs. We’re doing some things right now on housing. Giving people homes that they can buy and live in to grow their families, give them the parks. We’ve improved. We still have farther to go.”
He said the city would continue to prioritize and support new workforce development opportunities to grow skilled workers locally and build from within, whether with Hillyard Technical School or Missouri Western.
Asked about plans to address public safety and infrastructure, Josendale pointed to the city’s adoption of new-age technologies to further its capabilities like AI-powered software for grading and improving streets and advanced drones to assist critical police, fire and public works operations.
“How we train inside and grow our own workers in Saint Joe. I think it’s extremely important when we’re looking to bring in new development and new businesses into Saint Joe,” he said. “Public safety always comes number one. In the last four years, we brought in a new police chief. A lot of things are being done differently. We’ve really taken a very strong approach to that moving forward.”
If elected mayor, longtime St. Joseph resident and political newcomer Larry Miller said he intends to create an open door policy and prioritize working through the people to identify and accomplish goals. He wants to have direct meetings with each of the city’s districts to learn more about the top priorities to address.
“I want you people to have a voice in the government. And I’m going to be working for you. I’m going to try to bring in more jobs,” Miller said during his opening remarks.
Additional entertainment options are one objective he thinks if accomplished would help retain young workers. He also wants to see more police on the streets and improved street conditions, part of a message that remained relatively consistent throughout questions during the forum.
“We need to fix our streets like they should be. What they’re doing is just a band-aid,” he said when asked about city infrastructure needs.
Former St. Joseph School District Board of Education member Kenneth Reeder used time to list a number of issues with City Council spending and taxes, from staffing decisions and sewer rates to utilization of CIP funds for infrastructure projects.
“I think we should concentrate on what we have going on right now and that is to take our city off COVID protocols for meetings with these council meetings at 5:30 p.m. now instead of 7 p.m.,” Reeder said.
“I’ll fight taxes. I’ll fight waste. It starts by using common sense and realizing the taxpayer money is your money, not the allowance of the city council.”
If elected, he wants to pursue offering free Wi-Fi or hotspots as a way to attract workers, families and businesses, as well as help current students and families within the city and school district. Reeder diverged from questions at certain points to raise concerns about city decisions, including costs of having a primary election with only one question — the mayor’s race — on the ballot.
“You know, we have one half as many people working at the sewer plant as we have policemen on the street. That’s not right,” he said. “We don’t have any common sense still.”
All four candidates agreed homelessness is a growing challenge that needs to be addressed, with McClain offering a new option to guide people toward services to help them become productive members of society.
“What I would do to start this is I would privatize certain sidewalks in certain areas, starting off with the Downtown area. That way you have reasons to have them escorted to the resources they need. The compound with the tiny homes is a great rehabilitation program that people could use to be re-introduced back into the world,” McClain said. “We have kind generous people here that want to help.”
Josendale also provided his perspective on the subject, this coming after the city announced a new initiative in January with Community Missions to reduce encampments and direct those to services.
“I am a true believer in a hand up, but I will not hand out. and I think that the city is taking a direct approach and you’ll see more and more of that in the next 6 to 8 months about the direction we’re going on dealing with the homeless and the homelessness in this city.”
The top two vote-getters in the Feb. 3 primary election will move on to the April 7 election, unless one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, in which case they will be automatically elected to office.
The April 7 election also includes races for all four at-large city council positions and two district city council seats.
