![‘Ready to serve': Tishaura Jones sworn in as St. Louis' 47th mayor](https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=150%2C116 150w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=200%2C155 200w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=225%2C174 225w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=300%2C232 300w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=400%2C309 400w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=540%2C418 540w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=640%2C495 640w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=750%2C580 750w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=990%2C766 990w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=1035%2C800 1035w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C928 1200w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=1333%2C1031 1333w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=1476%2C1141 1476w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/06/106376ac-397a-581c-b09b-70285d74bf20/607f465886302.image.jpg?resize=1637%2C1266 2008w)
Comptroller Darlene Green celebrates while addressing the crowd during her inauguration on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, in the Rotunda at St. Louis City Hall.
ST. LOUIS — The citizen panel tasked with reforming city government has scrapped its most controversial proposal amid opposition from top officials and residents.
The St. Louis Charter Commission voted Tuesday evening to end consideration of a plan to eliminate the elected comptroller’s office and the three-member board that makes city spending decisions.
The ideas, long supported by political scientists and good government groups, were aimed at making City Hall more efficient. If ratified by city voters, the changes would have given the mayor’s office more control over the city’s finances and could have allowed the chief executive to make decisions more quickly.
But the plan ran into a buzzsaw over the weekend. Comptroller Darlene Green posted to Facebook on Friday saying the changes would remove a critical check on corruption. Her supporters rallied, seeing the changes as a threat to Black political power. And on Monday, Mayor Tishaura O. Jones made clear she was opposed to the changes as well.
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The message from the first Black female mayor, combined with vocal opposition to the changes from other Black community leaders at a public hearing Monday night, left commissioners with little choice but to drop the matter.
“It probably doesn’t make sense right now,” Commissioner Anna Crosslin conceded at the group’s meeting Tuesday.
The commission is still considering other proposed amendments to the city’s charter, which lays out the basic rules and responsibilities of municipal government.
Among other things, there are plans to move city elections to August and November in an effort to goose turnout, and to remove archaic language from the charter, like descriptions of the mayor that only use male pronouns.
Commissioners have also proposed a new city transportation department that would bring street planning, construction and maintenance, which are currently housed in different agencies, under one roof. And they are weighing the creation of a new elected office — a public advocate. The new job would be tasked with auditing city departments, something the comptroller’s office also does, and supporting citizen oversight of law enforcement.
But Jones, who appointed the commission members, is urging the commission to move only the proposals concerning elections and archaic language.
“They are the only two I consider ballot ready,” she wrote in a letter to the commission on Tuesday.
“Change happens at the speed of trust,” Jones continued, “and (Monday’s) meeting showed that we have not gained sufficient trust from the residents of St. Louis to move forward with some of the more aggressive changes that have been proposed.”
The commission is set to take final votes on the ideas at 4:30 p.m. Monday, July 8, via Zoom at bit.ly/4eQ13Ny. The successful proposals will then go to the Board of Aldermen for further consideration.
View life in St. Louis through the Post-Dispatch photographers' lenses. Edited by Jenna Jones.