The Business of Running St. Louis Government

You've been mayor for over a year.

I had the opportunity to meet your inauguration, which we had a week to do.

And then...

You became mayor and you had all these dreams.

And then and the only reason I bring this up is, you know, you were a mathematician working for a company and now you're a CEO of a one point something billion dollar organization with lots of challenges, but also lots of amazing opportunities.

Um, the tornado hits a lifetime, $2 billion of damage.

The federal government doesn't help.

So you got one arm behind your back, St. Louis police department taken away another arm behind your back.

Um, um, so just share as a CEO, and I know you've redone your cabinet different than any other mayor.

Um, People want to hear about leadership here.

And so this is a CEO show almost.

Share your vision of a CEO.

And it's like you said, you had to get in battles.

You had to fight for the citizens of St. Louis, but also the region.

Share a little bit of your learnings in a year and some months.

You know, building the team has been one of the most challenging, but also one of the most rewarding aspects.

And I have truly a phenomenal team.

And we're still building it out, so there's still some opportunity there.

But, you know, you talk about, you know, sort of like how to run a city.

And when I walked into the city, you know...

And as the CEO, of course, we had enormous challenges.

We had some very, very serious mechanical things that we've had to do getting through the tornado.

But really, my orientation has been working together.

You know, you saw the previous orientation of the Board of Aldermen and the mayor not being able to agree on a whole host of things.

It was always sort of a battle.