ST. LOUIS — With its $100,000 donation Thursday to a committee promoting Lewis Reed for mayor of St. Louis, the area’s carpenters union underscored its longtime role as a major player in local and state politics.
Al Bond, executive secretary-treasurer of the St. Louis-Kansas City Carpenters Regional Council, said Friday that the union regards Reed as more moderate and pro-development than opponents Cara Spencer and Tishaura Jones.
“He fits more in line with my membership,†Bond said of Reed. Bond said he didn’t know the fourth candidate, Andrew Jones.
Bond added that the size of the donation, by far the largest so far in the race, is aimed at spurring others to contribute to Reed.
“We’re hoping to get him some momentum (and to) get people off the fence and donating,†Bond said.
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In recent years the union and Reed were proponents of considering the leasing of St. Louis Lambert International Airport to private companies to pay off Lambert’s debt and generate large amounts of revenue upfront for the city.
The union, which represents many employees at the Medium Security Institution, also supports Reed’s approach to move cautiously on implementing city plans to eventually close the facility, commonly known as the workhouse. But Bond said Reed’s overall record and experience as aldermanic president, not the Lambert and workhouse issues, was the reason for the donation and the union’s plan to also supply campaign volunteers.
As examples, Bond cited Reed’s key involvement in efforts to pass legislation needed to build the new pro soccer stadium downtown and to improve Enterprise Center.
Reed said Friday that new development is key to generating more tax revenue to address “systemic issues†in the city such as poverty and homelessness.
As for leasing all of Lambert, Reed said he “cannot see a scenario in the future where it would be something I would be pursuing†again.
If elected mayor, he said he instead would focus on trying to get St. Louis County to give the city money to compensate it for some of the sales tax revenue it derives from the city-owned airport, which is in the county. If that first could be worked out, he said he then would consider public-private partnerships to build some new Lambert facilities.
Reed initially sided with Mayor Lyda Krewson in carrying out a detailed study of privatizing the airport but Krewson effectively killed that in late 2019.
Then, last spring, the Carpenters Union and the St. Louis NAACP began a petition drive to put on the November ballot a plan to require the leasing of Lambert if a bidder offered at least $1 billion upfront. The drive was largely funded by a committee founded by an associate of political megadonor Rex Sinquefield, a privatization advocate.
Reed then sponsored a similar plan at the Board of Aldermen requiring even more money for the city. Both proposals were dropped last September.
The recent $100,000 mayoral race donation was made to One St. Louis, a political action committee supporting Reed, by the union’s political committee.
That committee, Carpenters Help in the Political Process, or CHIPP, for decades has doled out millions in donations to candidates and ballot issue campaigns across Missouri.
