South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

Call continues tradition of our post-election awards

Editorial by the Call

The Call started a new tradition last year of bestowing Post-Election Awards, but a tradition can’t really become a tradition unless it’s done more than once, can it?

So this year the Call truly launches its tradition of Post-Election Awards.

But while last year’s awards include such colorful titles as “The Hip-Deep BS Award,” this year’s candidates stayed positive, and so will we.

But there’s always next year.

• The MVP Award goes to all the candidates, who participated in hard-fought campaigns but rarely went negative.

  The Marathon Award goes to every Mehlville Board of Education candidate: Tori Behlke, Lisa Messmer and Ron Fedorchak. The Call must have set a record for its longest questionnaire ever with more than five pages of questions about Mehlville, which all candidates answered fully. They also didn’t back down from answering questions from the public at our candidate forum and at many PTOs.

• The Mum’s the Word Award goes to former Crestwood Ward 3 Alderman Bill Boston, who lost by nearly record-setting margins to Grant Mabie. We attribute that loss at least in part to Boston’s (lack of) answers to our questionnaire, where he mostly responded “No comment.” Future candidates should take heed: That tactic didn’t work very well.

• The Switzerland Award goes to Crestwood Mayor Gregg Roby, who did not publicly take sides in either of the city’s contested aldermanic races and graciously congratulated all the candidates afterward. Two years ago, Roby strongly endorsed Boston over Jerry Miguel, who won handily despite the lack of mayoral endorsement.

• The Native Son and Daughter Award goes to all three Lindbergh candidates: Karen Schuster, Mike Shamia and Eric Edward Thias. They all showed they sincerely want the best for the district they grew up in.

• The Close Call Award goes to voters in Mackenzie, the tiny city that voted to disincorporate by a three-vote margin. Yes, you read that right.

• The Makes No Sense Award goes to state law for school districts, which requires 57-percent approval for bond issues, which are time-limited, versus 50-percent approval for operations, which are permanent.

By that logic, Bayless voters were able to pass a permanent 41-cent tax-rate increase with 54.05 percent of the vote but unable to pass a temporary 34-cent bond issue with 54.36 percent approval. Huh?

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