{"id":25141,"date":"2026-04-29T16:45:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T16:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/25141\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T16:45:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T16:45:40","slug":"mayor-spencer-pushes-through-with-budget-despite-lawsuit-speaks-on-london-trade-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/25141\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Spencer pushes through with budget despite lawsuit; speaks on London trade mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) – St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer said the proposed city budget, that is now in the hands of the Board of Aldermen, gives police the chance to expand their operations, and will pay the officers more.<\/p>\n

She said she never even considered a \u201cplan B budget\u201d that police wanted, which would give SLMPD tens of millions more.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plan B would be catastrophic,\u201d said Spencer.<\/p>\n

Spencer telling First Alert 4 the city cannot afford what the Police Board of Commissioners is asking for<\/a>, but what the Board of Estimate and Apportionment advanced Tuesday gives the police department plenty to work with.<\/p>\n

\u201cProvides a path for them to increase staffing and do some things they want to do while respecting the many other departments,\u201d said Spencer.<\/p>\n

This comes as the City of St. Louis is suing<\/a> the police board after they asked the city for $250 million, while the city offered $219 million.<\/p>\n

The city asks the courts to strike down the law allowing for board control of SLMPD, as well clarifying the law on how much money the city needs to spend on police annually.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be devastating to the operation of the city in general,\u201d said Spencer.<\/p>\n

We also learned Tuesday that the police board will not participate in city budget hearings, with board Vice President Sonya Jenkins-Gray citing litigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important that we ensure any engagement aligns with legal guidance and does not inadvertently impact that process,\u201d said Jenkins-Gray.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s ludicrous to rest on a lawsuit,\u201d said Spencer.<\/p>\n

Chair of the Budget Committee Ald. Rasheen Aldridge said these hearings allow for better budgets and more transparency, and he is disappointed they won\u2019t be coming. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t be able to really ask those hard questions to figure out what\u2019s working, what\u2019s not working,\u201d said Aldridge. \u201cI think it\u2019s extremely important for the public to actually hear from the department that takes up the most money in our budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Jenkins-Gray said both sides will stay engaged. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want to emphasize that we remain committed to a collaborative and transparent relationship with you and the Board of Aldermen. Public safety and fiscal stewardship are shared priorities, and I believe there is value in continued dialogue as we navigate these issues,\u201d said Jenkins-Gray. <\/p>\n

And Mayor Spencer helped advance the budget less than a day after getting back from the inaugural London flight and a trade mission while there. She said dozens of companies interested in the U.S. are considering St. Louis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was an opportunity to introduce them on what we had to offer and the response was overwhelmingly positive,\u201d said Spencer.<\/p>\n

While the mayor was in London, a picture of the mayor, sitting next to the founder of Clayco, Bob Clark, was found online. This came the same day the Board of Public Service approved a data center near the Armory, Clark is a vocal supporter of data centers.<\/p>\n

\u201cTiming was just unfortunate,\u201d said Spencer. \u201cI have not spoken to Bob Clark about data centers in the city of St. Louis ever, not before that trip, not during that trip and not even subsequently during that trip.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Spencer said the data center is going to be highly regulated with protections for residents, adding the city could eventually get hundreds of millions of taxes from the project.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 KMOV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) – St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer said the proposed city budget, that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1354,11302,27,11303,11304,10299],"class_list":{"0":"post-25141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-budget","9":"tag-cara-spencer","10":"tag-london","11":"tag-slmpd","12":"tag-speaks","13":"tag-trip"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116489009595776932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}