ST. LOUIS — Alderman Cara Spencer and her opponent for mayor, City Treasurer Tishaura Jones, are at odds over Jones’ handling of a city parking meter management contract.
Spencer complains that Jones executed the contract with a past campaign contributor on April 10 of last year, a few weeks after suspending parking meter enforcement due to the city’s pandemic-related lockdown.
That allowed the company to be paid without doing any work for a time, Spencer alleged.
“My opponent and her family have been part of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ pay-to-play political machinery for as long as I’ve been alive — they are fully part of the status quo,†Spencer said.
Jones is the daughter of Virvus Jones, a former alderman and comptroller.
Jones’ chief of staff, Jared Boyd, denied that the company, Hudson and Associates LLC, was ever paid to do nothing.
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He said the company wasn’t paid for last April but did get its monthly fee of about $195,500 for May, during the enforcement shutdown.
He said it was to compensate the company for helping the office transition parking ticket processing software to a new system and for Hudson’s employees to be trained in its operation.
“This is a desperate attempt at misleading the public,†said a Jones campaign spokesman, Matt Rauschenbach.
Spencer issued her statement about the parking contract Saturday in response to Rauschenbach’s criticism of her vote earlier this year at the Board of Aldermen for a pension governance change sought by the city firefighters union. The union last week endorsed Spencer for mayor.
Under the three-year parking deal, Hudson is to be paid about $7 million to manage parking meter collections and maintenance and the city’s parking violations bureau.
The firm previously had been a subcontractor under both Jones and her predecessor as treasurer, Larry Williams.
Spencer in her statement had alleged that the timing of the Hudson contract had allowed Hudson “to collect half a million dollars†for no work.
Spencer’s campaign manager, Alderman Heather Navarro, said Monday that was based on applying the approximate $195,500 monthly fee to the two and a half months in which enforcement was called off, beginning March 16.
Jones has said Hudson was chosen in a competitive process over various other companies. Spencer also has raised questions about that procedure.
Spencer also has complained that the contract effectively privatizes enforcement of city parking operations. Rauschenbach, Jones’ spokesman, disputed that and says in this case, the treasurer’s office is hiring a vendor that works under Jones’ direction.
A ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ circuit judge in November rejected efforts by other critics to have the contract thrown out over other issues. Another lawsuit challenging the contract was filed in January and is pending.
