Mary Stadter for Crestwood Board of Aldermen

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Mary Stadter, 46, 546 Aspen Drd.

Occupation: IT Project Manager

Education:

• Master of Science –  Management Information Systems, University of Illinois Springfield
• Bachelor of Science – Management Information Systems – University of Missouri St. Louis
• Associate of Arts – Business Management – St. Louis Community College – Flo Valley

Family: Married to Jonathon Stadter for 17 years.  Children Jonny & Will (9 year old twins) and Joey (8 years old).  All three boys attend Crestwood Elementary

How long have you lived in the City of Crestwood?  In total I’ve lived in Crestwood about 30 years.  My family moved here when I was 5 and I grew up here.  I moved to Ferguson for 10 years when I married Jon, then we moved back to Crestwood 8 years ago after we had our boys.

Please provide a brief summary of your background, highlighting community involvement: I’ve worked in IT for nearly 15 years now, the past 10 of those with Daugherty Business Solutions.  I’m a consultant and have worn many hats during my decade with Daugherty both for Anheuser Busch Mobility (Help Desk Team Lead, Analyst, On-Air Trainer, Training Manager) and currently with Express Scripts (Business Analyst, Project Manager).   In our community I’m an active volunteer:

• Crestwood Public Works Board Vice-Chairman
• Cub Scouts Pack 581 Webelos Den Leader
• Crestwood Elementary PTO – Past President
• Crestwood CERT
• March of Dimes March for Babies Ambassador Family and Team Lead
• Autism Speaks Corporate Team Lead
• Trail Guide at Beaumont Scout Reservation

Please provide a brief summary of your reasons for running: I am running because I would like to give back to the community that I love and I know that my skills in business negotiation and budget management can be of use on the Board of Alderman.   My hope is that my decades of residence in Crestwood and my contacts from community involvement, along with my job experience, can make a real difference for our city. 

What do you currently see as the biggest issue facing the City of Crestwood?  Money.  No city has ever been able to cut its way to prosperity and we’re no exception.  Crestwood has cut back as far as it can, and our current and past leaders have done an amazing job keeping us afloat in the face of declining retail revenue, but we can’t cut any further.  We need to bring more revenue in if we’re going to support and expand the city services back to the level we all are accustomed to.  We need to do something about the vacant Crestwood Court and get more retail revenue back into Crestwood to support our Fire and Police Departments, fix our streets and hopefully start bringing our city back to prosperity.

In what area does the city need to improve? Are you satisfied with the way the city has been operating?  We need to do a better job of supporting our current infrastructure and services.  We’ve cut three firefighters and three police officers in the past few years, and I’d like to see us able to get these departments back to an optimal staffing level. As I stated above, we can’t continue to cut to survive, that means we need more retail revenue.  Getting something moving with Crestwood Court is a large part of that answer, but best case we won’t be seeing any revenue from that until at least 2015.  So what can we do more quickly?  We can attract in small businesses, but we need to improve our reputation as a community that supports our small businesses in order to bring in the kinds of businesses we want to see here.  This is something we can start improving upon immediately, and we should.

What are your thoughts on the progress of redevelopment at Crestwood Court?  It’s stagnated, and we have to turn that around.  I attended the Town Hall meeting on March 19 and really liked what I heard.  Is it the perfect solution?  Maybe not.  But it’s also important to realize that this is a proposal to bring in something unique that will draw people in from all over the St. Louis area.  I’ll be honest, sometimes it’s tough to get my head around all the changes proposed.    I remember sitting at the Woolworth’s soda fountain as a child with my mom and little sister, and I worked for a year at Pass Pets after the plaza was enclosed.  I have many fond memories of the plaza and the mall, but the unfortunate truth is that the retail marketplace has changed and it’s unlikely that the site of our Crestwood Mall will ever be able to support a solely retail marketplace again.   We are simply too far away from the interstate and already surrounded by other retail centers.  The way people shop has evolved, we live in a world now where more and more people shop online, but they will still come out to be entertained.  We have to evolve along with society, or we’re going to be left behind.  I think that this proposal has an excellent chance to succeed if given the chance.   

Assume you win the election. What single thing do you want to accomplish during your time on the board?  I want to see Crestwood turned around and get back to the prosperous city it was when I was growing up here.  I want Crestwood to not only be a great place for me and Jon to raise our kids, but also a great place to watch our kids raise our grandchildren.