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All in the family for some St. Louis aldermanic wards; new management for others

St. Louis Public Radio | By Jo Mannies
Published March 8, 2017 at 5:21 PM CST
Alderman Tammika Hubbard held on to her seat in Tuesday's election.
File photo | Jason Rosenbaum I St. Louis Public Radio
Alderman Tammika Hubbard held on to her seat in Tuesday's election.

St. Louis politics has long been a family affair, especially when it comes to the Board of Aldermen. Outgoing Mayor Francis Slay, for example, got his start as the 23rd Ward alderman, and his father was the ward’s Democratic committeeman for 45 years. 

But the power of political families may be waning. Tuesday’s Democratic primary saw two families retain control, while two other families lost and the fourth stepped away entirely.

In the 3rd Ward, in northeast St. Louis, Brandon Bosley outpolled five primary opponents. He’s the son of retiring Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr., who served on the board 36 years.

In the 5th Ward, the embattled Hubbard family scored a win when incumbent Alderman Tammika Hubbard also fended off five opponents. Her mother, Penny Hubbard, is the ward committeewoman and had been a state representative. The family has been the subject of court fights over alleged irregularities in absentee ballots.

But in the 27th Ward, the next alderman won’t be named Carter for the first time in more than 20 years. Keena Carter, former director of the St. Louis Election Board and aunt of outgoing Alderman Chris Carter, lost to ward committeewoman Pam Boyd.  In the 16th Ward, Michele Kratky lost to Tom Oldenburg in her bid to become 16th Ward alderman. Both Michele Kratky and her husband Fred Kratky represented southwest St. Louis in the Missouri House from 2003 to 2017.

And in the 11th Ward, the Villa family is giving up control after almost 60 years. Retiring Alderman Tom Villa had campaigned for Tuesday’s Democratic winner, Sarah Wood Martin. She beat out two rivals, and is the wife of State Sen. Jake Hummel.

Follow Jo on Twitter: @jomannies

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Missouri News
Jo Mannies
Jo Mannies has been covering Missouri politics and government for almost four decades, much of that time as a reporter and columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the first woman to cover St. Louis City Hall, was the newspaper’s second woman sportswriter in its history, and spent four years in the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau. She joined the St. Louis Beacon in 2009. She has won several local, regional and national awards, and has covered every president since Jimmy Carter. She scared fellow first-graders in the late 1950s when she showed them how close Alaska was to Russia and met Richard M. Nixon when she was in high school. She graduated from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, and was the daughter of a high school basketball coach. She is married and has two grown children, both lawyers. She’s a history and movie buff, cultivates a massive flower garden, and bakes banana bread regularly for her colleagues.
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