Mayor Jones Administration Weekly Comms Memo
Mayor Jones Administration Weekly Comms Memo - January 7, 2025
prepared by: Conner Kerrigan & Rasmus Jorgensen
This document is sent out once per week to the mayor's staff, cabinet members, city department PIOs, neighborhood associations, and others. If you manage an organization’s social media account or are comfortable engaging with our content from your personal account, repost or share the content below to increase views/engagement. Please feel free to share this doc with friends/colleagues.
Topline Messaging this week
The St. Louis region was hit by a large winter storm, which broke records for the amount of precipitation that fell.
City leaders and staff coordinated consistently, conducting regular command center meetings to coordinate the response, including the Mayor’s Office, CEMA, Street Department, DHS, Metro, STL Lambert Airport, community partners, and more. These regular meetings helped the City execute an organized and efficient response to the storm.
Mayor Jones is grateful to the Street Department crews, first responders, DHS staff, community partners, and everyone else who is working to keep our community safe during the winter conditions.
2024 saw another historic low in homicides in the City of St. Louis, with a total of 150.
Press releases last week
Weekly recap
Last week was mostly taken up by the New Year’s holiday, but Mayor Jones attended a number of events, including the Menorah lighting at Kiener Plaza and the Mother’s Advocating Safe Streets Candlelight Service to commemorate those who lost their lives to gun violence in the St. Louis region in 2024.
St. Louis ended the year with another historic low for homicides, with 150 for the year 2024, compared to 160 in 2023, which had been the lowest in a decade. Overall, crime continues its downward trend, thanks to the all-hands-on-deck approach adopted by Mayor Jones, Chief Tracy, Circuit Attorney Gore, the Office of Violence Prevention, and so many others.
The Street Department has been focusing on plowing arterial streets, and once those are safe, they will shift their focus to side streets. That shift will likely occur today.
The department hopes to bring the streets back to something like normalcy by late Tuesday or Wednesday.
Crews have been going in 12-hour shifts since Saturday night and are currently working around the clock. We currently have 50 trucks in rotation.
The department asks that those who are able to park off the street - particularly on larger streets - do so to allow the plows to move through. Alternatively, please park as close to the curb as possible.
The City opened three additional warming centers during the storm in response to the closure of St. Louis Public Libraries, which typically serve as warming centers during inclement weather. The libraries and City rec centers are open today. For up-to-date information on open warming centers and shelters, call 2-1-1 or visit 211helps.org.
A look ahead
We are still experiencing adverse winter weather. Although the snow and precipitation has mostly stopped, we are expecting colder temperatures to last through the week. Keep an eye on City social accounts and the National Weather Service for continued updates.
Mayor Jones will be attending the Dr. King State Celebration Kick-Off on Saturday. This event, with the theme “Harmony in Action: A Journey Towards Unity and Hope” will kickoff a variety of community service and awards programs throughout the State of Missouri.
Next week, Mayor Jones and other city leaders will hold a press conference to highlight the 2024 crime stats and roll out the 2024 State of Public Safety report.
If you share one thing this week
In this cold weather, we want residents to protect their water pipes. The City has shared resources from the American Red Cross on Twitter and Facebook to help instruct residents on how to protect their water pipes during adverse weather.