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Politics & Government

Police Chief, Fiscal Responsibility Priorities for Winners

Manchester's new alderman are ready to tackle a host of issues, including hiring a police chief, while Town and Country's one opposed incumbent kept his seat.

Call it a wave of fresh blood or a call to action. Call it whatever you like, but change was the order of the day (and night) as voters in Manchester swept out incumbents and ushered in some new, and not so new, faces in aldermanic races.

Paul Hamill was Ward 1 alderman in Manchester from 2008-2010 and returned for another term this election after beating incumbent Bob Tullock Tuesday night.

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“I feel very good (about winning),” Hamill said. “My first priority will be hiring a permanent police chief for Manchester."

The city has been without one for two years. Lieutenant Tim Walsh has been acting police chief in the interim and Hamill said he would like to see Mayor David Willson nominate Lieutenant Walsh for the permanent position in their first meeting on April 18.

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“We’ve been without a police chief long enough,” he said.

Making Walsh Manchester’s permanent chief of police was a priority expressed by the two other winning candidates, John Schrader and Mike Clement, Tuesday night.

Schrader successfully challenged four-term incumbent Don Ryan for the Ward 3 aldermanic seat.

“I enjoyed good support from the people of Manchester, and I think they were concerned about the issues (in electing me),” Schrader, a newcomer to the board, said. “I think the voters wanted fresh blood on their board.”

Ryan told Patch that he was disappointed by the outcome, “but I had an opponent who put out more fliers than me and spent more money than me.”

Michael Clement, who ran uncontested in Ward 2, said voters were sending a message.

“I think voters want a board that will address issues that matter to the community,” he said. Clement wants to take another look at developing old downtown Manchester. “We had some ideas in development when the economy tanked, and now it’s time to bring them up again for consideration.”

He also stressed a need to work on stormwater projects, which he feels are overdue in Manchester.

“We may not always agree on things as a board, but I think we can all work out our differences to make progress,” he said.

Clement is also interested in establishing an arts council for Manchester, something he thinks would greatly benefit the community as a whole.

Manchester Mayor David Willson said he sensed change was looming in the election  from attendance at board meetings in recent months. “When I saw attendance climb from 30 or 40 residents on hand to almost 100, I knew people could see what was happening,” he said.

The first half of the April 18 meeting will be the final one for outgoing board members and then the meeting will adjourn and reconvene as the first meeting for the new board, when new members will  be sworn in.

Tullock could not be reached for comment by Patch Tuesday night.

In Town and Country, incumbent Alderman and Board President Tim Welby won his seat over a last-minute challenge by former Alderman John Hoffmann in his bid for a third term as Ward 2 alderman.

“When I was unopposed up until the last eight days before the election, and then I suddenly had an opponent, it was a call to action for my supporters and me,” he said, recalling the 2008 election when he last ran against Hoffmann and lost. His main priority is the budget for Town and Country, consistent with his stated focus in the past on fiscal responsibility, followed by the ever-present deer management issue.

Hoffman shrugged off his loss as a write-in candidate, joking he would run next time as Frank Skeffington, the fictitious politician made famous by Edwin O’Connor in his 1956 novel and subsequent 1958 film adaptation starring Spencer Tracy, The Last Hurrah. Hoffmann, who said he won’t run again, commented he was disappointed he lost despite being named by St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan “not once but three times” as the " opposite of political scum.” Hoffmann said he figured the election wasn’t going his way by the afternoon when “too many Mercedes and Porsches and too few Buicks were pulling up the polling place. I’m not the yuppie candidate,” he said.

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