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St. Louis aldermen mull oversight of tornado Recovery Office set to get millions from Rams settlement 23%
By Kavahn Mansouri59%
6/11/2026, 10:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Hasty Generalization, and Appeal to Emotion, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 30% saturation with 288 hits. Analysis detected 2,036 faulty-reasoning hits from 960 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 36.3% and a BS Rank of 23% (16,357 of 21,180 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 77.20% of the article peer group.
Almost a year after its inception, St.
Louis aldermen say Mayor Cara Spencer’s tornado Recovery Office could use more oversight and mused about possible legislation to enable it.
A conversation about oversight arose during an often raucous seven-hour meeting of the Board of Aldermen's Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee over the divvying up of Rams funding, a large amount of which will stream through the Recovery Office.
It came as a crowd calling for more funding for tornado recovery in north St.
Louis slowly thinned out.
Spencer established the office with an emergency executive order following the May 16, 2025, EF3 tornado that killed several people and damaged or destroyed more than 5,000 structures — the lion’s share of which were located in north St.
Louis.
Board Bill 22, which allocates $230 million of the settlement funds to various city projects, will see roughly $125 million go to tornado recovery efforts and north St.
Louis projects.
Discussion of additional oversight and accountability for the office was raised through an amendment brought forth by Ward 7 Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier.
She proposed giving the Affordable Housing Commission oversight of a $15 million fund for long-term housing preservation, vacant unit rehabilitation, and construction, rather than the Recovery Office.
“This is just to make sure we’re having a conversation about the unnecessary reinvention of wheels,” Sonnier said.
“I do not want us to see us pass the bill and then a department has to spend another six months to a year with consultants and contractors developing processes that other departments already have in place.”
Sonnier said she’s concerned about oversight of the recovery effort in north St.
Louis and worried the board bill was writing “blank checks” to the Recovery Office with little input from city leadership outside of Spencer’s office.
She added that the commission has a proven track record for the work where the recovery office does not, and pointed to the office’s duplication of work that other city departments already perform.
“I think that we have to talk about are we pouring dollars into a department that is best suited to do the work,” Sonnier said.
“(The office) has no experience with development, it has no clear process for vetting or contractors, it has no relationships with existing developers.”
Rasmus Jorgensen, Spencer’s press secretary, said the mayor’s office had no comment on the discussion.
Sonnier said her amendment did not have the support of the mayor’s office or the Recovery Office.
Ward 1 Alderwoman Anne Schweitzer said she understood the office leading FEMA reimbursement and other work that other city departments aren’t doing now, but wondered when the city would return other recovery work to departments that are already doing the work.
“What is the length of time that the Recovery Office will exist, and at what point do those functions get moved into the departments that are already doing similar work or the same work?”
Schweitzer said.
Possible ordinance discussed
While members of the committee agreed to delay a decision on the amendment, many also agreed that the city should draft an ordinance making the office official.
Ward 9 Alderman Michael Browning and Ward 3 Alderman Shane Cohn both raised the idea of an ordinance that would bring the department into the city charter.
Currently, the office answers solely to the mayor’s officer under the emergency executive order.
“When we're talking more long-term funding and long-term building — replacement, repair, et cetera — we should be having more conversation about where that money goes because the office of recovery is not established under the charter right now,” Cohn said.
“I’ve had this conversation with the administration.
I understand their perspective on it, but I disagree with them.”
Browning said the department needed to be flexible, as initially designed by the Spencer administration to quickly meet needs in the wake of the tornado.
He noted the office exists only because the Federal Emergency Management Agency is absent in St.
Louis.
“It’s been this way because the federal government just abandoned us and didn't send the resources and people necessary,” Browning said.
“I do think we need to be recognizing of the fact that this is all very abnormal.
“
Alderman Rasheen Aldridge the 14th Ward said the city would need to have “tough conversations” in the coming months about the long-term planning of the office.
The Recovery Office has struggled in its first year of operations, an effort Spencer and Chief Recovery Officer Julian Nicks have described as building a plane as it was flying.
A home repair program created by the department completed just a handful of repairs in its first year, and the department’s demolitions only recently kicked into higher gear.
Board of Aldermen President Megan Green said that while she worried Sonnier’s amendment could slow the disbursement of long-term housing recovery funds, more oversight on the office is needed.
“The crux of this amendment is about accountability for the Recovery Office,” Green said.
“All of us who have sat through hours and hours and hours of public testimony have heard a lot of critiques of the office.”
Green leads the Budget and Public Employee Committee meetings, which have served as a forum for updates from the Recovery Office and a place for frustrated tornado victims to air their grievances.
A St.
Louis Public Radio investigation into the city’s response a year into the recovery revealed similar complaints about the department, which was staffed with individuals with little disaster recovery experience and designed by consultants.
The Board of Aldermen members agreed to take time to consider the amendment and discuss it further as the Rams settlement allocation moves through the legislative process.
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