ST. LOUIS – A St. Louis alderwoman is proposing a significant shift in the city’s governance, a plan that would strip the mayor of power in favor of a city administrator.

Daniela Velasquez, Ward 6 Alderwoman, has introduced a plan to transfer various responsibilities from the mayor’s office to a newly-appointed city administrator. She formally introduced the proposal as Board Bill 162 at a Friday aldermen meeting.

Under the proposal, the mayor would continue to serve as the city’s political and policy leader, though the mayor’s office would lose oversight of city departments and the authority to appoint department heads.

Those powers would shift to a city administrator, who would take on general day-to-day management of city operations like appoiting and managing department heads. The bill would also prevent the mayor and board of aldermen from interfering with decisions under the city administrator’s authority.

The legislation would call for the St. Louis Mayor to nominate a city administrator after a national search and for the Board of Aldermen to approve the selection with a majority vote. Candidates would have at least five years of executive experience without holding an elected office in the City of St. Louis or the State of Missouri over the past five years.

Ultimately, the plan aims to redirect city management to an administrator while maintaining the mayor’s role as the political leader.

Velazquez told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the plan has “nothing to do with the current administration,” but rather represents a “long-term look at ways to make St. Louis be more successful.”

The cities of Kansas City, Missouri; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Phoenix, Arizona, have similar forms of governance to the one outlined in Velazquez’s proposal.

If this plan gets approval from the Board of Aldermen, the changes could be in the hands of St. Louis voters in the August 2026 election. If approved from there, the city administrator’s news powers would take effect in April 2029.