Ward Consolidation Wars

The Bosley Family’s matriarch has laid political claim to St. Louis City’s new 14th Ward, the combined 3rd Ward and 5th Ward under ward reduction and redistricting. This month, 3rd Ward Committeewoman Lucinda Frazier and three others incorporated 14th Ward Regular Democratic Organization as a nonprofit.

The club has not yet filed as a political action committee (all ward committees are pacs not party committees under Missouri law). No one residing in the current 5th Ward is an incorporator. It does not look like 5th Ward Committeeman and State Representative Rasheen Aldridge and 5th Ward Committeewoman and former State Representative Penny Hubbard are involved.

Frazier is the wife of former 3rd Ward Alder Freeman Bosley, mother to current 3rd Ward Alder Brandon Bosley and State Representative LaKeysha Bosley, and Chief of Staff for part-time Recorder of Deeds, bar owner, and Missouri State Party Chair Michael Butler.

Registered agent for the new 14th Ward registration is Limda Primer, who is also Treasurer for MEC registered 3rd Ward Regular Democratic Organization and Civil PAC, and Deputy Treasurer for Citizens for Brandon Bosley (3rd Ward Alder) and Citizens for LaKeysha Bosley (State Representative and sometimes employee of the Recorder of Deed’s bar).

Then there’s the new 4th Ward, the combined 23rd and 24th Wards.

In March of this year, Kate Lovelady filed a Fictitious Name Registration for 24WPD to own 4th Ward Democrats. Lovelady is Treasurer for 4th Ward Democrats registered (previously known as 24th Ward Progressive Democrats) with MEC.

In September, Greg Meyer incorporated 4th Ward Regular Democratic Organization as a non profit with the help of attorney Ted Dearing. Meyer is also Treasurer for MEC registered 23rd Ward Regular Democratic Organization (aligned with 23rd Ward Alder Joe Vaccaro) and St. Louis Labor Legislature Club. The October 2022 Report for 23rd Ward Regular Democratic Organization shows the club paid Ted Dearing $300 in August for legal services.

In St. Louis County, you can visit the St. Louis County Democratic Central Committee website to find your township political club.

There are two online sources for anyone (a lot of us do not have book of faces) to look for St. Louis City ward organization information and neither are the St. Louis Democratic City Central Committee website. Instead, you have to search Missouri Ethics Commission and/or Missouri Secretary of State’s Business Entity database for ward committees.

St. Louis City political clubs often incorporate as nonprofits or file fictious name registrations (d.b.a.). It was thought that by incorporating, the name was owned and could not be used by a rival. They’ve been doing it for over a century. Some of the earliest ones were recorded in the Corporation Books of the City’s Recorder of Deeds. Campaign finance records began in St. Louis City in the late 20th Century via Missouri’s Corrupt Practices Act and were also recorded with the Recorder of Deeds. I did a lot of research and preservation work with these records when I worked as an archivist under the two previous Recorder of Deeds.

It’s been a long tradition for status quo ward clubs to use “Regular Democratic” or “Original” in the name to distinguish themselves from rump organizations who use “Independent.” The Independent organizations were often started by a noncommitteeperson, election competitor, or a committeeperson who did not see eye to eye with their ward colleague. Unfortunately, I was overruled by ward members when I was a committeewoman and had to file 7th Ward Independent Democrats instead of 7th Ward Irregular Democrats with MEC.