By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
Bill McMurray is leaving his post as mayor of St. Joseph, as mayor-elect John Josendale and members of council will be sworn in on Monday.
McMurray announced roughly a year ago that he would not seek reelection after becoming mayor in April 2018. Maybe it's because more happened in those four years than anyone could have imagined.
"This has been an interesting four years," McMurray said during an appearance on KFEQ's The Hotline. "I usually say we had three floods, one pandemic and four city managers. So, that's a lot and that's just above and beyond the usual stuff."
There were certainly big challenges, but McMurray is proud of the improvements that were made, particularly when it comes to infrastructure.
The Bonds for Bridges Program, which was voter approved in June 2020, issued $20 million in General Obligation bonds which will be used to replace eight bridges and repair two others.
"In the middle of a pandemic, our citizens stepped up and invested in themselves and passed Bonds for Bridges," McMurray said. "That's $20 million. Right now, the 22nd street bridge is being replaced and several others, they're going to be fixed and we're being proactive."
St. Joseph also passed the Parks Tax last year, which will generate roughly $60 million in revenue to fix the city's parks and recreation facilities before it sunsets in 10 years.
McMurray says another $28 million went toward roughly 200 miles of street improvements during his four years in office. He's also proud of the fact that council never raised the city's sewer rates during his term.
"Even though we had some rate studies that suggested that we do that," he said. "We know people were hurting with those sewer rates and we did not raise them once in the four years."
An extension of St. Joseph's Capital Improvements Program passed during McMurray's first year in office, and that's paved the way for several key projects in the city.
"One of the investments we just approved is the
McMurray cites workforce development as a key issue for St. Joseph voters, and says there's always work to be done there. He also cites notable growth in job development over the last four years.
"We did over the last four years, in cooperation with the Chamber and others, projected 590 new jobs," he said. "421 million dollars new in capital investment. That doesn't include the Hillyard Project. We also voted on the hotel project, which is redoing the downtown hotel. It's going to be a Courtyard Marriott."
Crime and public safety are top of mind for St. Joseph residents as McMurray leaves office. Practically every city council and mayoral candidate campaigned on trying to lower the city's crime rate.
While the crime rate overall has fallen recently, rape, murder and aggravated assault all went up from 2020 to 2021. This comes as the St. Joseph Police Department and Buchanan County Sheriff's Office deal with ongoing staff shortages.
"We're always going to have a crime challenge," McMurray said. "Everywhere has it. We have it. We have a great police department. We have one of the few police departments that's state certified in the state of Missouri. I have all of the confidence in the world in the chief and the officers."
Crime, natural disasters and COVID-19 created challenges for McMurray and city leadership over the last four years. Yet, as he reflects on an eventful term, McMurray says the word, or acronym, that comes to mind is grace.
"G was gratitude - let's be grateful," he said. "R was for resilience. When we get knocked down, stand back up. 'A' is aspiration. Let's have high hopes. 'C' is for courage. Let's stand up for what's right and 'E' is for empathy. Let's empathize with one another."
You can follow Tommy on Twitter @TommyKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.