Mark Langston

Former Maplewood Mayor Mark Langston has become the second Democrat to seek the 5th District seat on the St. Louis County Council in next year’s elections.

He plans soon to organize a campaign committee and announce formally his candidacy.

Langston stressed he is well grounded in the district, growing up in University City and living in Maplewood for many years. He served as the city’s mayor from 2001 until this year when he could not seek reelection because of term limits.

One of his major themes will be property tax relief, Langston said. He said he favors electing the county assessor which would occur if voters next year amend the state Constitution for the change.

Langston said he backed “consolidation of services, not cities.” He said “consolidation would lower taxes.”

As mayor, he was involved in consolidating emergency dispatching services and park and recreation activities with nearby cities, Langston said.

The state should allow voters to allow a sales tax for police service, he said. “It would subsidize that service without raising property taxes,” he said.

He supports a half-cent sales tax increase for Metro buses and MetroLink. Public transit, he said, never makes a profit. “It is about getting people to jobs,” he said.

He backs the proposal for a smoking ban in indoor public places that is on the countywide November ballot. It is not perfect, he said, but is a place to start.

In July, former Webster Groves Mayor Terri Williams said she was in the race. On the Republican side, Dr. Randy Jotte, an emergency physician at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and a former Webster Groves councilman, plans to seek the seat.

Voters will nominate candidates next August and elect a council member the following November. Candidates cannot file for any of the 2010 election races until February.

The winner next year would succeed Councilwoman Barbara Fraser, D-University City, who is running for the state Senate.

Langston, 54, was a disk jockey for station WIL for 20 years and for KSD for five years. Now he owns L & L Properties, which owns and manages property in St. Louis, Maplewood and the Lake of the Ozarks.

His wife, Maria, is a member of the Maplewood-Richmond Heights School Board. They have two sons.

The 5th District runs north to south from the middle of University City to much of Crestwood and the northern part of Affton and east to west from St. Louis to Ladue and a sliver of Kirkwood.

For most years after the county charter took effect in 1951, the district was solidly Republican. Now it is a swing district.

The last redistricting added Democrats in University City, Olivette and Clayton. More residents elsewhere in the district have been voting Democratic as well. Fraser ousted longtime Councilman Kurt Odenwald, a Republican from Shrewsbury, in 2006.