NST Shuffle

The City of St. Louis Neighborhood Stabilization Team (NST), as most people know, is undergoing a lot of changes.

Effective Monday, July 25, 2005, the Neighborhood Stabilization Officers (NSOs), are assigned by ward. They used to be assigned more-or-less by neighborhood. (The web site referenced here should be updated to reflect these changes sometime in the first week of August.)

Former Tower Grove East/Tower Grove South NSO Joe Thele is now the manager, called a senior NSO. He reports directly to Charles Bryson, neighborhood development exec in the mayor's office.

Many of the other new assignments are far from the areas formerly served by the NSOs: for example, Michelle Boston-David, the former NSO for the Dogtown area (Clayton-Tamm, Franz Park, Hi-Pointe), located largely in the 24th ward, is now the NSO for the 8th ward (mostly Shaw and Southwest Garden plus slices of Tower Grove East and Tower Grove South).

Meanwhile, Dena Hibbard, who used to serve Shaw, as well as Soulard, Kosciusko industrial area, LaSalle Park and Downtown (east of Tucker), will now be the NSO for the 9th ward, an area that sprawls across parts of Tower Grove East, Benton Park West, Benton Park, Gravois Park, Soulard, Kosciusko, Marine Villa, Dutchtown, and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods.

As confusing as all this is, it also appears the NSOs may no longer have field offices at several community education centers, but instead will be based at City Hall, in offices on the 2nd floor (same floor as the Board of Aldermen), rather than the 4th floor (like NST's old main office and the public safety director's office). Of course, CSB is also located on the 2nd floor, right next to the aldermanic offices; but technically, CSB is a subunit of NST.