Ellen Edman respectfully declined to be quoted for this profile. While outwardly she cited a desire to remain objective in light in the fact she is still currently a member of the council, it’s hard to imagine that political calculations didn’t play a role. At the beginning of March when I had first asked if she’d be willing to participate, Edman had seemed eager to do so. But, political calculations are part of the game, and to play that game you have to win some elections. If not being on KirkwoodGadfly.com is what wins you those elections, I’m cool with it! So if Edman won’t take positions on our issues directly, let’s sift through the her record and see if we can ascertain them ourselves. .
While Edman’s website has been altered to list mostly timely, health related priorities, her voting record remains. It’s a particularly strong one. With “yes” votes on the Barclay, the Madison, and the 24 town homes along Big Bend, Ms. Edman has been on the right side of the question in every housing proposal that has come to a vote in her time at city hall, stating unequivocally after casting her vote in favor of The Madison, “I think we really need people moving downtown.” The council member has also taken action to make developments downtown easier to get approved in the first place (voting to eliminate the requirement that developments within the B-2 zone have lower level retail). Finally Edman has staked out more liberal views on more symbolic questions, voting yes to the addition of tattoo studios as an approved special use within city limits, eliminating a pretty antiquated part of the code.
Ms. Edman doesn’t quite bat 1000 though. While generally supportive of development, she occasionally seems conflicted on how that development plays out in praxis. When it came to the implementation of DPZ building height recommendations, Edman dissented, voting to table recommendations from a report that had cost the city $120,000. She was quoted in a Webster-Kirkwood Times article on the vote at length, explaining:
“If we get all the buildings going edge-to-edge and front-to-back, or a certain number of them … then, it’s solid buildings,” said Council Member Ellen Edman at the March 21 work session. “So what do we do to protect some the greenspace? If buildings are a certain size, do we want a certain amount of indentation that’s acceptable from the sidewalk, so we don’t have (these) monolithic lines?”
“I just feel like we’re not guaranteeing a pleasant pedestrian experience, and we’re not guaranteeing architecture that’s going to be pleasing.
“One of my biggest disappointments was the way Station Plaza went,” she continued. “They showed us pictures that looked so charming. The buildings went in and out and they had little pocket things all over. And we ended up with a flat façade and a flat slab of concrete, which I’m very grateful for – I love it – but it doesn’t look at all like we thought.” —March 29, 2019, Dennis Hannon reporting
So no, Edman is definitely not a no-holds-barred YIMBY. But I think that’s okay too. The nature of Edman’s critique seems to boil down not to a question of height but rather to a preference for fine grained development, a preference that does lead to better urban development even if it also (regrettably) leads to less of it. But besides joining a few unanimous decisions on votes I disagreed with but few others did, (expansion of the Magic House parking among them) there’s little else that I can fault her for. Edman seems, on the whole, slightly above replacement level.
More than anything, however, my analysis of Edman rests on the fact that she has been encouraging to me personally. As a kind of normal guy, 23 year old guy writing about extremely local politics in a midwestern suburb, it’s often hard to tell if anyone else agrees with you, or is even reading what you’re writing. Edman has never failed, even in our brief and few interactions, to tell me that this blog is making a difference. Is it wrong of me to value that in a candidate, to take it into consideration in determining who is best for the job? Maybe. But people don’t often encourage those they disagree with, they don’t usually remind them that politics is the strong slow boring of hard boards. Edman does.
Five down, one to go.