Ready for Duty

When Ward 3 City Councilmanannounced on Dec. 13 that he would run for Florissant mayor, his biggest competition appeared to be incumbent . Three days later, Lowery announced he would not seek re-election.

Approximately one month later, he discovered that while he wouldn’t face off with Lowery, he would have to beat out five other candidates for the office.

“It’s kind of interesting that I had five candidates when I ran for council, and I have six children,” Schneider said. “Now, I have six candidates running for mayor. I think six is my lucky number.”

For more than 30 years, Schneider has dedicated himself to Florissant, as well as the North County area, with 32 years as the Ward 3 representative on the city council as well as countless other organizations and groups, such as the Florissant Rotary, Old Town Partners and St. Louis County Municipal Board of Directors.

After years on the city council, Schneider said “duty called,” and he’s now ready to serve. 

“My big thing is progress,” he said. “The thing that separates me, besides the quantity of service, is the quality of service. My middle name is progress. My middle initial is P for Patrick, but it really should be progress.”

During his tenure as a city councilman, Schneider has served under two mayoral administrations and with countless councilmen and women. Under each mayor, Schneider said he’s served an important role on the council.

“During the Eagan administration, I was kind of like a catalyst for almost every initiative, if it was new, especially with storm water and bridge improvement,” he said. “Under the Lowery administration, it’s been different. He hasn’t met a project that he didn’t like. So, with Eagan, I had to say, ‘Giddyup, let’s go.’ With Lowery, I had to pull back the reins and say, ‘Whoa, not so fast.’ "

Lowery doesn’t disagree with the past disagreements between Councilman Schneider and himself.  

“While we have not always agreed on every issue during my 10-year tenure as your mayor, I know that I can always count on Tom Schneider to be the first one to support meaningful and lasting progress for our city,” Lowery said in his endorsement of Schneider. “He was there to promote the completion of many projects, including Cross Keys and the Lindbergh Corridor.”

His dedication to the Florissant community started a few years before then, though.

Growing Up Schneider

Although Schneider has spent most of his adult life in Florissant, he grew up in Overland, where he graduated from Ritenour High School in 1966.

Following high school, he headed to the University of Missouri, Rolla (now Missouri University of Science and Technology) for a year before reporting to boot camp in the U.S. Navy in November 1967.

After four and a half years in the Navy Seabees, Schneider re-enrolled at the University of Missouri at Rolla, and during his time there, he was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1973.

In 1975, he earned his civil engineering bachelor’s degree from the university.

That’s when his journey into Florissant civic service began.

Getting Into the Florissant Fold

Following his graduation from college, Schneider went to work for the state highway department as an engineer for material testing and core sampling. A year later, the late Mayor Jim  offered Schneider the position of city engineer for the city of Florissant in 1976. 

“I really loved that job,” he said. “That kind of got me the municipal bug.”

As city engineer, one of the major tasks that Schneider took on was systematically replacing the aging infrastructure of city bridges. 

Schneider helped start a bridge cost-sharing program through a federal program that has helped systematically replace the bridges since 1977. He said that more than 90 percent of Florissant’s bridges and culverts have been replaced since that time.

Schneider left the city engineer position after two years in the seat, but he soon received an opportunity to return to the government fold.

Then-Ward 2 City Councilman Jim Miner asked Schneider his interest in running for the city council seat in Ward 3, and with one week left to file for the election, he got his name on the ballot for the seat. In a six-person race for the seat, Schneider won the seat in 1979.

Although he’s championed a number of initiatives during his political career, one of Schneider’s pride points is Project Lift-Off. 

Started in 1989, Schneider founded the Project Lift-Off Party, which at first was an initiative to promote the Drug Awareness and Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program for fifth through eighth-graders. Ever since, the party has been expanded into a monthly program for Florissant’s youth.

Marc Schneider, one of Schneider’s six children, said that he fondly remembers Project Lift-Off, as it was a big thing for kids of his generation. 

He also said that he realized early on how influential his dad was in the community.

“When you grow up, and your dad’s councilman, it’s a cool thing,” Marc said. “I was very aware of his love for the city and wanting to do things that were big ideas but not so outlandish. “

Eye on the Mayoral Seat

Schneider has his priorities and plans laid out for the City of Florissant, if elected to mayoral office.

“Police protection is the most important thing,” he said. “Without protection, we don’t have any progress. We will continue to have a strong police presence, and that would be No. 1 priority, as it always has been.”

Lowery fully agrees in his endorsement that Schneider has always placed a priority on keeping Florissant safe from criminals.

“Tom Schneider was elected to the city council just before I became chief of police in 1979,” he said. “For 22 years, I could always count on Tom to give our police department the priority and resources it needed to keep your families safe. He was there for our department and he was there for your protection.”

In order to further enforce that, Schneider said he aspires to have a block captain of the Neighborhood Watch Program on every block to help in keeping incidents low. 

He also said that it’s important to continue maintaining streets and bridges and to continue Florissant’s progressive state.