Mayor John Landwehr
John Landwehr became Jefferson City, Missouri´s 59th Mayor on April 21, 2003, the first candidate to be elected under the non-partisan system approved by the voters in April, 2002. Prior to being elected Mayor, he served as First Ward City Councilman from 1995 to 2002.
John Landwehr is a lifelong resident of Jefferson City. He was raised on a dairy farm that was eventually annexed into the city. He now lives with his wife, Peggy, and their two children, Rebecca and David, just a few hundred feet south of the farmhouse where he spent his childhood.
John Landwehr attended Immaculate Conception grade school and the diocesan high school seminary in Hannibal from which he graduated in 1970. He attended Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he earned a BA in 1974 and an MA in 1975, majoring in Philosophy.
Landwehr returned to Jefferson City and worked as a caseworker at the Missouri State Penitentiary 1975 until 1978 when he entered law school at the University of Missouri at Columbia. He received is law degree in 1981 and went to work as an Assistant Attorney General under (then) Missouri Attorney General John Ashcroft.
He returned (in a sense) to the penitentiary when he was appointed to the Missouri State Penitentiary Redevelopment Commission in 2002, the body charged with the 142-acre site to be vacated by the Department of Corrections in the near future. John Landwehr´s election as mayor means that he will have to resign that post, but a top priority during his administration will be coordinating city resources to facilitate redevelopment of the old prison site and surrounding neighborhoods.
John Landwehr has also been long-time, strong supporter of responsible annexation while on the City Council, as a volunteer, and now as Mayor. He believes annexation is the key to the economic vitality of Jefferson City and surrounding region.
The City of Jefferson and the City of Muenchberg, Germany, entered into a Partner City relationship in 2004. The cities are enjoying the exchange of information and planning future events to celebrate and commemorate this relationship.
