Power Profile: John Olivarri, Osage Beach Mayor

John Olivarri is retired, while not really being retired. Sure, he enjoys boating on the Lake of the Ozarks, but when he is not enjoying his free time, Olivarri spends his time in service to the city of Osage Beach, where he presides as mayor.

“I consider serving a volunteer job. It is not a career. It is a way of giving back,” Olivarri said. 

That is how Olivarri views public service: an act of giving back to the community. It is a principle on which he has lived his life and one that he has also worked hard to instill in his children and grandchildren. In fact, he considers his greatest personal accomplishment seeing his children actively involved in their communities. 

He moved to the Lake of the Ozarks in 1992 when he and his wife retired from the St. Louis area and has not looked back. The couple integrated themselves into the community through volunteering and public service. He served for nine years as the Ward III Alderman before successfully running for mayor in 2016.  

A sense of community is one of the things Olivarri appreciates most about Ameren Missouri. He praised the way the company is a great partner for the area. 

“Over the years, Ameren Missouri has done a great job ensuring we have quality services,” Olivarri said. “While it is not a service feature of Ameren, one of the things I appreciate most about Ameren Missouri is their sense of community. When it comes to being part of the community, they are there to offer guidance, support, funding (when appropriate), and are there for the community as a whole.”

Overall, Olivarri calls the business environment “phenomenal.” There are several developments in the works, businesses are popping up, and the area has seen an increase in tourists. He noted one way they measure success is by sales tax receipts, which have been increasing every month this year-to-date. He also noted that while the community took a hit the first half of 2020 due to the pandemic, it has rebounded and the area has seen growth. Anecdotally, Olivarri said that he has seen businesses open up in storefronts that had been vacant since before COVID-19. 

“We started out with a bang this year,” Olivarri said, adding that the Lake of the Ozarks includes multiple municipalities. “I don’t just look at Osage Beach, I look at the area as a whole. We share our citizens to meet workforce needs. We share some of our educational systems with trade schools. We share a customer base.”

A native Texan by birth, Olivarri considers himself a lake local now and does not have any plans to change that. After all, it is such a beautiful area, “why would we want to go anywhere else?"