urbanSTL

Interesting given that workers have been promised no layoffs here. I suppose there will be plent of retirements of Baby Boomers which which to right size the Metro City over the decade to follow.

As for Louisville, merger doesn't magically make the low-productivity auto-oriented development patterns that contribute to insolvency suddenly more productive. Surprised opponents haven't latched onto the fact that Indy has $800M in unmet street/road maintenance liabilities. I'll bet a dinner ours tops a billion, but with fragmentation we don't know and are encouraged not to care to know.

think we'd jump for joy if the City's budget shortfall were only $65M over the next four years. And note the source of the problem is a state mandate. We really shouldn't do merger because they don't have $65M laying around?

Extremely skeptical of their numbers to say the least. Need to see some methodology, especially since they seem to be saying that phasing out the earnings tax would have little impact on revenues? Frankly, I think a better course would be to keep the earnings tax and extend it to the unified Metro, but I guess they had to lure Rex in somehow.

The Mayor wrote: ↑

Feb 19, 2019

^ He only seems to be concerned about the "core." So it's not likely the more comparable metro area statistics (or apparently any statistics) are going to sway his opinion.

To me, this point of view only further solidifies the need for a merger of some sort. My concerns are for the whole, all of the City and the County, it seems the only concern for some here is either just the "core" or whatever little municipality they call home. Which is exactly the damn problem.

And regarding a "strong core" in the cities cited above. Nashville, Louisville, and Indy never had large, dense strong urban cores to begin with. They've always been smaller, more rural cities. A consolidated government of some sort in St. Louis, isn't suddenly going to destroy the very large and built out urban core St. Louis already has. The municipal corporation would still be in charge of zoning, preservation, trash pickup, parks, and other everyday services. It's not like the city is suddenly going to become a suburb. And a consolidated government couldn't possibly make St. Louis' core any weaker or worse off than it already is.

He who? I am myself quite concerned that this plan will hurt the city badly. The city and the "core" are not precisely synonymous, but it's close enough that where the city goes the region will eventually follow. I cannot fathom how the region can possibly be healthy without a healthy core. And I worry that the arbitrarily altered tax structure will leave the "municipal corporation" with a vastly depleted revenue stream. It's not really a secret that the major donors favor lower taxes and "privitization" of some of those services, particularly education. A strong, free, secular public education is one of the bedrock institutions of our society; one of the very things that helps guarantee our freedoms. Particularly our religious freedom, ironically, by keeping religion optional and unenforceable. It also helps to ensure our future. And it is this, more than anything else, which is threatened by the loss of funding. The largest and most popular parks have endowments and protected revenue streams which are often already regional. The police have an enormous lobby and the strength of fear behind them. No one is insane enough to get rid of fire protection services. But public schools? The St. Louis public school district seems mighty short on friends right now. I cannot vote for a thing until and unless I know that it will protect and enhance those schools first and foremost. This plan does not appear to do that. In fact, it appears to make that more difficult by codifying into the rather vaporous charter it's implying that the schools and their funding will forever be separate. This worries me. Deeply.

What STLrainbow has suggested here...

"Having us back in the County and strengthening our already considerable bonds would be a big step forward for building a stronger, sustainable urban core; imo dissolving the city outright is more questionable."

...to me reads like, lets just leave it all the same and hope our leaders who are fighting tooth and nail for the status quo...will end up changing the status quo. They won't, they haven't yet and they've had more than enough time. There is literally no indication that St. Louis' current crop of leaders (Krewson and Stenger somewhat excepted here) have any will to change or do anything differently.

How is reentering the county leaving things the same? If there are efficiencies to be had from eliminating overlapping services in the city then this will realize that. Reentering the county would eliminate the parallel court systems. It would merge the city's county level offices into the county's. People have harped on how wondrous those two things would be for decades. Reentry would absolutely do that. It is not the status quo. Incremental change is not the same as no change. It doesn't give Better Together everything they want, but it absolutely gives them something. Further, after reentry conventional mechanisms for other changes would be available for the first time in more than a century.

If the problem arises from the number of municipalities in the region then St. Louis is utterly irrelevant to any real solution. St. Louis is one municipality against the hundred in the county. It's already the largest municipality in the region, and thus best positioned to enjoy economies of scale. All the smallest and most inefficient ones are already in the county. And none of the largest ones are. The efficiencies of mergers are already possible. We've even seen them pass recently. In no way does dissolving the city of St. Louis change any of that.

To be fair, if this experiment fails then change will continue anyway. It's already happening. St. George is really gone. Vinita Terrace really merged with Vinita Park. It will happen more slowly, perhaps, I doubt you will see University City merge with Clayton anytime soon, but it will happen.

I can, I believe, vote in favor of reentering the country. I must in good conscience vote against the plan that Better Together is presently putting forward. There are simply too many unanswered questions and poorly researched assumptions. The risks are too great and the supposed rewards too ephemeral.

The plan can't be perceived to have a tax increase. Extending the earnings tax even if the plan reduced the sales tax by an equal amount would sink the plan locally or state-wide.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Feb 20, 2019

He who? I am myself quite concerned that this plan will hurt the city badly. The city and the "core" are not precisely synonymous, but it's close enough that where the city goes the region will eventually follow. I cannot fathom how the region can possibly be healthy without a healthy core. And I worry that the arbitrarily altered tax structure will leave the "municipal corporation" with a vastly depleted revenue stream. It's not really a secret that the major donors favor lower taxes and "privitization" of some of those services, particularly education. A strong, free, secular public education is one of the bedrock institutions of our society; one of the very things that helps guarantee our freedoms. Particularly our religious freedom, ironically, by keeping religion optional and unenforceable. It also helps to ensure our future. And it is this, more than anything else, which is threatened by the loss of funding. The largest and most popular parks have endowments and protected revenue streams which are often already regional. The police have an enormous lobby and the strength of fear behind them. No one is insane enough to get rid of fire protection services. But public schools? The St. Louis public school district seems mighty short on friends right now. I cannot vote for a thing until and unless I know that it will protect and enhance those schools first and foremost. This plan does not appear to do that. In fact, it appears to make that more difficult by codifying into the rather vaporous charter it's implying that the schools and their funding will forever be separate. This worries me. Deeply.

I am completely with you regarding the provision of high quality secular public education as an absolute priority for local government. I disagree with the rest though. Fact is that the (secular) public education system within the city limits is extremely bad right now, so I am in favor of ANYTHING that can help change that. And increasing the size of the tax base that funds said system seems to be the first step in my view.

All this said, the PD numbers are meaningless without the underlying analyis and the title of the article is extremely misleading (1 bn is after 10 years - and is this really per year or cumulative over those 10 years?)

Mayor,

let me just say Indianapolis in fact once was much more dense than today. Its core township, the geographic size of Buffalo, even lost as great a percentage of its population between the formation of Unigov in 1970 and 2010 than the city of Saint Louis did. There are complex reasons for that, but key factors include the fact that Unigov did not include school district consolidation and suburban policy/dominance in Unigov left the underrepresented people of the core behind.

Everyone should have a basic understanding of the Indianapolis experience of 50 years under Unigov, and that experience suggests a cautionary tale about dissolving the core city as part of reform efforts. Each city/county relationship is unique in its particulars, but those who support STL City reentry into the County while wanting to retain it as a charter city as collaboration and reform progress have valid and strong points to make.

quincunx wrote: ↑

Feb 20, 2019

The whole savings estimating is dicey. Let's say the Metro City needs 100 fewer staff to do the job. That's $75M a yer. What is some unforeseen expense comes up and eats that? Was there no savings? Or would that unforeseen expense have happened anyways? And there's tons of known and unknown deferred expenses on infrastructure, facilities, and equipment that could easily eat that.

$75 million for 100 staff?! I can assure you that government wages are not anything resembling that figure. Or even $75k per for $7.5 million. There are a lot of very low paid government workers in the City, County, and small municipality governments. Merging them together would likely raise the overall cost per employee as wages are equalized at higher levels for a more professionalized staff. That's not a bad thing, and also not a reason not to merge, but I don't expect personnel savings to be the panacea that pays for the made up savings that BT is promoting now. And as has already been covered, Krewson and Stenger promised no layoffs (only attrition presumably).

Sorry I was off by a zero. Say they need 1000 fewer staff .. .. That's beside the point. I think Metro City would start with more than 10,000 employees. Would one expect 3, 4, 5% people to leave for various reasons in a year? I think there will be ample opportunity to right-size the staffing level. There' going to be a lot of Baby Boomer retirements next decade. Perhaps many will retire to avoid going through the transition.
The BT estimate boils down to the guess that the Metro City can realize savings of 1% per year in nominal dollars. Is that realistic? The city has been cutting its personnel at a 1% per year rate for the last ten years.

kipfilet wrote: ↑

Feb 20, 2019

I am completely with you regarding the provision of high quality secular public education as an absolute priority for local government. I disagree with the rest though. Fact is that the (secular) public education system within the city limits is extremely bad right now, so I am in favor of ANYTHING that can help change that. And increasing the size of the tax base that funds said system seems to be the first step in my view.

See, that's what worries me most: the plan promises not to change the school districts. It wouldn't increase the tax base by one square foot as far as I can tell. But it would completely rearrange the tax structure imposed on that base. I fear it would completely starve an already dangerously underfunded district. And I think the backers would be altogether in favor of that, as they're big proponents of school vouchers anyway and want nothing so much as an expanded private school system funded by taxpayer dollars.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Feb 21, 2019

See, that's what worries me most: the plan promises not to change the school districts. It wouldn't increase the tax base by one square foot as far as I can tell. But it would completely rearrange the tax structure imposed on that base. I fear it would completely starve an already dangerously underfunded district. And I think the backers would be altogether in favor of that, as they're big proponents of school vouchers anyway and want nothing so much as an expanded private school system funded by taxpayer dollars.

Maybe I am being overly optimistic, but I see city-county unification as a necessary first step to rethink school districts.
Are there better alternative models for school districting in the area? Yes, there are. Are any of those better alternatives on the table? No. Will they ever be in the table without city-county consolidation? I really don't think so.
The status quo looks like a slow moving trainwreck to me. So I consider anything that might make school district consolidation politically more feasible (even if only marginally) as an improvement.

^That's pretty much how I feel about it. This region has a way of studying things to death, and never actually DOING anything. We're very good at kicking the can down the road (over and over and over again). Let's get this done, and then work on tweaking it afterwards. The alternative is another century of stagnation.

I guess I am most troubled by the degree to which so many people seem to believe there are only two options: this or nothing. I am opposed to the Better Together plan, since it appears to be a nuclear option which blows up my government in favor of some clean slate thing which is ill defined, but looks to leave the city holding the bag when all is said and done. That doesn't mean one needs to be opposed to everything. There is already lots of room for change, even as things stand now. If St. Louis simply reenters the county (which had regularly been presented as a real possibility before this) that would allow more and different changes.

But now those of us who are uncomfortable with this plan are to some extent characterized as wanting nothing. That's not remotely the case. This isn't binary. It's not this or nothing and I grow weary of the assumption that it is. Momentum has been building for change for decades. And it's slowly beginning to happen. It will continue, with or without Better Together. Some versions will be faster. Some slower. Some more dramatic. But there will be change. No question about it. And in the coming future there will almost certainly be more, not less. No matter how this falls out.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Feb 23, 2019

I guess I am most troubled by the degree to which so many people seem to believe there are only two options: this or nothing. I am opposed to the Better Together plan, since it appears to be a nuclear option which blows up my government in favor of some clean slate thing which is ill defined, but looks to leave the city holding the bag when all is said and done. That doesn't mean one needs to be opposed to everything. There is already lots of room for change, even as things stand now. If St. Louis simply reenters the county (which had regularly been presented as a real possibility before this) that would allow more and different changes.

But now those of us who are uncomfortable with this plan are to some extent characterized as wanting nothing. That's not remotely the case. This isn't binary. It's not this or nothing and I grow weary of the assumption that it is. Momentum has been building for change for decades. And it's slowly beginning to happen. It will continue, with or without Better Together. Some versions will be faster. Some slower. Some more dramatic. But there will be change. No question about it. And in the coming future there will almost certainly be more, not less. No matter how this falls out.

It's not binary in theory, but unfortunately, I think it is binary in practice.
People have been discussing city-county merger for years. Has there been any proposal with more or less wide political support from both county and city interests? No. To the extent of my knowledge, this is the first one in many years. The alternative in my view is to keep discussing alternatives in Internet message boards and south city bars that will likely never come to fruition due to being politically infeasible.

Don't get me wrong - I understand your concerns and as I implied in my previous posts, I don't see this proposal as ideal. However, I think that it offers an alternative that is better than the status quo. Knowing something about local government politics, my understanding is that if this proposal gets shot down, it might take another generation until something new and that is politically feasible (i.e. garners support from both city and county governments) to come up. And, in the meantime, St Louis schools will keep getting worse as the city bleeds population and the tax base shrinks --- the city will keep marching towards irrelevance and obscurity.

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Feb 24, 2019

There's nothing keeping us from pushing legislation through to help solve these talking points and complex issues with schools after the fact.

There's nothing keeping us from addressing all of these problems without a costly, messy, unnecessary, arbitrary redrawing of a "metro city" (or whatever-tf it's called) and its appointee "mayor".. So yea.

How exactly is reunifying the City with the county "arbitrary"?

Ebsy wrote: ↑

Feb 24, 2019

How exactly is reunifying the City with the county "arbitrary"?

Municipal boundaries remain, but are neutered in their local control...except for fire departments, fire districts (which have an out of control salary and spending problem...but we won't touch those ( to IAFF)), and public schools, and the current county executive is appointed leader without a vote...with a second in command that's also appointed, and..

Of course I realize none of this is truly arbitrary. It was all designed to ignore the difficult problems, placate certain interest groups, cover up the true cost of the merger, and effectively buy votes. But rolling dice would have resulted in a structure just as nonsensical.

This recall "effort" of Krewson by Bosley, JCM and Boyd is certainly not a total waste of time and grab for attention and is not motivated by anything other than their sincere beliefs.

^ definitely not. and JCM is definitely not a giant hypocrite (voting against Spencer's public vote on airport privatization bill) and on Reed's payroll (which apparently is somehow not illegal in this sh*t-show of a city).

Wasn't JCM the guy who tried to call for another vote on the reduction of the alderman, strategically to be held during the vote with the lowest expected turnout? Dude just really, really does not want to lose his cubical in City Hall.

He's also the guy who thinks traffic laws don't apply to him. He's been busted numerous times for traffic violations and driving with a suspended license.

"...Information later provided to the Post-Dispatch by the Missouri Department of Revenue lists several arrests for driving with a suspended license on his driving record, dating to 2014 and across the state.

...Collins-Muhammad had three outstanding unpaid tickets, according to the department: One from Pine Lawn for a speeding ticket issued in April 2011 for traveling 43 mph in a 30 mph zone; another from Ferguson issued in October 2015 for driving while his license was suspended or revoked; and another from St. Louis issued in May 2016 for driving with a suspended or revoked license. In that case, his license had been revoked in November 2014 after a number of moving violations and his failure to appear for court dates..."

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/cri ... 79990.html