urbanSTL

Hmmm, starving the tiny munis sounds good. On the flip side what would the mayor think if all sales were like car sales where the sales tax goes to the muni where you reside? Isn't going to another town and paying sales tax to it taxation without representation (so say earnings tax detractors in the County)?

^^ yes! Alex - thank you for posting the link. I totally missed the article by Darren and only caught the Fox 2 story as my wife was in the hospital giving birth to our son. I almost felt compelled to leave the hospital and picket Fenton city hall, almost.

quincunx wrote:Hmmm, starving the tiny munis sounds good.

Let me take it one step further. "Municipalities" in their current design, are prehistoric and growth prohibitive. That there is political energy spent worrying about this initiative is, in itself, vomit inducing.

As I stated before, I've spent a good amount of time speaking with and receiving tax revenue information from the St. Louis County Assistant Treasurer, Cindy Williams (who is very nice, might I add). Municipalities, literally, manage sales tax and utility tax revenues to be spent largely on police and admin services (organic or contracted through the county). That sentence compromises roughly 85% of a municipalities day to day operations. Parks and Rec, Building Divisions, Street Maintenance, etc. make up the rest.

For a municipality like Fenton, with a mind-blowing population of ~4700, does it seem prudent to have an "Administrative" budget expenditure of $1.8M and a police budget expenditure of $2.3M, especially considering their primary revenues are sales and utility taxes equaling ~$4M? Its asisnine!

Now multiply that issue over the countless other municipalities in St. Louis. The amount of money wasted is appalling and far larger than TIF. Why we're not growing as a region is not a mystery.

I'm aggressively pursuing a meeting with Dooley to discuss this issue. At the end of the day, Dooley and the County is the keystone piece. Merging St. Louis with the County is paramount but not the major issue.

Effort Underway to Merge St. Louis City, County Development
Kevin Killeen
April 4, 2011 5:22 AM

link: http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2011/04/04/ ... velopment/

Positive news! Anybody have any more information on this?

shadrach wrote:Should have been done 20 years ago!!

If this happens I like to see them market the corridor—DT, Grand, West End, Loop, Clayton (River/Delmar/64/170) as some sort of 'Metro Central' and do what they can to get out-of-state relocation and new retailers to STL within this area.

I've think about this often. We should focus on making the central corridor a world class business/residential district that crosses county lines. One dense, transit friendly corridor from Downtown to Clayton.

goat314 wrote:Effort Underway to Merge St. Louis City, County Development
Kevin Killeen
April 4, 2011 5:22 AM

link: http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2011/04/04/ ... velopment/

How long will it be before the City and County can consider St. Louis UNIPOL -- the combined city and county police force?

from goat314's post:

mandatory reading for anybody that loves St. Louis.

http://www.mc4be.com/STL_Intergovt_Report.pdf

^ Have you read it? You would be all over it. The City would have tons of money to get rid of those nasty vacant lots, seriously.

Alex Ihnen wrote:I have.

What were your thoughts? You didn't like it?

Well written story from across the state that is applicaable to the region and why economic development offices should be combined. You could replace Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KS with St. Louis County and St. Louis City respectively in this NY Times website article that discusses relocation of business within a region instead of effectively competing regionally for new business to move into the area.

Businesses Stand to Gain Most in Rivalry of States
By A. G. SULZBERGER
Published: April 7, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/us/08 ... =2&_r=1&hp

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 40f99.html

New article in the Post-Dispatch about how the city and county are discussing joining more services.

Encouraging to see that they're at least talking about it.

rawest wrote:http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 40f99.html

New article in the Post-Dispatch about how the city and county are discussing joining more services.

Encouraging to see that they're at least talking about it.

I posted this in the Prop E thread, but I am wondering if the topic needs a thread of its own.

A nice piece by Ray Hartmann

http://www.stlmag.com/St-Louis-Magazine ... in-Denial/#

Did anyone happen to attend this or hear anything about it?

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt ... f6878.html