urbanSTL

Alex is right. Never use the word merger. We should go for reentry and call it that.

Alex Ihnen wrote:^ First, find language to identify the problem, and better yet the opportunities, without every again saying "merger".

Time to edit the title of this thread?

Since counties are defined at the state level, would the entire state vote on merging the city back into St. Louis County? How would they vote? Would the city and county even have a say in this? Could it be done by the Chess Master with a state proposition or amendment?

How do we get an estimate for how much it'll cost/save to combine departments? I think it'll be important to tell people "By combining the Sheriff's Dept it'll initially cost X for severance/reorg and then each year it'll save Y"

What depts would certainly be combined with reentry? Sheriff, Assessor, Treasurer, Health, Parks?

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/prin ... shape.html

Last month, the county executive’s race took an unexpected turn in St. Louis County when incumbent Charlie Dooley embraced the notion of a city-county merger. Republican challenger Bill Corrigan’s campaign jumped on the prospect and ran against “Dooley’s merger.”
Sensing a new vulnerability in a frightening political climate, Dooley eased off the suggestion. Now, though, with the electoral storm passed, the idea remains. And Dooley’s strategic retreat may help a calmer assessment of the proposal take root.
Instead of the politically charged “merger,” the good government types in both the city and county are interested in something quite different, and much less grand.
Mayor Francis Slay has proposed that the city of St. Louis becomes the 92nd municipality within St. Louis County. It would be like all the other municipalities, though by population it would be a giant among dwarf and munchkin municipalities such as Country Life Acres and Huntleigh.
Everything about the city of St. Louis would remain the same; and everything about all the other municipalities would stay unchanged as well.
The biggest change would be in the realm of taxes, and it would be a net benefit to the county. City residents would begin paying the county property tax. This was brought to my attention by David Stokes, who worked for former County Council member Kurt Odenwald and now is a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute.


Read more: City-county merger changes shape post-election | St. Louis Business Journal

Sounds good to me!

Good, reentry is the most politically viable option. Are there any citizen groups working on this? How do I start one?

In 1876 a line was drawn that has scarred our community for 134 years. It is time we erase it!

I'm getting the ball rolling on St Louis Unite, a citizen's group to work for City reetnry into the County. If I read the legal statute at the top of this thread correctly, it seems we need a combination of a City to River-type effort to convince the politicians via the endorsement of community stakeholders and a petition to put it on the ballot, then a Prop A-type campaign to convince voters to pass it. The first part may be well underway since certainly Mayor Slay is on board and the process of convincing the Board of Alderman may be commencing. It seems Co Exec Dooley is on board and I have no idea how the County Council feels. Finding out where they all stand will help guide our efforts.

I've registered domain name stlunite.org, made a rudimentary website and blog, set up a Facebook page, and a Twitter page. I have a friend working on a professional-looking logo. Do any of you all want to get involved? Definitely need help with the website. As you can see my web development skills are stuck in the 90s. Also are there any legal-eagles out there who know if indeed Missouri Statute 47.310 applies and what the petition language would look like, if necessary? We need to find out the short and long term costs and savings of the County taking over the City's county-type departments. Has someone done this already? Please PM me or write to stlunite@gmail.com.

Thanks
Richard Bose

This is a bit of a tangent from the City-County merger, but what about all the county municipalities? I definitely agree that the city needs to re-enter the county, and that there will be some government savings and better cooperation. I think all the municipalities in the county is an even bigger problem, though, in terms of waste and TIF abuse. I know some of the municipalities already cooperate and share services, but just as many don't and some of the municipalities are ridiculously small. Is there anything that can be done to promote more consolidation? If St. Louis re-entered the county, is there any way to start a county-wide push for more consolidation?

Mayor Lowery of Florissant is pushing for a State law that would compel munis in the County smaller than some number to consolidate or dissolve. I agree this is an important step as well. I suppose it could be done by ballot initiative, but it seems weird to have the whole state voting on this.

If we could get the state legislature to pass such a law sooner rather than later that would be great. If the City were a part of the County and was pushing for it too that would help. Also if the City were in the County some of the tiny munis could combine with the City if they wished. Either way we need to focus on doing something and at the moment there seems to be momentum and a realistic chance that Reentry could happen.

^agreed, we have to feed off this momentum. What's the next step? Getting endorsements? Controlling the narrative? This issue usually tends to open of the floodgates on a multitude of issues. I think people need to see what can be accomplished by the environment this could create. Thanks quincunx, for making your website and best of luck with it. I have $20 willing to contribute to the campaign. Print up flyers, whatever it takes.

Besides getting the technical stuff in order, the first thing to do is take the temperature of the Board of Alderman and the County Council. I'd hate to run around getting signatures for a petition if the work of convincing them is already done. Or if the best way to convince them is not by a bunch of signatures but endorsements from community stakeholders.

Definitely need to control the narrative. For example I'd like this to be on ballot for Nov 2012. At some point the B of A and the Co Council will vote to put it on the ballot. We need to provide cover from the inevitable opposition. It'd be a tragedy if the they were prepared to vote to put it on the ballot and then something like this "Most Dangerous City" crap derails the whole thing.

The City Recorder of Deeds handles real estate records and property tax too. Real estate records are Land Information Services while property tax is Collector of Revenue. LIS adds $700k while Collector of Revenue adds $3,140k. Collector of Revenue also handles Assessment, but the assessment costs ($12.15M) are paid out of a separate fund.
Which, if you are combining the Recorder, you can also combine the Board of Equalization: $12.4k City, $590K County. That also eliminates a large chunk of the CIN for the City, as they would no longer be maintaining land records.

marigolds wrote:The City Recorder of Deeds handles real estate records and property tax too. Real estate records are Land Information Services while property tax is Collector of Revenue. LIS adds $700k while Collector of Revenue adds $3,140k. Collector of Revenue also handles Assessment, but the assessment costs ($12.15M) are paid out of a separate fund.
Which, if you are combining the Recorder, you can also combine the Board of Equalization: $12.4k City, $590K County. That also eliminates a large chunk of the CIN for the City, as they would no longer be maintaining land records.

Question asked and answered! One of the reasons I enjoy this place!

Thanks! I will crunch the numbers. Is my analysis method prudent? Where might it fail? My assumptions are if the County takes over a dept it can maintain its per capita efficiency, and it'll scale one-to-one with population (so no economies of scale). Are those realistic? Am I making other assumptions I don't realize?

If the city and the county were to do a full merger, which municipalities do you think the city would absorb?

Under reentry none of the munis get absorbed into the City. Of course afterwards it is at least possible for any of the munis and unincorporated areas adjacent to the City to be annexed if both sides wanted too. My hope is that Mayor Lowery's proposal to compel the tiny ones to combine or dissolve comes to pass. If the City is a part of the County before that then the City can put its weight behind getting it passed in the legislature and hopefully some of the tiny munis would choose to be annexed into the City. I think it's important to maintain everyone's right to self determination in the push for City Reentry, otherwise it'd be just another reason to oppose it.

For the city specifically, I would be interested to know the ratio of Alderpeople to citizens? What, comparatively, is a good number? Seems as though we could definitely realize some efficiencies there. Anything less than four digits seems completely worthless.

Point being, if we look at our wards as small "munis", then we might be able to conduct the same exercise Lowery is proposing.

356,000 people/28 aldermen = 12,714