What keeps the two entities from collaborating and realizing those savings without merging? Is there something legally preventing them from doing this?
If the school day for those kids is only 8 hours long and they get summer vacation, then it isn't surprising that it failed. Since those kids' parents suck balls, they need a 12 hour long school day for 11 months out of the year, with an additional 2 hour homework period tacked onto that. I don't care about politics on this one - those kids need to have next to no exposure to their families and neighborhoods. Doing it takes two shifts of teachers every day. If you want to end the cycle of stupid - the crime in the city, the low achievement in SLPS - twenty years of that will solve it. But the time for approaching it in a halfassed manner, and caring what the history books say about it, is done. That time was over a generation ago.When I lived in St. Louis Hills, the Nottingham School was just that for a couple years. There were so many problems (it was like Lord of the Flies) that the SLPS abandoned the experiment.
My wife is a certified teacher, she knows teachers. The biggest impediment to student success is family life/parents. If parents don't value education (and the numbers and severity of parent apathy is shocking) then students are almost destined to fail.
And this is without a doubt the biggest issue for city/county mergers. It drives crime, perptuates poverty, and continues to make the city an extremely hard sell for families, which keeps businesses from putting their campuses there. Which is a terrible shame, because STL has, without any contest at all, the best planning and architecture in the region. It would be such a great place.
re: St. Louis Public Schools
There's a lot of cross-pollination between the city government and the SLPS (which I don't really think is a good thing, honestly), so obviously that would need to be worked out, but in terms of a merger of the City/County political institutions, it seems like this would be doable without touching the school district boundaries.
I guess I'm not seeing the SLPS as an impediment to a City/County merger (or reintegration of the City into the County, or whatever you want to call it.) SLPS would become another district in the county just like dozens of others.onecity wrote:And this is without a doubt the biggest issue for city/county mergers. It drives crime, perptuates poverty, and continues to make the city an extremely hard sell for families, which keeps businesses from putting their campuses there. Which is a terrible shame, because STL has, without any contest at all, the best planning and architecture in the region. It would be such a great place.
There's a lot of cross-pollination between the city government and the SLPS (which I don't really think is a good thing, honestly), so obviously that would need to be worked out, but in terms of a merger of the City/County political institutions, it seems like this would be doable without touching the school district boundaries.
The issues are intertwined, but I don't think we should refrain from pushing reforms in other areas because schools are one of the biggest problems. Should we wait to try to reduce the BoA or try to get local control of the PD until the schools are good?
Another example- Should we not try to keep Historic Tax Credits to help save our built environment because we're worried bad schools will scare people away from buying rehabbed buildings?
Yes, bad schools makes the reentry argument harder but so do crime rates and a dysfunctional city gov't (too many aldermen as a part of that). Reentry doesn't change school district boundaries. Neither does merger of 91 municipal gov'ts with StL County.
Another example- Should we not try to keep Historic Tax Credits to help save our built environment because we're worried bad schools will scare people away from buying rehabbed buildings?
Yes, bad schools makes the reentry argument harder but so do crime rates and a dysfunctional city gov't (too many aldermen as a part of that). Reentry doesn't change school district boundaries. Neither does merger of 91 municipal gov'ts with StL County.
1. Since what happens is that St Louis County expands to cover the city and the County of the City of St Louis goes away, we say reentry will cause some of the corrupt (perceived or real) departments in the city to go away. Also with the city in the county there could be more influence leveraged to encourage the city to shape up. For instance encouraging common best practices in all the munis. The county TIF commission would now have a say in city TIFs.stlhistory wrote:Two big issues I see to city reentry to the county (and I haven't seen a good way to resolve them on the thread):
1. Fear of perceived corruption in the city spreading like a disease to the county among West County and South County voters.
2. Questions about taxation and representation; the same voters above see little benefit in welcoming to the county council's constituency 150,000 generally liberal, pro-tax voters.
2. I struggle with this myself. The bigger county will be more Democratic; there's no getting around it. If fear of that is a voter's chief reason for voting against it, I'd figure they would have found another reason to oppose it anyways. We should focus on other voters' trepidations that we might be able to sway.
Part of me agrees but a bigger part of me isn't willing to live in a country where we allow (or forced into) turning our children over wholesale to the government or some 'authority that knows better.' Though in this case—it does know better—it gives me the draconian willies.onecity wrote:Since those kids' parents suck balls, they need a 12 hour long school day for 11 months out of the year, with an additional 2 hour homework period tacked onto that. I don't care about politics on this one - those kids need to have next to no exposure to their families and neighborhoods.
What numbers should one see in order to justify forging ahead? Let's say they look favorable. How much should one expect them to erode when a vocal opposition responds to an effort to get it done?STLEnginerd wrote:Has there been any polling to suggest whether there is support for a merger. Both Slay and Dooley played lip service but my feeling in the county is that about a third of people say "no we don't want all the cities problems" and two thirds say "city?, county? what the heck are you talking about" If reentry made it to the ballot would it pass would it even be close?
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^Prop R passed with 61% in the city, so there's an appetite for reform (although it's unrelated directly to reentry). A lot of the opposition that was vocalized was from north wards, so has anyone asked the northern aldermen how they would feel about reentry?
Not sure if this has been put out there, but UMSL made a report that draws out the salient issues.
http://pprc.umsl.edu/data/MetropolitanM ... eentry.pdf
Not sure if this has been put out there, but UMSL made a report that draws out the salient issues.
http://pprc.umsl.edu/data/MetropolitanM ... eentry.pdf
Polling!
Fact Sheet
Toplines September 2012 State of Missouri
Executive Summary
Fact Sheet
Toplines September 2012 State of Missouri
Executive Summary
Would love to see this happen....even full reunification, but would settle for reentry. I never thought we would reduce the board of alderman or get control of our police department. Maybe this has a chance with the new generation of people coming up.
In inauguration address Slay says city will rejoin the county - this decade -
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt ... d893d.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt ... d893d.html
Mayor Slay expressed his support in his 3rd Inaugural Address too. This time even more enthusiastically.
It definitely feels closer to happening.
"In this decade" seems like a ways away. Let's get it on the ballot next fall I say.
It definitely feels closer to happening.
"In this decade" seems like a ways away. Let's get it on the ballot next fall I say.
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http://stlworldclasscity.com/ These are the people working on a bill to do this, but it won't be until 2016.
^^They've decided to remain outspoken, make speeches and keep the issue out there and leave the bill writing and campaigning to others
You're probably right things won't be ready until 2016. I realize this is bigger than Prop R or P, but those seemed to happen really quickly. Polling from last fall was decent. I guess I'm just getting impatient.
You're probably right things won't be ready until 2016. I realize this is bigger than Prop R or P, but those seemed to happen really quickly. Polling from last fall was decent. I guess I'm just getting impatient.
I wasn't aware of any polling last fall; what were the polls about and what were the findings?quincunx wrote:^^They've decided to remain outspoken, make speeches and keep the issue out there and leave the bill writing and campaigning to others
You're probably right things won't be ready until 2016. I realize this is bigger than Prop R or P, but those seemed to happen really quickly. Polling from last fall was decent. I guess I'm just getting impatient.
Here you go.
quincunx wrote:Polling!
Fact Sheet
Toplines September 2012 State of Missouri
Executive Summary
We'll see what comes of this:
Rep Chuck Gatschenberger files HJR39- #STl City/County merger (no text yet) http://www.house.mo.gov/billsummary.asp ... 013&code=R
And HJR40- #STL City reentry into StL County
http://www.house.mo.gov/billsummary.asp ... 013&code=R
Rep Chuck Gatschenberger files HJR39- #STl City/County merger (no text yet) http://www.house.mo.gov/billsummary.asp ... 013&code=R
And HJR40- #STL City reentry into StL County
http://www.house.mo.gov/billsummary.asp ... 013&code=R
I feel like the merger talk it a total nonstarter and I wish people would stop throwing it around, because it confuses the general public and distracts from the more attainable goal of city re-entry into the county.
Agreed, complete merger won't pass. Reentry has a chance.
I understand the seduction of merger as it'll get rid of the 90 munis too and the problems that they create. That's the "reentry doesn't go far enough" camp.
Others are motivated by the bad rap we get from stats that only count the city of St Louis. Reentry doesn't do much to mitigate that. Only merger gets the thing called St Louis to be the 7th (or 8th) largest city in America or makes the crime stats cover 1.3 million people.
But merger won't pass. It's too much change too fast. We need to focus on reentry, discuss its pros/cons, figure out the details of transition, and make it happen.
I understand the seduction of merger as it'll get rid of the 90 munis too and the problems that they create. That's the "reentry doesn't go far enough" camp.
Others are motivated by the bad rap we get from stats that only count the city of St Louis. Reentry doesn't do much to mitigate that. Only merger gets the thing called St Louis to be the 7th (or 8th) largest city in America or makes the crime stats cover 1.3 million people.
But merger won't pass. It's too much change too fast. We need to focus on reentry, discuss its pros/cons, figure out the details of transition, and make it happen.
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^What is the political maneuvering behind these two proposals? Gatschenberger is a Republican from Lake St. Louis. I don't get it.
He's the chair of the Local Government Committee. Also since it's a constitutional amendment it needs outstate and Republican support so it's good he's not from St Louis city or county. It's also good that he's a Republican because reentry could be portrayed as a Democratic power-grab since the bigger county will be more Democratic.
As for the timing, I don't know.
The HJR has no details so it may be to jump start the discussion.
As for the timing, I don't know.
The HJR has no details so it may be to jump start the discussion.
Putting on my political hat...
My initial thought is that the merger bill HJR 39 is just the "shot across the bow". Notice there isn't even a document written for it yet but already a document for the HJR 40. It sounds like he is using HJR 39 to get what he really wants, HJR 40. Scare people with the merger talk so adding the city to the county doesn't sound so bad.
Who knows why he of all people wants to do this. Hopefully, its a noble purpose.
My initial thought is that the merger bill HJR 39 is just the "shot across the bow". Notice there isn't even a document written for it yet but already a document for the HJR 40. It sounds like he is using HJR 39 to get what he really wants, HJR 40. Scare people with the merger talk so adding the city to the county doesn't sound so bad.
Who knows why he of all people wants to do this. Hopefully, its a noble purpose.
On this talk, I fall between merger and status quo. Romantically, part of me like St. Louis as an Independent City (it's the outlier in me.) I guess that comes from the fact the St. Louis was settled before Missouri existed and before the United States even existed. I think that's cool and being Independent feels like a link to our history.
(I know, we were in the county once...1876...divorce...)
St. Louis Word Class City had an interesting angle. That is to petition the Feds so St. Louis City and County are consider as one 'statistical city.' That is, crime and census data of both entities are reported together as one. That would make St. Louis City/County that 7th or 8th largest city and drop off the crime data listings and keep things the way they are. That sounds like eating cake you have. I'm not sure why that's not gaining traction.
(I know, we were in the county once...1876...divorce...)
St. Louis Word Class City had an interesting angle. That is to petition the Feds so St. Louis City and County are consider as one 'statistical city.' That is, crime and census data of both entities are reported together as one. That would make St. Louis City/County that 7th or 8th largest city and drop off the crime data listings and keep things the way they are. That sounds like eating cake you have. I'm not sure why that's not gaining traction.
Confused on your sentiments, re entry of the city into the county which I believe was introduced would still for all intents and purposes keep the city independent with its own police, fire, city hall, neighborhoods, alderman/wards/neighborhoods, and so on. I don't see this as changing the character at all.shadrach wrote:On this talk, I fall between merger and status quo. Romantically, part of me like St. Louis as an Independent City (it's the outlier in me.) I guess that comes from the fact the St. Louis was settled before Missouri existed and before the United States even existed. I think that's cool and being Independent feels like a link to our history.
(I know, we were in the county once...1876...divorce...)