I went to a lunch meeting of the St Louis County Pachyderms yesterday. They are a group of politically active Republicans that don't endorse primary candidates or positions, but meet to talk about issues with a guest speaker at the lunches. There was about 25 people there including two state reps.
The speaker yesterday was David Stokes who is Republican committeeman for Clayton Township. He also works for the Show-Me Institute and made it clear he was not there in that capacity. The subject was reentry.
He made sure to state how reentry is different from merger, which is a must for anyone talking about this subject.
He touched on most of the benefits we've talked about here. He said it'd be illegal for the county to bail-out the city's pension systems or debt obligations so no need to worry about that.
His main benefit being that since the city would be paying county property taxes and since it would remain incorporated the county's property tax levy would likely go down. Here's his write-up on that:
http://showmeinstitute.org/publications ... eturn.html
He said of course it would be bad politically for Republicans since the bigger county would be more Democratic, but that what's best for the community should out-rank what's best for a party.
He also expressed disappointment that the Republican Central Committee had passed a resolution opposing all of this. He felt it was premature and that the Republicans should engage in the issue. There's plenty of time to declare opposition later, why now? He would have been the lone dissenting vote had he been in town for the vote.
In the Q&A worries were expressed about how a more Democratically strong county might put its thumb down on areas not supportive of the Dems. One man from South County was very concerned having gone through the trash contract stuff a few years ago and now the low-income senior housing project on Telegraph. David encouraged them to incorporate in order to have zoning control. The man said they were looking into forming there own county. He was certainly the one most against, at least of those vocal about it.
No one brought up race or crime.
The chap across the table from me said he was on-board for sure. I think most at the very least agreed with David that it would be best for Republicans to be a part of the conversation.
All in all a good lunch and conversation. It was definitely worth the trip to Frontenac. They plan on having an opposed speaker on July 12.
The speaker yesterday was David Stokes who is Republican committeeman for Clayton Township. He also works for the Show-Me Institute and made it clear he was not there in that capacity. The subject was reentry.
He made sure to state how reentry is different from merger, which is a must for anyone talking about this subject.
He touched on most of the benefits we've talked about here. He said it'd be illegal for the county to bail-out the city's pension systems or debt obligations so no need to worry about that.
His main benefit being that since the city would be paying county property taxes and since it would remain incorporated the county's property tax levy would likely go down. Here's his write-up on that:
http://showmeinstitute.org/publications ... eturn.html
He said of course it would be bad politically for Republicans since the bigger county would be more Democratic, but that what's best for the community should out-rank what's best for a party.
He also expressed disappointment that the Republican Central Committee had passed a resolution opposing all of this. He felt it was premature and that the Republicans should engage in the issue. There's plenty of time to declare opposition later, why now? He would have been the lone dissenting vote had he been in town for the vote.
In the Q&A worries were expressed about how a more Democratically strong county might put its thumb down on areas not supportive of the Dems. One man from South County was very concerned having gone through the trash contract stuff a few years ago and now the low-income senior housing project on Telegraph. David encouraged them to incorporate in order to have zoning control. The man said they were looking into forming there own county. He was certainly the one most against, at least of those vocal about it.
No one brought up race or crime.
The chap across the table from me said he was on-board for sure. I think most at the very least agreed with David that it would be best for Republicans to be a part of the conversation.
All in all a good lunch and conversation. It was definitely worth the trip to Frontenac. They plan on having an opposed speaker on July 12.
