urbanSTL

quincunx wrote: ↑

Nov 01, 2017

Remember the BT fire reorg scenario included achieving 4 min response time everywhere requiring more fire houses and firefighters. An example of how spreading-out costs a lot, the other force bankrupting us.

Which I contend is a wholly unnecessary benchmark. Literally billions of dollars spent for an unrealistic outcome for scenarios (structure fires) that are at an all-time low and going lower.

It isn't spreading out that's bankrupting us (at least not in this case); those who live in the hills of Wildwood - and their insurance carriers - know that it might take a fire truck longer to get there. And everyone is fine with that; nobody is complaining about response time. But it's BT (and various labor unions, if I had to guess) baking these unrealistic assumptions of response time and inflated salaries into their estimates. They shot themselves in the foot.

Had the opportunity to spend an hour with my Missouri state rep, who will go nameless for this post. The airport privatization idea is all about city/county merger.

The county does not want to take on the city's pension liabilities, debt, etc.

Selling the airport to a private entity may produce the funds to pay off some of the city's debt. It may also help create a stable fund to meet the city's pension liability.

This all makes the city's finances more palpable for a vote to merge.

*** My takeaway from this discussion is that there are people in this area who are 5-10 steps ahead of the emotional blowhards who scream for a merger.

The facts are that this is a difficult, complex process.

One other takeaway: discussions are also in place that when a vote is presented, cutting the municipality count from 91 down to 30-ish is desirable. But another problem: all these little fiefdoms have employees with their nice little pensions that have to be accounted for..

It's a mess, but can be surmounted. The state does not want to have a vote, they'd rather have the vote be amongst the city and county citizens.

But the state will amend its constitution if needed to allow a vote.

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Nov 09, 2017

Selling the airport to a private entity may produce the funds to pay off some of the city's debt. It may also help create a stable fund to meet the city's pension liability.

As discussed in the airport thread though, this assumes that money is magicked out of thin air. The city gets money, the airport workers get money, and the private operator makes a profit. Everybody wins and nobody loses. This doesn't add up.

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Nov 09, 2017

Had the opportunity to spend an hour with my Missouri state rep, who will go nameless for this post. The airport privatization idea is all about city/county merger.

The county does not want to take on the city's pension liabilities, debt, etc.

Selling the airport to a private entity may produce the funds to pay off some of the city's debt. It may also help create a stable fund to meet the city's pension liability.

This all makes the city's finances more palpable for a vote to merge.

*** My takeaway from this discussion is that there are people in this area who are 5-10 steps ahead of the emotional blowhards who scream for a merger.

The facts are that this is a difficult, complex process.

One other takeaway: discussions are also in place that when a vote is presented, cutting the municipality count from 91 down to 30-ish is desirable. But another problem: all these little fiefdoms have employees with their nice little pensions that have to be accounted for..

It's a mess, but can be surmounted. The state does not want to have a vote, they'd rather have the vote be amongst the city and county citizens.

But the state will amend its constitution if needed to allow a vote.

Sounds like they are going the re-entry route, which in my opinion, that juice ain't worth the squeeze. 30 munis? That's still way too many for a county the size of St. Louis. I guess you have to walk before you crawl, but Louisville was able to do this in the recent past. I think Louisville actually retained it's municipalities, but the big departments (health, fire, police, planning etc.) are actually done at the county level.

I don't mind going down to 30 munis with reentry... if part of the consolidation is that Richmond Heights, Clayton, Maplewood, etc, etc are consolidating INTO the city.

jstriebel wrote: ↑

Nov 09, 2017

I don't mind going down to 30 munis with reentry... if part of the consolidation is that Richmond Heights, Clayton, Maplewood, etc, etc are consolidating INTO the city.

you mean STL City, RH, Clayton, Maplewood, etc. merging into one county muni?

goat314 wrote: ↑

Nov 09, 2017

Sounds like they are going the re-entry route, which in my opinion, that juice ain't worth the squeeze. 30 munis? That's still way too many for a county the size of St. Louis. I guess you have to walk before you crawl, but Louisville was able to do this in the recent past. I think Louisville actually retained it's municipalities, but the big departments (health, fire, police, planning etc.) are actually done at the county level.

I'd be happy with re-entry, because it at least provides a single county government that can debate these issues going forward, which is a huge leap ahead of what we have now.

but I wanna be the 9th largest city. Why is St. Louis always satisfied with just okay? Nashville feels like a future metro of 5 million, meanwhile we're fine with plateauing. In a year we're going to celebrate coming in 3rd or 4th for Amazon HQ2, while it goes to some place like Nashville.

urban_dilettante wrote: ↑

Nov 09, 2017

jstriebel wrote: ↑

Nov 09, 2017

I don't mind going down to 30 munis with reentry... if part of the consolidation is that Richmond Heights, Clayton, Maplewood, etc, etc are consolidating INTO the city.

you mean STL City, RH, Clayton, Maplewood, etc. merging into one county muni?

Yes. Essentially there'd still be a number of STL County munis, but STL city would be one of them and would expand it's borders greatly. I'd be very satisfied with that.

I do not find that the least bit likely, however.

Saw this on the agenda tonight for the City of Clayton BOA meeting:

Resolution – To approve an opposition to the statewide election process. (Res. No. 17-23)
 To consider opposing any statewide vote or legislative mandate on changes to the governmental structure of the City and/or County, including the municipalities.

Found this in the October 10 meeting minutes:

A MOTION TO CONSIDER THE APPOINTMENTS OF THE CHAIR AND THE VICE CHAIR TO
THE CHARTER ADVISORY TASK FORCE
City Manager Owens reported that Per Ordinance No. 6493 which established the Charter
Advisory Task Force, Section 5, requires that the Board of Aldermen shall appoint a Chairman
and Vice Chairman of the Charter Advisory Task Force, both of whom shall serve until the
submission of the Task Force’s report to the Aldermen.
Motion was made by Alderman Winings to approve the appointments of Cynthia
Garnholz as Chairman and Mark Winings as Vice-Chairman to the Charter Advisory Task
Force. Alderman Lintz seconded.
The motion passed unanimously on a voice vote.

Alderman Winings reported on the following:
• The Charter Advisory Task Force met last week and he feels that they have a good
group of citizens to represent the Task Force; two meetings have been scheduled for
November.

Alderman Lintz reported on the following:
• The Municipal League met last month and heard a presentation from Dr. Mark Tranel,
Director of the Public Policy Research Center at UM on a study on the cost of regional
governments for St. Louis City and County versus Indianapolis as compared to the
Better Together report.

Alderman Harris reported on the following:
• Better Together STL is holding several Town Hall Meetings to discuss their report.

Mayor Sanger reported on the following:
• Attended the Better Together STL Forum at the Frontenac City Hall.
• Attended the Better Together City-County Task Force Town Hall Discussion with
Alderman Harris.

I don't like the idea of the state voters or MoLeg determining consolidation of St. Louis City and County. But the state was complicit in the great divorce back in 1876 and would play some role now if they were re-combined. The state has a stake in maintaining and growing the biggest economic engine in Missouri, and should want to encourage removal of barriers that hinder that engine.

At the very least, the state could put pressure on the City and County to merge many services voluntarily, simply by suggesting that if they don't, the state might need to require step in to avoid the increased cost to the state of bailing out failed portions of this region in Missouri -- especially if any towns start declaring bankruptcy.

Funny that now all the sudden these local municipal "politicians" suddenly pretend to care out state government overreaching into local affairs. Why did none of them cry foul when the state acted to override the City's minimum wage law or other similar laws recently? I'm calling BS.

SouthCityJR wrote: ↑

Nov 17, 2017

Funny that now all the sudden these local municipal "politicians" suddenly pretend to care out state government overreaching into local affairs. Why did none of them cry foul when the state acted to override the City's minimum wage law or other similar laws recently? I'm calling BS.

I believe the Municipal League opposed those as well.

After MOLEG undoes the spilt of 1876 and merges the City back into St Louis County, I suggest em we change the title of St Louis County Executive to Mayor of St Louis Municipalities. Then start transferring nonpolitical services to the county. That would include fire and police, but not zoning.


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^Why do you think the mayor would give up those tools? Sure, the city's sheriff's department could be done away with. And on a related note I could see some court consolidation. You could make a case for MPD to absorb StLCPD. MPD is about twice the size of StLCPD (2200 vs. 1100 as of 2016), but only costs a bit more than half again as much (135m vs. 84m, again from 2016.) That's not a terrible deal. But the needs are different enough I don't know that it would really translate into as much of a savings for the county as the numbers might indicate. And city and county fire needs are so different I'm not at all sure how you could even make it work. Sure, there could be room for the city department to consolidate with inner ring suburbs, but . . . I don't see any of the little municipalities giving up their cherished departments. And the idea of the city giving up control of vital city services just strikes me as ill-advised.

stlhistory wrote: ↑

Jan 02, 2018

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metr ... a6a62.html

Mackenzie is disincorporating due "apathy and age". The county will take over the parks department, snow removal, garbage contracting, and the police contract from Shrewsbury PD (which I didn't realize had its own department).

FWIW: The Shrewsbury police department is one of the few CALEA-accredited police departments among St. Louis County municipalities.

http://www.calea.org/content/calea-lead ... rey-keller

^ well, yeah. we're talking about municipalities on the order of 1000 people (many of which were created for the sole purpose of fostering segregation) versus a city of 300K with the infrastructural legacy of nearly a million. the direction of consolidation seems pretty obvious.

urban_dilettante wrote: ↑

Jan 02, 2018

^ well, yeah. we're talking about municipalities on the order of 1000 people (many of which were created for the sole purpose of fostering segregation) versus a city of 300K with the infrastructural legacy of nearly a million. the direction of consolidation seems pretty obvious.

I'm not really talking about the sizes though; I'm talking about the difference of attitude that leads to the same thing being referred to both as "retaining local control" and "giving up cherished departments" in the same sentence, one obviously implying good and another as selfish. (And indeed I'd like to see the various Bel-* police departments go away, but it seems like that could happen by enforcing minimum quality standards - the lack of which being the reason that I'd like to see them disappear in the first place, not their size).

And a city that has the "infrastructural legacy" to support a million people that hasn't adapted to a third of that population over the past six decades doesn't seem to be in any better position to dictate its future than a suburb of 25,000 (or 5,000 or 50,000) that provides good, consistent, quality services to its own citizens.

bprop wrote: ↑

Jan 02, 2018

So when municipalities want to retain control of certain functions locally, it's (snarkily) "giving up their cherished departments" but potentially asking St. Louis City to do the same strikes you as "ill-advised"?

Yep. As urban_dilettante implied it's all about context.

On the one hand you have modest representative government because you can't really not have government. On the other you have tiny government because somebody wanted to make sure their neighbor couldn't say anything to them.

I'd favor county municipalities consolidating. I'd favor small municipalities contracting out services they can't really afford to provide efficiently in-house. I'd even favor the city absorbing selected portions of the county, either voluntarily or otherwise. I would not, however, support the city giving up control of anything, particularly given the hostility of the rest of the metro area to said.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jan 03, 2018

On the one hand you have modest representative government because you can't really not have government. On the other you have tiny government because somebody wanted to make sure their neighbor couldn't say anything to them.

I'd favor county municipalities consolidating. I'd favor small municipalities contracting out services they can't really afford to provide efficiently in-house. I'd even favor the city absorbing selected portions of the county, either voluntarily or otherwise. I would not, however, support the city giving up control of anything, particularly given the hostility of the rest of the metro area to said.

Wow, so disingenuous. Among the Webster Groves, Kirkwoods, Florissants, Chesterfields, Maplewoods, and et ceteras, which "tiny governments" ... wanted to make sure their neighbor couldn't say anything to them? (I don't even know what that means, actually. Not the slightest hint). Remember, not every municipality is Velda City.