City County Merger

9ine Runner · PostJul 07, 2010#1012010-07-07T00:43+00:00

Moorlander wrote:I often hear:
- We don't want to inherit the problems of the City
- We'd lose our local identity
- We'd have to share $$$

identities could be retained at the neighborhood level - a lot of municipalities aren't any bigger,in terms of square miles, than city neighborhoods.

I'd rather share money than waste money.

I'd rather try and fix the problems of the city and the region rather than turn a blind eye.

I agree with ttricamo I'd love to see something done ala citytoriver.org on this matter.

someguy · PostJul 07, 2010#1022010-07-07T02:04+00:00

Arch_Genesis wrote: I'd rather share money than waste money.

the problem is that, for the county peeps, it is an initial waste of money. I agree that long term, the merger would be great, but at first, the countians are just going to be pissed that they have to help pay for the city police all of a sudden. People on this board have even admitted that crime rates are higher in the city and that the city police force isn't as good as the county police force, and it'll be tough to convince the countians that the cost will be worthwhile.

if you want to win the hearts of the countians, you have to argue in favor of their ideas. they don't like the idea of "sharing money," but if you say they're "investing" in the future of St. Louis, they'll be all over it.

9ine Runner · PostJul 07, 2010#1032010-07-07T05:24+00:00

^ frame it however you need to, I just wanna see the momentum continue

DaronDierkes · PostJul 07, 2010#1042010-07-07T08:02+00:00

Did you guys read mapping decline or fragmented by design? The history of Kinloch is heartbreaking.

Of options,

A - City becomes a municipality in the county
B - City and county merge and become one political entity
C - City annexes county

B and C are the same and both outrageously difficult. Option A seems very sensible and carries with it the possibility of the city annexing some inner-ring suburbs. Clayton would be a symbolic victory with major consequences. The many tiny towns of 'the Balkens' around UMSL would prosper greatly with unified leadership. The city annexing Wellston wouldn't do wonders for either, but could set the stage for others joining in later. Inner-ring suburbs have street grids that match the city's and they're mostly urban. Annexing a place like Spanish Lake or Wildwood would come with the expensive costs of maintaining long roads to individual houses.

Is there a group advocating for city-county merger?

Can we make a list of baby steps that can be taken to make the merger easier?

1) The three library systems in the city and county merged along with their respective non-profit foundations. One library card issued for everybody.

2) Dissolving the county offices in the city and letting the county take them over.

3) Renaming Forest Park Ave/Parkway as Market Street to symbolically link downtown and Clayton business communities along with the rest of the central corridor.

4) Merging police/fire/911 into a larger district is complicated, but seems generally supported. The afore-mentioned Balkans have way too many overlapping police districts.

What can you guys think of?

bchao524 · PostJul 07, 2010#1052010-07-07T14:49+00:00

5) Joint ownership of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport with St. Louis County. I've never really understood why it's city owned, but county citizens likely make up the majority of its users.

DaronDierkes · PostJul 07, 2010#1062010-07-07T15:03+00:00

^Who owns the Spirit of St. Louis Airport? What you suggest is a start, but an airport authority that controlled all the region's airports would be best. That would prevent one from undercutting another. If the city and county jointly ran Lambert and Spirit of St. Louis, then what of the Downtown Airport run by metro?

Lambert generates a lot of tax-revenue. It's tough to decide who gets it.

someguy · PostJul 07, 2010#1072010-07-07T16:47+00:00

ideas 1-3 are great on their own, but i think 4 and 5 should probably be marketed together as a sort of compromise. i've said before, the county isn't going to want to pay for city cops, but when you throw joint ownership of Lambert in there, the county might be a bit more willing.

ttricamo · PostJul 07, 2010#1082010-07-07T17:36+00:00

Here again, this discussion is effectively moot without a general "consolidation" of the entire St. Louis region.

Another detractor of "The Great Merge" would be loss of separation of school districts/taxing areas. A bit of irony, but many "conservative" areas of St. Louis are often areas with the highest real estate taxes, which obviously helps to keep those neighborhoods "selective" in terms of residency. That issue would have to be addressed as well. Perhaps create four "Burroughs": North, South, West, and Inner Ring? Perhaps each one of those has a governing body?

Carrying on with the "benefits" brainstorm, think of the tectonic shift in political dynamic in the overall region if the "The Great Merge" occurred. You would have less politicians and they would all have the impetus to make decisions based on the benefit of the whole St. Louis region; obvious and so wholly different than what happens now. One could almost sell the idea of the Great Merge by dollarizing the amount of time St. Louis area politicians spend trying to enhance their fiefdom as opposed to spending time enhancing all of St. Louis. That is a powerful message if conveyed correctly. Something to the effect of, "If all municipalities and the City of St. Louis merge, what would happen to the $100 million additional dollars currently spent maintaining their separate government bodies? Maybe we could finally drop the hammer on the idiots who own Ballpark Village!"

I'm going to make "brokering the merger of the entire St. Louis region" a life-time stretch goal for myself.

And get ready for this statement; Only concerning yourself with the City/County merger does nothing to fix the St. Louis Fragmentation Issue.

gone corporate · PostJul 13, 2010#1092010-07-13T03:49+00:00

I've had a different thought on the viability of merger after hearing a commenter on the Charlie Brennan show last week. He complained about various troubles from the City coming into the County and blamed it on the elected officials and the ingrained politics of the City. He sounded like an older fellow, not one waiting for inevitable death but one with a few gray hairs and some solid opinions. Namely, an actual voter.

We all know the City is totally dominated by Democrats. No one would argue that a Republican has much hope of getting even an aldermanic seat. Meanwhile, the County has plenty of Republicans and Democrats (all the while St. Charles County is dominated by Republicans).

Q: Would merger be such an issue if both the City and the County both had politicians who were Dems and GOPers?
Or: If political party affiliation wasn't so concentrated, would merger be more viable?

For the record, I am not advocating one political party over another. I've volunteered and worked for political candidates on both sides of the aisle, and I refuse to join either party personally. I bring this up as a general question of actual curiosity.

goat314 · PostJul 13, 2010#1102010-07-13T18:58+00:00

link: http://kwmuweb.streamguys.com/Slota/071210web_56k.asx

Alex Ihnen · PostJul 13, 2010#1112010-07-13T19:42+00:00

^ If you can, please include info to go along with a link - at least what it's a link to, the name of the program, etc.

The Louisville professor talks about Louisville consolidating on fourth try, in part because a consolidated Lexington was going to be larger than Louisville. Terry Jones states that 2/3 of St. Louisians like things they way they are and they should largely stay that way. He also thinks that any talk of consolidation is a diversion and uses civic energy better used for other things. Richard Ward thinks our municipal divisions create small thinking in St. Louis and recognizes that STL City rejoining STL County as a municipality would put the St. Louis region in the same place as Louisville BEFORE their merger. Professor Savitch says that Louisville can't find any real benefits to the merger. Bill Hudnut: Indy's AAA bond rating helped by consolidation and there were others savings for Indy/Marion County. Hudnut: "Consolidation engaged suburban leadership without diminishing the urban leadership" and made bringing Colts to Indy, etc. possible.

Link is to St. Louis on the Air
Guests:
Terry Jones, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science
University of Missouri - St. Louis
Author of "Fragmented by Design"

Richard Ward, CRE, CEcD, AICP
Vice President
Zimmer Real Estate Services
William Hudnut III
Managing Partner

Bill Hudnut Consultants LLC
Senior Resident Fellow Emeritus,The Urban Land Institute
Former Mayor of Indianpolis

Hank Savitch, Ph.D.
Professor of Urban and Public Affairs
University of Louisville

gone corporate · PostJul 13, 2010#1122010-07-13T19:50+00:00

goat314 wrote:link: http://kwmuweb.streamguys.com/Slota/071210web_56k.asx

An excellent broadcast and well worth it. Much oblidged.

With the broadcast, I take deference to the fellow from Louisville, where they had the dissolution of the city limits of Louisville with those of adjacent municipalities, while all remained a part of Jefferson County (KY). Where he saw minimal results, he also had a much more starting base of cooperative governments all under the umbrella of a regional entity. He even acknowledged as much differentiating Saint Louis and Louisville.

The only shared government for StL City and County is the State of Missouri, where the elected officials here share the same weight to the City and County as those in Springfield, New Madrid, Kansas City, or Potosi. Wherein, there is no leader of the Saint Louis Metropolitan Area, save Governor Nixon in Jefferson City. Think about that. The only shared government here is the small special entity, i.e. the Zoo-Museum District tax, MSD, and TrailNet.

With the evolution of the world's societies into globalization and multinational capitalism, we can only hope to grow as a metro area if we are able to deshackle ourselves of our myopic views of the world and ourselves. It's not that we should be fighting over a small pittance of business, jobs, and revenues between municipalities; we must compete for growth with the rest of the world.

Remember, A-B is now owned by a brewer in the Netherlands, run by a Brazilian, and has executive leadership in Manhattan; we should never forget that as we watch munis like Hazelwood and Bridgeton fight each other over a big box retailer.

Have to say it again: we could learn so much from Indianapolis' example.

dredger · PostJul 14, 2010#1132010-07-14T00:20+00:00

Gone Corporate, your Hazelwood versus Bridgeton comment in my mind actually suggests that the city in a lot of ways is positioned go forward more so then the county in a lot of ways if a merger never hamppens. I'm thinking in terms of 10, 15, 20 years out when the budget crises, the possible loss of city earnings taxes and regaining of police control might make for some hard choices in the city for the better. In the meantime, Hazelwood and Bridgeton might still be fighting.

On the second note, I can't see why county or should say former county residents like myself who consider themselves fiscal conservatives and would rather see consolidation of government services would not support what Slay is suggesting. Not a complete merger but esseantially consolidate typicall county functions in Clayton instead of having two seperate administrations in Clayton and Downtown doing the same thing. In my mind, this opens the bigger picture of Lambert and shared economic development and to a lesser extent Forest Park.

gary kreie · PostJul 14, 2010#1142010-07-14T01:33+00:00

There should be some savings with consolidation of taxing, law enforcement, assessments, and infrastructure.
As I suggested in the first post of this topic, include a tax cut with a proposal to merge the city back into the county, and present it to the voters -- bypassing the politicians. I think it can pass.

DaronDierkes · PostJul 14, 2010#1152010-07-14T12:34+00:00

^I think individual issues would pass, but the big merge would take some effort.

When was the last time it was put to a vote? All I can think of is the borough plan in the early 60s. It'd be a state-wide vote, right?

gone corporate · PostJul 14, 2010#1162010-07-14T18:59+00:00

Dredger: My thoughts are of the voters en masse and the political parties.

My County hesitation: Many Repubs voters (especially the older ones) may not be in favor of seeing their government include a large number of Dems, even if they have no impact upon them whatsoever. It's the thought of an encroachment of the opposite party being a part of their shared municipality. You know, if the GOP isn't welcome anywhere in the City, why should the Repub in the County want to join with them? A fear purely of partisanship and hesitation.

Same time, I maintain hesitancy that groups of the City would be scared of being a part of the County, fearful that they would be underrepresented or lose out on having a concentrated vote in government. Again, this is something that merger wouldn't really ever touch, but fearmongering and old views have a tendency to hang on.

Overall, a fear of unfounded political myopia.

zun1026 · PostJul 19, 2010#1172010-07-19T03:15+00:00

Gone Corporate wrote:Dredger: My thoughts are of the voters en masse and the political parties.

My County hesitation: Many Repubs voters (especially the older ones) may not be in favor of seeing their government include a large number of Dems, even if they have no impact upon them whatsoever. It's the thought of an encroachment of the opposite party being a part of their shared municipality. You know, if the GOP isn't welcome anywhere in the City, why should the Repub in the County want to join with them? A fear purely of partisanship and hesitation.

Same time, I maintain hesitancy that groups of the City would be scared of being a part of the County, fearful that they would be underrepresented or lose out on having a concentrated vote in government. Again, this is something that merger wouldn't really ever touch, but fearmongering and old views have a tendency to hang on.

Overall, a fear of unfounded political myopia.

If this is the reason that people would not want a merger, then St. Louis is stuck in the same mindset that has plagued us for years. We constantly compete against each other, rather than competing regionally, nationally and internationally. We are afraid to make any positive changes, because we are afraid someone else might benefit more than us. Its sad, just sad.

quincunx · PostOct 12, 2010#1182010-10-12T16:04+00:00

Mayor Lowery supports merging munis in the county on KMOX. His goal would be 10 cities in the county. He expressed tepid support for city -county, but again people are confused about simple re-entry vs one county-county gov't. It would be nice of course if some of the tiny munis could merge with the city.

3rd clip down the page

DaronDierkes · PostOct 20, 2010#1192010-10-20T04:43+00:00

The panel discussion at Wash U this evening managed to avoid talking about the recent audit that suggested the merging of county-type offices in the city with their counterparts in the county. Like so many times before, these offices were brought up in the context of how problems would clear up with the city rejoining the county.

I certainly support the city entering the county, but I think we should take the advice of Dr. Jones and move on action items as soon as we can.

With the audit as our justification, why not put the merging of those offices on the ballot instead of the political merger that is so controversial? Nothing but that. It wouldn't be politically toxic for Dooley to suggest that. Slay would agree. Why seek more from the deal when that much is agreed upon by most parties?

Don't frame it as a merging of services. Frame it as the county taking over services that it is better at. When something is simple, sensible, and saves money... the majority would probably get behind it.

boombox · PostOct 20, 2010#1202010-10-20T13:50+00:00

Dr. Jones is the man. I also agree with his approach if we are to persuade voters that this thing can work. Then again if the Zoo-Museum district/GRG/MSD aren't proof enough of that, how much more do we have to do to convince them?

I honestly think that there are too many "I-hate-the-city-no-matter-what" crowd voters out there for this to ever become a reality. In the forseeable future, at least.

Alex Ihnen · PostOct 20, 2010#1212010-10-20T14:14+00:00

Boombox wrote:I honestly think that there are too many "I-hate-the-city-no-matter-what" crowd voters out there for this to ever become a reality. In the forseeable future, at least.

I don't believe that a single voter in the County would be asked their opinion on the City rejoining the County? Am I wrong?

quincunx · PostOct 20, 2010#1222010-10-20T14:18+00:00

Does the cost of the city's county-type duties come close to the amount of revenue from the earnings tax? It would be nice if we could tie the two together in one vote. That might be enough of a carrot for many county voters.

boombox · PostOct 20, 2010#1232010-10-20T15:38+00:00

Alex Ihnen wrote:I don't believe that a single voter in the County would be asked their opinion on the City rejoining the County? Am I wrong?

This article from the St. Louis Beacon states that Dooley would put the question to voters, as would the city, before going ahead with it. And it's safe to say that Corrigan would never let it happen.

Beacon Article wrote:But Dooley emphasized Tuesday that the city's re-entry would require affirmative votes in the city and the county -- and that he doesn't expect that to happen for a long time. Dooley said he was simply voicing his opinion on the topic.

quincunx · PostOct 20, 2010#1242010-10-20T17:18+00:00

Would that require a majority in both city and county or a majority overall?

Code: Select all

    City  County  Total
Yes 120K    250K   370K
No   30K    300K   330K

What happens?

innov8ion · PostOct 20, 2010#1252010-10-20T17:24+00:00

quincunx wrote:Would that require a majority in both city and county or a majority overall?
Code: Select all
    City  County  Total
Yes 120K    250K   370K
No   30K    300K   330K
What happens?

The key verbiage being, "Affirmative votes in the city and the county." Meaning, if either the city our county votes it down, it fails entirely. But as others have said, how would a merger be defined? I'm not sure that there will be much of a change, at least initially.

City County Merger

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