urbanSTL

I doubt momentum is going to dislodge the mayors of St. Louis County from their fiefdoms.

Muni court report. The 90 munis are 11% of the state population yet they bring in 34% of the court fines and fees.

http://www.bettertogetherstl.com/studie ... rts-report

quincunx wrote:Muni court report. The 90 munis are 11% of the state population yet they bring in 34% of the court fines and fees.

http://www.bettertogetherstl.com/studie ... rts-report

That's not fishy at all...

Washington Post - Why we need to fix St. Louis County

David Menschel is a criminal defense attorney and criminal justice activist based in Brooklyn who has fought wrongful convictions, corrupt prosecutors and all manner of other ills among cops, courts, prisons and prosecutors. Which is to say he’s seen some bad stuff. Last night he was in St. Louis to attend some of the local municipal courts. Judging by his Twitter feed, he too was overwhelmed by what goes on inside them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- ... -st-louis/

Looking at how Portland does things for regional government, I see that they have an organization somewhat like our East West Gateway Council for Planning that they call Metro. But with one major difference. Quoting the first line from Wikipedia:

"Metro, formerly known as Metropolitan Service District, is the regional governmental agency for the Oregon portion of the Portland metropolitan area. It is the only directly elected metropolitan planning organization in the United States."

The head of Portland's Metro, called "Executive Officer", is elected. One way we could transition to regional government is to directly elect the head of the East West Gateway Council to give the office instant credibility. Then allow the organization to propose full-region improvements and set up region-wide sales taxes, with sunset clauses, to implement. And have the legislature authorize the votes as pass/fail only -- for the entire region, not county by county.

They could start small and show success to build even more trust in the regional government. Eventually, with built-up credibility, the legislature, or the people, can vote to give the regional government increased authority to improve schools, reduce waste, rebuild the core, rebuild infrastructure etc., and override local government parochialism where need, -- all without waiting for money from the Federal Government.

This is an intriguing idea and should be explored further.

Another from Radley Balko

WaPo - New report details the disastrous municipal court system in St. Louis County

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- ... is-county/

How many munis fit in one city ward? Made by Tod Martin

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mi ... tWsctshcJw

quincunx wrote:

“When you have a larger bureaucracy, there's more nooks and crannies in which to hide problems: waste, mismanagement, fraud, bloat,” she says.

Plenty of nooks and crannies in 90+ gov'ts

“Here's our big question,” she says. “This whole idea of re-entry, reunification–why now? Why all of a sudden now? What's the urgency? Is it a bailout for the city? Because that's what I'm looking at. That's what I see.”

Because the failures of fragmentation aren't going away and getting worse. Is our muni structure somehow immune to all the changes in the world?

“Why do I have to conform? That's their business, if it works for them. If your friend was going to jump off the Golden Gate bridge, would you do it too?”

How about "if everyone went to college, would you?" or "if everyone got a smartphone, would you?" or "if everyone stopped smoking, would you?"

STl Curator - To Merge or Not to Merge: St Louis’ 148-Year-Old Debate

http://stlcurator.com/st-louis-city-cou ... er-debate/

I wonder if she can cross the street on her own.

Seriously though, did the Curator purposely interview her due to her lack of a passing familiarity with logical fallacies? It seems rather unfair to the anti-consolidation crowd that they have to be represented by someone who is so out of touch with reality.

Also, I know she objected to Better Together researching if St. Louis would indeed be better together, but perhaps her group should change focus and take a cue from it's name by investigating, and better yet, obtaining, some Common Sense.

“
Getting rid of municipal boundaries wouldn’t get rid of the problems. ”

– Alex Ihnen, nextSTL.com

umm, actually it would GET RID of A LOT of problems....

Jennifer Bird, in the STLCurator article:

“The city requested and chose to separate, because it did not want to support the county. No problem. That’s great. That’s your choice.”

Sure, it was the city's choice...in 1876!

This line of thinking is toxic.

I just read 30 minutes worth of her opinions...She's not out in left field. Now her 1876 references need to stop and I'd love to chat with her about that, but...She's right in that a city entry should not unload the city's unfunded liabilities onto to the county...that needs to be resolved. She's also correct that something positive needs to be offered to the county for this to happen...The only thing I can come up with is some way, shape, or form, is a lowering of property tax rates for Countians. And i admit I do not know how you do that or if you can do that.....

sirshankalot wrote:I just read 30 minutes worth of her opinions...She's not out in left field. Now her 1876 references need to stop and I'd love to chat with her about that, but...She's right in that a city entry should not unload the city's unfunded liabilities onto to the county...that needs to be resolved. She's also correct that something positive needs to be offered to the county for this to happen...The only thing I can come up with is some way, shape, or form, is a lowering of property tax rates for Countians. And i admit I do not know how you do that or if you can do that.....

Actually, there is probably a fair argument to be made that residents of the County should be liable for the City's pension shortfalls, as many of them were the ones that received services from the currently retired and soon to be retired workers before they jumped ship, conveniently letting themselves off the hook for the retirements of their former public servants. Of course, that isn't politically feasible, which is why any sort of consolidation would obviously include that the City remains liable for it's own pensions, just as all the little soon to be bankrupt municipalities in St. Louis county will not be receiving a bailout from the City.

^agreed

Sounds like he's mainly talking about poverty

“Getting rid of municipal boundaries wouldn’t get rid of the problems. It’s not like everyone’s going to become wealthy in Ferguson–but it opens up the opportunity to not hide our problems away and act like they belong somewhere else,” he says.

quincunx wrote:Sounds like he's mainly talking about poverty

“Getting rid of municipal boundaries wouldn’t get rid of the problems. It’s not like everyone’s going to become wealthy in Ferguson–but it opens up the opportunity to not hide our problems away and act like they belong somewhere else,” he says.

I think having that as "the quote" from the article, separated from the context of the surrounding paragraphs, is quite dishonest, and I was surprised the Curator put it off to the side at the top of the piece. .

There is an interesting proposal in the St. Louis Business Journal today -- Reduce the number of cities in the county from 96 to 24 by aligning all city boundaries with school district boundaries. Seems like it should save money by at least having a single unified property tax for each combined city/school district.

^ I was thinking the same thing a while ago, I actually think that could pass. In fact, make it more unifying by having a city of 1.3 million with 25 wards (which would be the school districts).



Either way, a county of 1.3 million with 25 cities is about normal. It would function even better if they took away zoning, economic development (TIF), fire and police from local municipalities and made them county wide. Revenue sharing would also be needed to prevent intercity competition and TIF wars.

The proposal is definitely interesting and is likely a leak that is showing us what the business community is planning to get behind when better together is done with their reports.....Ferguson Commission anyone?

I guess the county's role would be diminished since there'd be no unincorporated areas. Unless it got the powers and roles you mentioned. Think voters would be up for that? Losing zoning would be a big deal, I think.

Just getting the 24 in Normandy to merge would be a good thing.