urbanSTL

“Unfortunately, the functioning of Missouri’s municipal courts leaves much to be desired. In many respects they represent a modern anomaly, the result of ill-defined legislation and inconsistent judicial decisions extending across more than a century. Generally they have been overlooked or ignored as the misshapen stepchildren of our judicial system.”

Mr. Lauer died two years ago at age 81. He wrote that paragraph in 1966.

“It was a totally mismanaged police department,” Lowery said, in a recent interview with St. Louis Public Radio. He said officers below the chief were given large amounts of clerical work, which would keep them inside instead of patrolling the streets.

“I think the consolidation of North County municipalities is what we should be talking about, not consolidation with the city,” he said.

“We are all voted in by the people of our cities that believe in our leadership,” said Cool Valley Mayor Viola Murphy. “People are making decisions concerning our cities without even having a conversation with any of us before decisions are being made,”

chaifetz10 wrote:True. I guess I always viewed the multiple municipalities as the issue as it's redundant that they each have mayors, administrators, city attorneys etc. You are correct in that contracting out law enforcement to the county would be a major step forward, as well as a unified municipal court. I need to do some research, but I believe many of these fall under fire protection districts and not simply municipal fire departments already (I could be completely wrong on that though).