“I know that we just underwent a massive renovation of the police department, including the jail facilities,” Knowles said. “I can tell you the city has spent a lot of time and money investing in those facilities and when they reopen ... they will be top of the line.”
LA Time - Missouri cities, including Ferguson, sued over 'grotesque' jail conditions
“We started talking to [residents] about the nature of the jails, and they would casually mention things that were out of a 17th century novel,” Harvey said. “It was really horrifying that this is what they were subjected to as a condition of being poor.... There’s not a lot of white people sitting in those jails. All our plaintiffs are African Americans.”
St. Louis County Apr 7 ballot. Two villages are voting on upgrading to 4th class cities, giving them more taxing options. Others are voting on tax increases. Fragmentation + low productivity development patterns leads to higher taxes and insolvency.
No disincorporations. If you want things to change, you actually have to change them.
KMOV - News 4 Investigates: Traffic ticket quotas for officers?
As a Bellfontaine Neighbors officer for a decade, Joe St. Clair was ordered to carry out a policy that he says required cops to issue a certain number of traffic tickets, and even traffic arrests. If they failed to do it, they could be fired.
HB741 would make it easier to disincorporate munis in St. Louis County. Lowering the number of signatures to 25% of registered voters and a simple majority to pass. Also adds a disincorporation procedure for 3rd class and charter cities. Go Rep Burns!
^So stupid, in my opinion. Truth be told, the entire county could probably consolidate fire departments and combine to form a St. Louis Metro Fire Department. Most fire departments and protection districts have mutual aid agreements in place as is... instead of 23 fire chiefs and administrative offices we'd have one chief, a lot more battalion chiefs, and probably some deputy chiefs to oversee different districts. Heck, when I was on a fire department back in Illinois a few years ago, there was preliminary discussion of all 10 fire departments in the county doing the same. And this was in Central Illinois!
St. Louis City and St. Louis County have merged enough programs that I think we can start referring to the contantenated city and county with a new shorhand name, other than "St. Louis City and St. Louis County", even though it is not a full government merger yet. St. Louis Metro, or Greater St. Louis won't work since that includes other counties. It would be nice if all of us on this board converge on a single shorthand name that we know means just St. Louis City and St Louis County. I'll agree to use the concensus winner in the future. I suggest we vote.
Here are some candidates names I brainstormed to describe the current St. Louis City and St. Louis county with one name, but I'd like to hear yours:
1. St. Louis Core
2. St. Luni (sort of like Indy Unigov)
3. St. Lounison
4. Super Louis
5. St Louis Super City, (to distinguish from just St. Louis City.)
6. St. Louis Creve Core (play on words) (or St. Louis Coeur?)
7. St. Louisfield (as in Chesterfield)
8. St. Loop (as in Delmar)
9. St. Louis Island (the portion of the area surrounded by water -- Mississippi River, Missouri River, Merramec River.
10. Super St. Louis
Looking at the Wikipedia description of London, I see where they have various terms for different boundaries of the city. So that leads to similar entries for St. Louis City plus St Louis County such as:
Inner St. Louis
St. Louis Commuter Belt
St. Louis Burroughs
Central St. Louis
St. Louis River Belt
St. Louis Urban
St. Louis CityCounty
St. Louis Zone 1 -- as in the most central cost zone for metro link. (We only have one zone so far.)
I think I'm starting to lean toward St. Louis Super City as the term I like to represent the City/County district, but I like St. Louis **2 (St. Louis Squared) also.
I listened to the entire show. I would caution about assigning every change for the worst to recent racial profiling. McDonnell Douglas was an economic powerhouse in North County back the 1970s and 80s. I lived in St. Ann then down the street from Northwest Plaza back then. But then in the early 90s, the government stopped buying old F-4s and Harriers, and the employment dropped form 40,000 high paying middle class union and non-union jobs, to 15,000 almost overnight. The giant GM plant moved from North St. Louis to Wentzville, and took thousand of middleclass union jobs with it. At same time, you could buy a nicer newer home just down the road in St. Charles than the small homes in North St. Louis County.
I don't think that many people moved out en masse over the 40 years I've lived here. They just retired and died. And their kids just purchased their first homes further out from where they grew up to find better houses they could afford compared to the ones they grew up in. Given the patterns that were already here when we moved here, we can't force folks in North County to move to South County, or vice versa.
So I'm not sure what the show is proposing as a solution. It seems to just be showing us what we already know about general concentrations of races in various areas, due to ancient housing discrimination patterns, but offers no suggestions. I believe the biggest driver to solving racial division in St. Louis County would be addressing the differences in income and employment between blacks and whites possibly driven by subtle hiring discrimination, and by training and education opportunities. Solve the economic disparities, and the housing patterns will take care of themselves eventually.
I figure as journalists it's not their job to propose solutions. They're telling us history and giving prospectives from around the county. There's plenty of other articles with interviews of people offering solutions.
quincunx wrote:I figure as journalists it's not their job to propose solutions. They're telling us history and giving prospectives from around the county. There's plenty of other articles with interviews of people offering solutions.
Such as….? Do you mean merge small cities into fewer larger cities? I don't know how that changes a drive down Lindbergh Boulevard or changes comments and disparaging remarks about what you might see on that drive.
I can define a drive through Oklahoma City that goes from parts of town that are mostly white to parts of town that are mostly black that used to be mostly white in that metro area. As far as know, it is good that people can now move to wherever they choose and can afford. As I said -- solve the economic disparity and the housing disparities will solve themselves. But this panel never mentioned economics. I don't know of any West County neighborhoods where any race is denied entry if they can afford the homes there.
You're telling me we were supposed to be fighting a class war the whole time we've been fighting this race war? Next you'll tell me that the powers that be have been using racial mistrust and enmity to keep the lower and middle class divided and disorganized for the last several centuries so they can wield an inordinate amount of power over the political process!
Rep Jay Barnes - The Purpose of Our Criminal Justice System
Mayor Gwaltney’s willful ignorance of the bill is simply another installment in his troubled history with the truth. He may have testified that he does not run his city like an organized troll guild, but his own words betray him. Last spring, Gwaltney perceived a problem with his police force. In his mind, they weren’t writing enough tickets. So, before the public paid attention, Gwaltney decided to fix this “problem.”
