urbanSTL

CarexCurator wrote:Head of public transit effort hopes to remove his suburb from the county with the biggest transit subsidy. What's the opposite of a conflict of interest? A lack of interest perhaps?

Huh?

John Nations != Bob Nation

I don't see how anyone could confuse Chesterfield Mayor Bob Nation with Chesterfield Mayor John Nations. There's an extra s there!

A victory for the status quo. Guess we'll have to go to the ballot box.

BREAKING: Judge strikes down municipal court reform law

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 1cafa.html

no muni anywhere should be funding themselves off of traffic tickets. set the max at 15% everywhere and be done with it.

Under what structural change do the people and all 90 mayors win?

Its downright fraud to just feed off the people so your community can stay afloat.. I wouldn't mind seeing about 80 of those muni's be gone perhaps all of them and be one big St.Louis.

Missouri Times - Supporters of SB 5 plot course after court ruling

http://themissouritimes.com/27981/suppo ... rt-ruling/

http://fox2now.com/2016/04/12/crestwood ... is-county/

The slow, old-man shuffle toward consolidation continues.

Crestwood could take the lead of other STL Co munis and leverage I-44 for ticket revenue since they can't leverage it for sales tax revenue.

quincunx wrote:I hear a lot of foot dragging and victim card playing. It shouldn't take more than a year to set up IT infrastructure to serve one court for the 24 cities, IMO. And they bring up the other very important issues of crime, dwindling tax base, schools, low commercial activity, but doesn't dawn on them that the fragmentation gets in the way of addressing them.

Yeah, you would think that a municipal government which operates a police department and municipal court could also establish and operate a community service program.

I'm also glad to see that Green has toned down the rhetoric. He sounded a lot better in this interview than he did in this one: http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/fig ... -overnight
In this interview, and in previous interviews Green tries to have it both ways. He doesn't think Normandy should be lumped together with the other "bad apples" or "bad eggs" like Pine Lawn, but he often lumps together all proponents of consolidation as having a racially biased motivation. He also criticizes the State for neglecting North County and not doing more to deal with municipalities like Pine Lawn, but when the State does do something that impacts Normandy, he thinks municipalities should be left alone to address the problems as they see fit.

I agree that the fragmentation gets in the way of addressing issues facing the entire area. I know that merging the City and County is often discussed here, but I think it would be a big victory just to get the Veldas, Vinitas, Pasadenas, and Bels to merge.

Rep Burns amended HB 1632 with the language from HB 1686, so that's the bill to watch. The goal is easier disincorporation process and adding one fore 3rd class and charter cities.

http://www.house.mo.gov/billsummary.asp ... 016&code=R

quincunx wrote:WK Times - Parting Words From A Popular Mayor

One thing that will not be getting McDonnell's support is the "Better Together" movement urging consolidation of local municipalities.

"They want to make St. Louis County and St. Louis City all one, and they want to get rid of the individual communities and have it just one big city," McDonnell said. "It is something that both I and (frequent nemesis) Gerry (Biedenstein) – and I think all the people in Kirkwood and Webster – would fight because it would mean we would lose our identity."

http://www.westendword.com/Articles-Fea ... Mayor.html

Kirkwood is fine. But do we need Oakland, for example?

Mayor makes a good point...it would be silly to get rid of places like Kirkwood, Clayton, Brentwood, WG, Maplewood.

Lose their identity like Soulard, Central West End, La Square, and St. Louis Hills? C'mon. Neighborhoods or wards can still have their identity and some type of community group running things.

Agreed Moorlander.

I think the "we'll lose our identity" argument is just a cover for "we'll lose our autonomy/fiefdom" or something similar....small minds, not looking at the bigger picture....I think the "we'll lose our identity" argument is designed to pull on the heartstrings and manipulate.

Something else that strikes me about the comments above is It's not ok to get rid of places like Kirkwood, etc. but it is okay to erase lesser know municipalities? Who makes the determination of what community measures up and who doesn't? It's way too subjective.

Just make everybody a district, ward, neighborhood, whatever. You won't lose the flavor and character of your favorite place and we'll gain the benefits of being a unified region.

moorlander wrote:Lose their identity like Soulard, Central West End, La Square, and St. Louis Hills? C'mon. Neighborhoods or wards can still have their identity and some type of community group running things.

Apples and Oranges. Those were never independent cities.