urbanSTL

MarkHaversham wrote: ↑

Jan 24, 2018

The other issue is the quantity of local governments, which inevitably work against each other. That's where you need something like a population cutoff to force integration regardless of quality.

Other than regional TIF control and sales tax policy (which is needed), I call nonsense. And high standards would reduce the 90-something municipalities of today, not increase them to 100.

bprop wrote: ↑

Jan 24, 2018

And high standards would reduce the 90-something municipalities of today, not increase them to 100.

I just threw a round number out due to laziness, I didn't intend to imply that the municipalities would propagate due to standards.

Tom Minogue is on board for the merger....I think it's very important to see local business leaders on board.

Thompson Coburn’s Tom Minogue on his chairmanship, the future and downtown St. Louis

What is St. Louis’ greatest asset? It may be a cliche, but it’s true: the advantages of a larger metro area without the disadvantages.

What is the biggest change it needs to make? Fewer governmental entities. Merge the city and county. There is no No. 2.

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... nship.html

Trololzilla wrote: ↑

Jan 25, 2018

At some point, however, there's going to have to be some push turning to shove in order to reduce the number of municipalities and the pointless duplication of many services. Some (many) likely won't like it, but it's gotta happen someday.

I think we might be surprised at how many sh*thole (pardon the term) towns and villages would have to 'voluntarily' cease to exist if they had to attain police department accreditation, meet open records disclosure SLAs, comply with GASB (governmental financial reporting) standards, and more.

I'm suggesting Missouri raise that bar and enjoy the benefits of the fallout - including such 'voluntary' consolidation - which would be much easier than approving and implementing a grand consolidation scheme.

bprop wrote: ↑

Jan 25, 2018

Trololzilla wrote: ↑

Jan 25, 2018

At some point, however, there's going to have to be some push turning to shove in order to reduce the number of municipalities and the pointless duplication of many services. Some (many) likely won't like it, but it's gotta happen someday.

I think we might be surprised at how many sh*thole (pardon the term) towns and villages would have to 'voluntarily' cease to exist if they had to attain police department accreditation, meet open records disclosure SLAs, comply with GASB (governmental financial reporting) standards, and more.

I'm suggesting Missouri raise that bar and enjoy the benefits of the fallout - including such 'voluntary' consolidation - which would be much easier than approving and implementing a grand consolidation scheme.

This seems to be not that difficult to envision. I keep picturing St. Louis metro area is a small scale Holy Roman Empire in how Germany was set up politically then. It caused them to punch well below its weight as a result of fragmentation and got fixed by unification. Also in that example there was an intermediate stage that occured in the 19th century of consolidation into a smaller number of nations.

This article from a Better Together staffer in eq seems so unconvincing...

Why Do We Let Political Fragmentation Hold Back Our Entrepreneurs?
http://eqstl.com/political-fragmentation-saint-louis/

Greater intergovernmental cooperation is needed in our region and I am not necessarily opposed to city reentry or a full merger; but I am becoming increasingly firm in my conviction that we do not need either of those unlikely changes to move our region ahead, In fact, I think it's getting to the point where all this talk of WE NEED MERGER TO MOVE AHEAD is starting to be a bit counterproductive as we are overly using it as an excuse for all our shortcomings. It's somewhat reflective of our seemingly inherent need here to pursue Silver Bullet strategies instead of emphasizing the daily work that moves our region ahead.

Anyway, I hope this whole Better Together effort moves on to its recommendations phase soon so we can get on with things.

Great to hear a candidate for County Exec,Mark Mantovani, talking about big picture strategy and making reentry a focus of his campaign.

KOMX- Mark Reardon Show
https://kmox.radio.com/media/audio-chan ... 2018-3-4pm

quincunx wrote: ↑

Mar 09, 2018

Great to hear a candidate for County Exec,Mark Mantovani, talking about big picture strategy and making reentry a focus of his campaign.

KOMX- Mark Reardon Show
https://kmox.radio.com/media/audio-chan ... 2018-3-4pm

At what time did he say it? (so I can avoid 33 minutes of talk)

I recommend listening to the whole thing. They start talking reentry around 23:45

Sounds like they're using Louisville as their model

Color me skeptical that this is the plan. Im not sure I trust "McPherson Publishing" as my reputable source for this kind of breaking news.

The article as written makes absolutely no sense. I would trust STL Post Dispatch or the Biz Journal with this one.

The author, Jack Grone, seems legit, if new at the investigative reporting game. His slant may be a little on the business side given his background at Wells Fargo, but I don't see any reason to doubt his reporting on the face of it. He probably knows most of the players. There's a lot in the story that's early and speculative, thus the majors might not want to get involved yet. (Not that the "majors" have much in the way of actual investigative staff anymore, as I understand it.) He really could have interviewed the players in this. And most of the proposals sound very much like the sorts of things we've heard elsewhere. Further, they're all framed as pretty tentative. The only real question to me is whether he would have a reason to misrepresent any of it, and I can't immediately think of one. This looks like a new blog to me using McPherson's platform. But it's quite possibly a well researched one. As I dig a little myself, I can confirm some things that he reports that I hadn't heard previously: Rex Sinquefield is indeed one of the major backers behind Better Together. Never would have guessed that, but it's on BT's own website. He's in the top five donors at present, along with John McDonnell, George H Walker III, Civic Progress, and the Regional Business Council.

The earnings tax may well be the sticking point. Abolishing it would probably make this a non-starter inside city limits. Could almost be a poison pill someone or other is trying to put in just for that reason. I really can't believe it would make it into a final proposal if anyone wants it to actually pass, but maybe someone thinks they can sneak it through that way. Especially if BT takes the route of passing it on a statewide, rather than local vote. Which tactic I've certainly heard rumored elsewhere. (Here, for instance.) To be honest, I think this is good reporting. I don't know that I like what it implies, either about BT or about other local journalism, but I'm inclined to suspect Grone might be on to something. We shall see. Worth watching carefully, in any case.

stlhistory wrote: ↑

Dec 18, 2018

2) County municipalities would remain intact, possibly minus police forces; unincorporated areas unclear
3) School districts would remain intact

Never going to solve anything regionally if these two items are not addressed in a comprehensive manner. I don't care what else King Rex or anyone proposes.

I've posted on here before that the airport privatization deal is the lynchpin to City-County unification because it would help the city secure it's pension liability and other financial issues.

Once the city can secure those issues, it's full throttle forward. And you'll see a Nashville-like renaissance.

Excellent letter in today's Post:

https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/mailba ... 209b5.html

I think people will be pleasantly surprised. I would also change the name of this thread from City reentry into the county to something like the New St.Louis

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Dec 19, 2018

I think people will be pleasantly surprised. I would also change the name of this thread from City reentry into the county to something like the New St.Louis

What do you know that we don't? I personally think a Louisville model would work the best for us.

On another note, wasn't Indianapolis merged by a state ballot initiative? I think that's the direction this is headed. I don't see locals having the foresight to do this on their own.

goat314 wrote: ↑

Dec 19, 2018

I personally think a Louisville model would work the best for us.

On another note, wasn't Indianapolis merged by a state ballot initiative? I think that's the direction this is headed. I don't see locals having the foresight to do this on their own.

Indy was done by state legislation, but it exempted the small number of suburban county cities of 5,000+ in order to pass political muster. Keep in mind this was almost 50 years ago now and it essentially had the affect of a large annexation of low-density suburban development and backwards rural areas... those folks were largely happy to get city services; meanwhile the old city got screwed.

As for Louisville, that system also didn't dissolve the county munis but at least there's only a single school district unlike the garbage system of Indy. If we do a Louisville or Indy I frankly feel we may be worse off than present.... we'd still have a large number of powerful county munis continuing to act in their own interests while the city gets diminished powers and our urban orientation will be diluted by folks who think sidewalks are godless communism and multi-family apartments will "bring in those people". There'll be less of an opportunity to advance much-needed urban planning like what more forward-thinking cities like Minneapolis are doing.

Gotta slay all these County munis if this is going to be worth it. Nashville, which has more of a truly unified metro government, and with a single public school system, seems the best approach, although it, too, has a lot of work to do on the urbanism front.

i think people need to realize how complex this is....we have spent 70 years creating this mess and the plan will untangle most of it and most will be in place the day after 2020 presidential but other things will take time.

Dissolving the City, losing the right to have a mayor and Board of Alderman to set policy, and losing the earnings tax revenue in exchange for consolidating some duplicate county-level/city-level bureaucratic functions sounds like a crappy deal for city residents. If you think getting actual urban planning and policy in the city is tough now, wait until we've lost political control to allow suburban voters to determine how systems function in our urban community.

I don't get the argument that some people are making that somehow a consolidated government is going to make the center city less urban. If anything it will infuse more money into having a legitimate city planning department. Right now the planning department is pretty much a joke, it's underfunded, makes half ass plans it can't implement and really has little power in the city as it is. If you look at places like Dallas, Charlotte, Nashville, etc. it looks like those cities have done a much better job than St. Louis making and completing urban redevelopment plans. Charlotte was actually able to get zoning revisions along it's light rail lines, and you are seeing a crapload of development take place near their transit stations. Also, a merger would make a true N-S line actually feasible, financially and politically. There will be no more bickering about what the next line will be. Stenger would not have been able to pull a bait and switch on Metrolink expansion if St. Louis was one political entity. Take a look at Clayton, they have a much more functional planning department than St. Louis City. They were actually able to plan and implement a downtown plan. Something that St. Louis City has yet to do. So the urban planning argument is really weak. If anything, a merged city and county would make St. Louis County more invested in the success of downtown. Maybe downtown would even get properly paved streets and crosswalks like Clayton has.