Better Together - Reincorporation and Mergers (St. Louis, St. Charles: construction, school districts, tax)

[FrankMiller]

Government spending task force formed as Krewson, Stenger pledge more city-county cooperation | St. Louis Public Radio

Sinquefield-backed Better Together is in the news again pushing for regional consolidation of government functions. Although a specific plan hasn't been proposed, BT estimates over a billion dollars could be saved. That's plenty of money for both tax cuts and public spending, and unsurprisingly has attracted interest on both sides of the aisle.

Originally Posted by STL Mayor Krewson

"Anti-poverty programs, more recreation, more after-school programs, a more competitively paid police department. Additional funds for affordable housing and for better public transportation," she said, adding that her goal is to reduce spending while improving those services.

Consolidation could also simplify governing structures make it easier for the region to attract investment, as our current setup is confusing to outsiders.

Originally Posted by County Executive Stenger

"Businesses struggle with our fragmentation," he said. "It's a situation that slows progress and inhibits growth. I believe in order for our region to really thrive we have to change the way we do business."

In addition to almost 100 local governments, we also have numerous police departments and fire departments, each requiring the construction of their own independent infrastructures, and requiring special efforts to maintain coordination between them for major events or to handle cross-jurisdictional issues. I'm sure we've all seen the occasional convoy of fire vehicles from eight different districts attending to a major fire.

On the other hand, folks are concerned about the potential loss of local control. The partisan benefits are also unclear, as the county would presumably become more Democratic by incorporating the city, while the city itself would be subject to dramatically more Republican influence. Those issues would be highly dependent on exactly what sort of consolidation was implemented.

Some possible plans:

• Simple reincorporation of the city as the 91st municipality, eliminating the city's independent county-level functions and placing the city under the County Executive and Council's jurisdiction, but otherwise doing little.
• A borough system (like NYC) which would divide the city-county area into eight or nine boroughs with their own mayors. Such a plan was proposed last year by Gene McNary, former Republican county exec, and could be implemented even without including the city. It would provide a significant savings in eliminating a vast amount of duplicate municipal government structure from the county.
  Guest Blog: The 9 Boroughs of a Greater St. Louis - St. Louis Strong
  

  Let’s start by combining St. Louis County’s municipalities, reducing the number from 90 to seven. The boundaries of these new municipalities would be those of the St. Louis County Council districts, each with an approximate population of 143,000. We’ll call them boroughs.
  
  Each would have an elected mayor, council and local control to keep government close to the people. Each borough would have a police and a fire department, thereby reducing the number of police departments from 57 to seven, and fire departments from 43 to seven. Municipal courts would be reduced from 81 to seven.

• UNIGOV! Transform the city and county into a single uniform city, a la Indianapolis. This is the most radical merger-on-steroids proposal on the table, and I don't know of anyone of significance pushing it in St. Louis. However, Indy seems to be doing alright with it. Obviously the savings would be substantial, and the politics transformative. I put the odds of this one at about 10,000:1.

[MOforthewin]

As I already state, it's a big idea to merge the city with the county. It will be a disaster. It's too big, has too many problems as well.

Now I do agree Missouri has way too many municipals who's main purpose is to supply cushy jobs and police departments that exist just to keep funding said jobs via traffic fines.

I'm talking small places like Bella Villa and now defunct St. George. That is a farce a town like St. George had a police department just to cover one main street. I hated driving through there.

These little towns in places like St. Louis county, St. Charles, and Jefferson county need to go. No reason a town like St. George needed their own department.

The city is a dump. Even though the county has a population nearly 3 times the city has, as usual the city would find a way to control most of the power overall and try to take the county seat way from Clayton.

It would be like reunification of Korea, with North Korea being the winners and having their government in control. Would be horrible and Stl county will turn into one big dump eventually when people move to the surrounding counties.

[FrankMiller]

Even most Democrats in the county are not overly fond of the city, in my experience. I think it's pretty unlikely that simple re-entry of the city into the county as a municipality would lead to city hegemony over the county. The county council would still be overwhelmingly dominated by the suburbs. On the other hand, it would make the region more competitive nationally and globally, rather than the current status where the city and county are constantly undercutting each other for investment opportunities.

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by FrankMiller

I think it's pretty unlikely that simple re-entry of the city into the county as a municipality would lead to city hegemony over the county. The county council would still be overwhelmingly dominated by the suburbs.

On what do you base this speculation when the largest municipality by far in the County would be the City?

[FrankMiller]

Originally Posted by MUTGR

On what do you base this speculation when the largest municipality by far in the County would be the City?

The county population is around 4x as much as the city.

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by FrankMiller

The county population is around 4x as much as the city.

But the city population would be the single biggest municipality. The county government is already democrat dominated and would likely be extremely left wing democrat dominated post reunificaiton.

[FrankMiller]

Originally Posted by MUTGR

But the city population would be the single biggest municipality. The county government is already democrat dominated and would likely be extremely left wing democrat dominated post reunificaiton.

Sure, if you think county democrats care about the city (they mostly don't).

[RisingAurvandil]

I don't see any major issues with a simple re-entry. The County has little control over incorporated areas anyhow.

The real benefit is consolidated services. Government in StL is too big and too costly. Everyone knows it. I'm not advocating merging school districts, but there are several services that we could probably agree on...

Police
Firefighters
Economic Development
Airport
Public Works
Health
Housing
Courts
Jails
Park Districts

Ideally, we'd consolidate the cities and towns throughout the County, but I don't know if this is politically feasible. School districts are beyond question already. And independent borough plan, retaining existing schools, seems to be the most efficient option.

If we try nothing, we must be content with stagnation. The StL metro hasn't grown in 30+ years.

[billiken]

The number of people I know in the city who are very skeptical of this simply because Rex is behind it is astounding. I'm fairly liberal, and all for it. The cost savings are for real. I don't know how hard it would be to just take baby steps. 1st, St Louis City becomes 91st municipality. Then work from there...

Back when we lived in Rock Hill, my husband joked he was going to run for office with his platform being that Rock Hill shouldn't even exist and should merge with Webster Groves.

[MUTGR]

will guarantee the county not approve any kind of city county merger:

Aldermen to introduce resolution to study effects of slavery | FOX2now.com

However, as I understand it, Rex wants to get the state legislature to do it for him without putting it to a vote.