The “Better Together” plan for the re-consolidation of St. Louis City and St. Louis County is being released, and the initiative drive is about to begin. These are my thoughts about it. (There are ten points, but they are not inscribed on two tablets.)

1.  I definitely support some kind of merger or consolidation of St. Louis City and County. I don’t need to be convinced that something must be done. I understand that many people like their local governments and are worried about losing that connection, but at the minimum, the city and county must somehow be brought together.
2.  I am open to ideas on the best way to do this— form of government(s), taxation and financing, timetable, etc.— I will consider all options. I don’t have any preconceived notions.
3.  I am determined to ignore County residents saying they don’t want any part of the city and its crime, bad schools, etc. I will also look beyond City residents worried that this is all just a power grab. And I am happy to pay no attention to government officials who are just protecting their own fiefdoms. (I do understand that many in the black community are concerned that any kind of consolidation will weaken their political clout, but I don’t think that is automatically true.
4. I am not going to be swayed by “We’re stuck in 1904 (or 1876) and we must move forward” kind of slick PR slogans. I know we must do something. What is the best way to do it?
5.   I am not going to be swayed by arguments along the lines of “we have to do something now and this is the proposal that’s out there so it is this or nothing.” We are talking about taking steps that will have a huge impact on the region for the next century or two. As frustrating as the current situation is, I’m not going to vote for a bad plan just for the sake of doing something. I’d rather wait and do it right.
6.  I will not support anything that opens the door to privatization of government services.
7.  I will not support any plans, proposals, or campaigns that in any way limit full public disclosure of discussions, information, decisions, etc.
8.  I am not convinced that this is something the whole state must vote on—at least not before city and county residents come to an agreement.
9.   Nothing against the five people who developed the plan, but there is already one strike against this because there was no public discussion of the plan before it was released and presented to the public. (I know they had hearings and public sessions, but the plan was developed behind closed doors.) The Better Together campaign has gotten off on the wrong foot.
10.   The fact that Rex Sinquefield is investing massive amounts of money in this means the proposal already has two strikes. Sin-Q has proven that he does not care about the well-being of our region’s residents. He only cares about protecting his own wealth and forcing his libertarian philosophy on everyone. It is very tempting to oppose the plan on this basis alone. His involvement puts a very negative cover over this whole thing.

So— the Better Together plan has two strikes against it. It has a lot of work to do to not strike out. And in the mean time, I am open to competing ideas.

What do you think?

The post Proposed St. Louis City – County merger: Better together? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Some people were duped by a recent April Fool’s hoax showing a map of an improbable merger between the City of St. Louis and exurban St. Charles County. The map may have been a joke, but the issue that sparked the hoax is not. Not in St. Louis, and not in other urban areas, either.

Off-again, on-again ideas about a re-consolidation of St. Louis city and St. Louis County have surfaced many times in the years since the two got what’s known as The Great Divorce of 1876. Today, as 2010 census numbers show a dramatic and continuing hollowing out of the city, some city leaders are looking west, wondering if a city-county reconciliation is possible and/or desirable. But the topic is political dynamite. Just ask St. Louis County Supervisor Charlie Dooley, who, during his 2010 re-election campaign, was mis-characterized by his opponent as favoring consolidation with the City, creating a damaging negative buzz. [FYI: He was re-elected, despite the slam.] Even more recently, St. Louis City Mayor Francis Slay jumped in, hinting that City-County consolidation might be a good idea.

In the meantime, many other metropolitan areas have gotten busier—and some have actually made consolidation happen. Here’s a look at some history, recent developments and prospects for city-county consolidation around the country.

Landscape

According to the National Association of Counties (NACo), fewer than 40 consolidated city-county governments exist nationwide. Today, in slumping economic times for counties and cities, some say that the urge to merge may be on the rise. Actually, consolidation has never gone out of style. NACo says, “Hardly a year has gone by since 1902 without local governments considering consolidation, taking proposals to the ballot more than 150 times.”

Although proposed often, metropolitan consolidations usually don’t materialize. Over the past 20 years, says NACo, consolidation plans have been proposed in more than 40 regions. Depending on whose statistics you believe, only between 15 and 30 percent of those proposals made it. The most recent successful big-city consolidation was in 2003, when Louisville and Jefferson County, Ky., united — after three earlier attempts were rejected by voters.

The pros and cons of city-county consolidation are a book in themselves. Proponents say consolidation brings economies of scale, elimination of redundancies, streamlined purchasing and reduced payroll. Critics of consolidation say evidence in already-consolidated areas shows that these benefits don’t materialize, and that consolidation creates larger, more impersonal, less responsive bureaucracies.

Shape shifting

Any discussion of city-county consolidation needs to acknowledge that there are many ways to skin this particular cat. Some cities and counties have accomplished true mergers. Others consolidate and/or share services, but don’t change boundaries—a form of consolidation that avoids the political-territorial wars that a full merger might ignite. Then there’s the “unified government” model, a term used by Wyandotte County, Kansas to describe its consolidation with Kansas City, Kansas: In that arrangement, some cities and towns remain separate jurisdictions within the county. Or, how about a “coalition,” as in Atlanta, Georgia, in which municipalities form governmental organizations that can’t make or enforce laws, but can make recommendations on projects with regional impact.  To further confuse the issue, there are “consolidated cities,” in which the formerly independent, incorporated areas maintain some governmental powers.

Whodunit

So, who’s gotten city-county mergers passed? And how many tries did it take? Here’s a look at some late-20^th and early-21^st century attempts. [Info compiled from several sources. [The National Association of Counties has a complete list of all city-county merger votes undertaken between 1805 and 2008.]

The flip side

If there’s a Las Vegas betting line on city-county consolidations [and isn’t there a line on just about everything?], the odds must be very long. As previously noted, most attempts fail, take multiple tries, or never even get off the ground. For example:

A lesson from Memphis

The most recent attempt at a city-county consolidation took place in November 2010, when voters were asked to decide on a proposed merger between Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee. To be enacted, the proposal needed to win in the simultaneous, but separate, elections held in the city and the county. It won narrowly in Memphis [51%-49%], but was trounced in the suburban county [85%-15%]. Opponents of the Memphis consolidation called the arguments for consolidation “fallacies,” and used less-than-stellar statistics from a similar merger in Indianapolis as ammunition. Proponents of the merger, though discouraged by the results of the first such attempt in 39 years, are vowing to fight on and to keep the dialogue alive. The whole debate is further complicated by a lawsuit, filed by proponents, challenging the constitutionality of the dual election process.

In the meantime, voters in the same region, in a separate election held in March 2011, approved the merger of Memphis and Shelby County school districts. Insiders probably understand the dynamics of these two seemingly contradictory votes: To an outsider, however, they’re inexplicable. But one lesson that can be taken from the Memphis-Shelby County situation is that, in tough economic times, when , on the surface, consolidation may look like a simple, logical solution, that old Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme may contain a great deal of grown-up wisdom.

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