Board of Aldermen Has Lots of Dead Weight
I know from my reader survey that nearly 10% of you are 18-24 years old. I also know from the Board of Aldermen Seniority List (PDF) that Phyllis Young and Fred Wessels have been Aldermen your entire lives. All through your period in diapers, kindergarten, grade school, those awkward teen years, and college. Both are up for re-election next Spring. The filing deadline for candidates is 5pm Friday.
Others are not far behind. In my view the majority of them need to step aside at this or the 2011 election cycle (depending upon if they are from odd or even numbered ward). They are dead weight holding the city back, keeping an entire generation from participating. It really is very selfish of them.
In 2009/10 I’ll be working on a ballot initiative to get term limits for city offices. I know many of you say “just vote them out.” That is fine assuming they have a challenger. I’ve also heard people say without institutional memory the lobbyists take over. I hate to tell you this, but these aldermen have been buddies with the same lobbyists for decades now. Decades! If these selfish folks won’t step aside on their own we need a mechanism to do it for them.
The other high priority is reducing the number of Aldermen from the current 28. Some say half – 14. I’m thinking even less, like 9 or 10.
Amen, I lived in DC and they have eight wards–with a population double of St. Louis–plus 3-4 “at large” council members.
DC government doesn’t exactly make your point. The District has eight wards, five at-large council seats, and 37 separate ANCs.
In addition, Congress has maintained final authority over all DC government, even though the DC FCB was dissolved in 2001.
I agree completely Steve. I’m 27, and was flabbergasted to meet Phyllis Young at a meeting in Lafayette Square. After seeing her in action, she’s not much of an urbanist, and certainly not up with the times. If she stays around, I’d love to give her a run for her money someday.
The ANC’s in DC have absolutely no power–well, they have power, just as much power as a high school class president has. DC government has worked surprisingly well; that city is exploding with new development that St. Louis can only dream of. Congress technically has final authority, but in the seven years I lived there, it really rarely meddled in DC’s affairs.
Amen! I’m sure you have more aldermen that could stand to go too. THANK YOU for at least attempting to remove these people who have provided nothing to the St. Louis city.
Believe me Steve, I’m itching to take one on. 😉 Probably gonna have to wait until after college, though. 🙁 (Yeah, I’m THAT young….)
What has happened to the HUGE numbers of people who wanted the Mayor and Jennifer Flordia out of office?? Nobody is jumping to repleace them.. I am sick of people who want action, but don’t do anything about it..
The lack of candidates is why term limits is so important. Once these people get in office they have a tremendous fund raising and name recognition, advantage that makes it almost impossible to vote them out of office. With term limits more people with limited means may be willing to make the tremendous commitment of time and resources it takes to get elected.
Even with term limits you would have the party organization throwing its weight around for certain candidates. How else can you explain 50 years of momentous decline in the City of St. Louis, yet the democrats are still in power. It makes no sense that a third party or republican candidates have not taken over, except that the whole structure of St. Louis is controlled by the moneyed types, who make all the decisions behind closed doors.
Term limits is not a complete answer, but in this dysfunctional society it is at least a step in the right direction. Better yet would be to begin to establish democratic processes that engage the citizens at all times.
In theory more elected representatives should mean that the peoples voice is heard more fully. But in St. Louis it doesn’t work that way. Rather it is the graft of Madoff, Wall Street and Blagojevich that is the rule of the land.
Isn’t the filing fee a bit like a poll tax?
My husband wants me to run for Phyllis’ spot, but there’s not much demand for a conservative alderman here in the 7th ward.
Way to go Steve. I would support term limits!
These alderman are just sitting in the way of any city progress when they are there for 10, 15, and 25 years. Ridiculous and it just doesn’t make any sense.
If people would be willing to give the same amount of time to political campaigns as they do to watching TV, surfing the net, reading books, or drinking in bars you would see a very different City Hall. The problem is that people don’t really care enough. The average person does not see the importance of most political offices other than the presidency.
Don’t believe me? Walk out your front door some weekend and knock on your neighbors’ door and ask them who their Alderman, Committee People, State Rep, State Senator are. If they know who they are ask how much time or money they have ever spent campaigning for any of those positions. Let me know if anyone has a block where more than 10% of the residents know the names of their local officials and have spent time or money on a campaign.
Term limits will do nothing to change apathy and until voter apathy changes you can expect similar people to do similar things. Forced changed, changes nothing. Motivated change, changes everything.
What I would like to know about Phyllis Young (and others, but her specifically) is how and why things changed for her or what changed her. From what I have read (not old enough to have experienced it) she and a couple of others were young, urban pioneers who broke into the city government “club” and were thought to be the change that city government needed. Does the system break people down like that? Does that mean that any of us who were to attempt to get into this government would eventually be beaten down as well and end up carrying on the status quo? It is all interesting, especially considering that I would now never consider Young urban-minded……just based on what has happened in her ward during her time. Obviously she is urban-minded based on where she lives and how/where she has lived her entire life.
Just curious…………….
Term limits failed us in the Missouri Legislature, causing the removal of good long term legislators at their peak of public service. I don’t see how term limits would be better in the city of St. Louis. The tide of public opinion has already turned against this method of getting rid of unwanted office holders.
Elections should be about the record and philosophy of the office holder, not how long they have been holding office.
Term Limits … I don’t know. Reducing the number of wards should absolutely be done, if only because each one costs ~$30K in salary, and that money would be well spent elsewhere.
Well…for those interested, I will be filing on Friday for the 9th Ward. I’m 29, and have lived in Benton Park West long enough to realize that the current system just doesn’t work as effectively as it could. I’m actually pretty impressed with how our current alderman manages constituent services and if he would be willing to get behind a platform of change I would just simply support him in those efforts…but I just don’t see it happening.
We need leadership willing to fight for the change and not just someone looking to retire in 4 or 8 years. WE need to reduce the number of alderman to 10 (4 north, 4 south and 2 for the Midtown/Downtown area), move the election to November to save tons of money and be more in line with election cycles of communities around us, stop chasing after big business (usually a net loss for tax purposes) and focus on job creation through small business development in neighborhoods and especially downtown.
I know I have much to learn to both address the needs of my neighbors and the long-term goals for a more effective and efficient city government AND I’m ready to give it shot and look forward to your support, ideas, and energy.
Jay Swoboda
9th Ward Alderman Candidate
jayswoboda.wordpress.com
There’s a strong pitch from someone at least as ready as anyone else to throw a hat in. Good luck Jay.
“WE need to reduce the number of alderman to 10 (4 north, 4 south and 2 for the Midtown/Downtown area)”
So these ten wards would each have different numbers of residents?
Is it better to have someone in office who isn’t willing to run against someone? It is a lot easier to convince someone to run if there is no competition. What the city needs is people willing to run. Change, Change, Change doesn’t mean squat if no one is willing to run.
We need people like Jay who aren’t afraid of the establishment. People who are going after a seat regardless of their incumbent. That’s a person that will fight for us. Someone who runs because no one else is there is just as likely to cash the checks and kick his/her feet up.
Here’s what we’ll do, everyone get mad that Slay is mayor in two years and organize a recall. Then, when the recall fails (again), no one run against him just like this go around. All talk … no walk.
Best of luck to Jay – we need more people like you in the City.
Well…blame it on Urban Review STL or conversations that I’ve had around the idea of running for the 9th Ward over the past few months but the phones got to ringing at City Hall today shortly after my post.
It was thought my downtown developer employer had aspirations of taking over the 9th Ward…which couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, he has discouraged me from seeking the position. It is really amazing how fast news travels in this town but the response has been wholly entertaining.
Regarding the number of alderman, I simply was proposing an idea that fewer alderman would make for a more effective city government. Can you imagine trying to get 28 people to develop a common vision? In many ways, for me that is what this is all about…a vision. We just don’t have one. What will St. Louis look like in 2020? What will the 9th Ward look like? I’m not 100% sure I know myself but I think the development of that vision needs to be a priority and I’m committed to seeing that develop with or without me as an elected participant.
So, I think 10 alderman is good but 7 would be even better, and while we all could certainly wait for 2011 and 2013 for things to slowly come together around this idea and others like it…I’m just not willing to wait another four years if I think WE can have a greater impact today.
Excellent.
I agree, fewer aldermen would be better. Compared to Denver (which has 13 city council members [11 districts + 2 at-large] for a city of about the same size as St. Louis), politicians here seem way more focused on turf issues and on “solving” small “problems”, instead of facing citywide issues. Sure, I like my streets clean, my trash picked up and the parks kept up, but isn’t that what city employees are supposed to do?! I’d much rather see our leaders focused on economic development at a city and regional level, i.e. providing leadership! When the wards are too small (as they are here), expenditures get skewed simply because too much effort is focused on “equality” and too little is focused on putting the money where it really needs to be . . .
Twenty-eight would be a fine number of people for a policy-focused legislative body. What we have with the Board of Alderman is city management by 28 people tied to parochial interests, though. It could be done effectively by five people, or ten people, but not by 28.