Readers want change at the St. Louis Board of Aldermen
The poll last week received responses from a little more than 6% of the visitors to the site (174/2,848). Of those that responded the message is very clear: the status quo is not good enough.
Q: St. Louis City has 28 wards. Many think the number should be reduced. How many is right?
- 8-10: 37 (21%)
- 14-16: 37 (21%)
- Keep the existing 28 wards: 19 (11%)
- Mix of ward, city-wide: 18 (10%)
- 11-13: 18 (10%)
- 5-7: 16 (9%)
- No wards, all city-wide: 11 (6%)
- 20-22: 8 (5%)
- 17-19: 8 (5%)
- Increase to more than 28: 2 (1%)
- 23-25 0 (0%)
- 26-27 0 (0%)
- 2-4 0 (0%)
Only 12% picked keeping the number of wards the same (11%) or higher (1%). The other 88% of respondents all think 28 wards are too many for the City of St. Louis. Ten percent, including me, voted for a mix of ward & city-wide representation. The two biggest groups think a significant reduction in the number of wards with 8-10 and 14-16 each receiving 21% of the votes.
The question I have is this: will the current city “leaders” continue to ignore/fight the need for change or will guide the process to change the city’s charter on their own terms? My bet is they will go with the former, putting their collective heads in the sand and hope the call for change. They’ll pull their heads out of the sand long enough to object to a coming citizen drive to change the charter. “We weren’t consulted” they’ll cry out months from now. Today the choice is theirs to make: show leadership or get out of the way as citizens set about reforming our city’s dated charter.
– Steve Patterson
What percentage of people who voted are willing to run for alderman?
If I could make $80-100K per year, I’d sure think about running . . .
What exactly is the point of reducing the number of aldermen again?
I understand that you have a problem with the mentality, attitude, philosophy, etc. of our current aldermen. But how, exactly, will reducing that number change anything? How will having fewer elected baronets change their mentality of being lords of their manors? That’s what your beef is, isn’t it? You want a true legislative body, and not a collection of ombudsmen? I do too, but having fewer in number wouldn’t change anything. You’d simply have fewer people trying to do the exact same thing.
I have no problem with the current number (and I really like the name). What we need is a completely new City Charter, that more clearly defines roles, and that more directly mimics the clear executive-legislative-judicial delineations of government found in the federal and state constitutions. Personally, I think we need a much stronger mayor.
The last comment from “steve” is right on: we need fundamental charter reform that reshapes the role of the alderman. The number is far less important than the role. Mean time, I ask my question because we need good people to run for alderman who would support fundamental changes.
Tradition and constituent expectations have a lot more to do with how the city operates than any language written into the/a charter. The present BoA could empower city departments to do their jobs and lose little, if any, real “power”. Making the races nominally non-partisan won’t eliminate the shadow government that the Democratic ward committee-person system creates. Having constituents continuing to call their alderman instead of the CSB has nothing to do with the charter, it’s just an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it thing” – it works and it’s the easiest way for many people to get things done. The one thing reducing the number of aldermen would do is to give each one a larger focus. If nothing’s really happening in your ward, it’s human nature to invent things to keep yourself busy/justify your future reelection; increase the responsibilities and the minor issues will actually become minor ones, and be handled more appropriately . . .