St. Louis Sprawl Contributes to Destruction of Alaska Wilderness

The Bush Administration is pushing hard to open the Alaska Wilderness to oil exploration – in part to keep those SUVs in Chesterfield and St. Charles County blissfully humming along our highways. Destroying Missouri farm land and waterways isn’t enough. Why should Alaska be immune from the ravages of our culture?

A recent article on drilling in Alaska indicates an estimated 10 Billion barrels of oil is there. Wow, sounds like a lot of oil. It will take at least 10 years to get that oil out of the Earth. Here is the real kicker, given our current rate of consumption this oil is a six month supply. Yes, you read that right – only six months of oil. Ruin a wonderful wilderness area for a six month oil supply 10 years from now?

WTF?

Click here for full story.

– Steve

St. Louis Redevelopment says “No” to Tattoos & Pizza by the Slice

Today I was shocked to find 285 St. Louis City Ordinances containing the word “Tattoo.” One ordinance regulates Tattoo & Body piercing establishments. The remaining 284 are redevelopment ordinances where an area is blighted for redeveloped. Tattoo parlors are one of the uses prohibited from the redevelopment areas:

Pawn shops, adult bookstores, x-rated movie houses, massage parlors or free-standing health spas, auto and truck dealers (new or used) pinball arcades, pool halls, secondhand or junk shops, tattoo parlors, truck or other equipment rentals requiring outside storage, blood donor facilities, free standing package liquor stores, check cashing centers, any use (except financial institutions or pharmacies) that utilize a sales or service window or facility for customers who are in cars or restaurants that sell products to customers who are in cars or who consume the sold products in cars parked on the restaurant premises, or sell products through a sales window to customers who are in cars or to pedestrians outside the building for immediate consumption by the customer either on or off the premises, automobile or service stations.

The above language seems to be a standard paragraph that is placed in all legislation pertaining to redevelopment areas. I don’t know yet if this is a requirement from some other ordinance or if city staff simply cuts & pastes this language without any thought. Either way, I have issues with the language and its implications to the vibrancy of the city.
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What St. Louis’ Political Scene Needs

I’ve decided since my election that I am going to take a more active role in politics – not just focusing on urban design issues. The best thing we can do for our system is to ditch the so-called partisan elections. Why do we both calling ourselves Democrats?

Everyone in town that has any hopes of getting elected, with a few exceptions, is a Democrat. We’ve got your liberal gay pro-choice Democrats, your conservative pro-life Democrats and everything in between. In any other city the latter group would call themselves Republicans.

My late grandmother was a Democrat. Didn’t matter who was running, she was voting Democrat. Only if the devil himself were as a Democrat against Oral Roberts as a Republican might she have considered not voting a straight Democratic ticket. This is what we have, for the most part, in St. Louis.

So, if everyone is running as a Democrat why do we need to even bother with having party affiliation. I say we do away with the party affiliations for all City and City-County elected officials. This would certainly simplify the election process, we’d no longer need a Democrat & Republican judges.

We’d actually vote on people not based on their years working the Democratic ward system but on the person. Yes, I know – radical concept. Voting on someone based on their ideas.

I haven’t the slightest idea what it would take to make all these elected offices non-partisan. Presumably a change in City ordinances for some and possibly a change in the City’s Charter for the “county” offices. Most likely it will not come to pass but it is nice to think about. Thoughts?

– Steve

Upcoming Meetings/Events in and around the 25th Ward

Saturday, March 19, 2005; 9am

The Trinity-Dutchtown Neighborhood Association will hold its monthly meeting at Trinity Church school on Itaska at Grand. The T-D Association boundaries are Virginia on the East, Delor on the South, Grand on the West and Meramec on the North. For more information contact Ursula Rudolph at (314) 353-4208.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005; 7:30pm

The 25th Ward Regular Democratic Club will hold its regular monthly meeting on a special night for March (normally held on the 4th Thursday). All of the candidates for the School Board have been invited to speak. Voting members, myself included, will be voting to endorse candidates in the April 5th election. Location is the downstairs hall at Resurrection School, 3880 Meramec.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005; 7pm

Mayor Francis Slay will be the guest speaker at the March meeting of the Mt. Pleasant Neighborhood Association. The MPNA meets monthly on the 3rd Wednesday at the Charless Home. Enter from the Nebraska street parking lot.

Thursday, March 24, 2005; 7pm

The 1st District Police Public Affairs meeting will feature Judge Jack Garvey from St. Louis’ Juvenile Court. The meeting location is outside the 25th Ward at the Windsor Community Center, 4092 Robert, 63116. For more information you can contact Officer Kent Womack at (314) 444-0176.

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Operation Brightside’s annual Blitz 2005 will be held for those of us south of Meramec (most of the 25th Ward). North of Meramec and East of Grand will be April 9th. North of Meramec and West of Grand will be April 16th. Click here for more information.

Sunday, April 3, 2005; Noon to 4pm

ReVitalize St. Louis/The Rehabber’s Club will hold the annual Big Big Tour on Sunday April 3rd. Hundreds of for sale houses will be open all over the city. This is an excellent time for us to really market our neighborhoods!

Monday, April 4, 2005; 7pm-9pm

The Dutchtown South Community Corporation will hold a “Block Coordinator Networking” meeting at the Thomas Dunn Learning Center, 3113 Gascondade. For more information call the Dutchtown office at (314) 352-4865 or contact them by email.

I will make most of the meetings. If you see me please be sure to say hello!

– Steve

To Convert or Not?

I’m referring to the current St. Louis trend of taking two-family buildings and converting to a single family house and taking a 4-family building and converting to two attached townhouses. So prevalent is this trend that to suggest anything other than such conversions is like suggesting a suburbanite trade-in his vinyl-clad box of a house and SUV for a downtown loft and a Toyota Prius. You get blank stares and arguments.

The most common arguments presented by the pro-conversion faction are reduced density and more appealing living space. I hear the rhetorical question all the time, “What else are you going to do with a four family?”

Before I get into some of the specifics I think we should define some of the buildings. I’m going to break down the buildings into two broad categories – the shotgun style and the hall & bedroom style:

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