Celebrating Blog’s 19th Anniversary

 

  Nineteen year ago I started this blog as a distraction from my father’s heart attack and slow recovery. It was late 2004 and social media & video streaming apps didn’t exist yet — or at least not widely available to the general public. Blogs were the newest means of …

Thoughts on NGA West’s Upcoming $10 Million Dollar Landscaping Project

 

  The new NGA West campus , Jefferson & Cass, has been under construction for a few years now. Next NGA West is a large-scale construction project that will build a new facility for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in St. Louis, Missouri.This $1.7B project is managed by the U.S. Army …

Four Recent Books From Island Press

 

  Book publisher Island Press always impresses me with thoughtful new books written by people working to solve current problems — the subjects are important ones for urbanists and policy makers to be familiar and actively discussing. These four books are presented in the order I received them. ‘Justice and …

New Siteman Cancer Center, Update on my Cancer

 

  This post is about two indirectly related topics: the new Siteman Cancer Center building under construction on the Washington University School of Medicine/BJC campus and an update on my stage 4 kidney cancer. Let’s deal with the latter first. You may have noticed I’ve not posted in three months, …

Recent Articles:

When Good Tools Go Bad: Eminent Domain & TIF

February 15, 2005 Planning & Design, Politics/Policy Comments Off on When Good Tools Go Bad: Eminent Domain & TIF
 

Eminent Domain & TIF (Tax Increment Financing) are supposed to be good things – mechanisms for serving the greater good. However, both have been abused. From a recent Post-Dispatch story:

St. Charles County has challenged St. Peters’ creation of a “tax increment financing district” in a case that could have statewide implications depending on how the state high court decides to weigh in.

The case focuses on how St. Peters created a special, 581-acre economic development district within the county and how projects within the district were financed. The land involved is south of Interstate 70 and east of Mid Rivers Mall.

Lower courts have upheld the city’s position. St. Charles County objects to how much money it has to contribute to the project and has appealed. The county is also challenging the constitutionality of the “tax increment financing” law.

The City of St. Peters blighted cornfields. Since when is open land blight? Hopefully we will see the courts narrow the definition to prevent such broad application of the term. It was bad enough when affluent suburban shopping mall West County Center was blighted because it wasn’t as new as competitive malls.

Related to this is the abuse of eminent domain. We’ve seen eminent domain used mainly to take people’s homes, businesses, churches and schools for highways, housing projects, and big box developments. Where is the public good? Please tell me when eminent domain was used to take deteriorating properties away from speculators that were sitting on properties simply for profit. I can’t think of any examples.

Next Tuesday, February 22, the United States Supreme Court will hear the case of Kelo v. City of New London, and decide whether the Constitution allows the government to use eminent domain to take one person’s home or small business and give it to a private developer.

On Monday, February 21, in sixteen communities around the country, groups will demonstrate against this increasing abuse of governmental power. Locally, a growing group of your friends and neighbors from all parts and strata of the community will join this demonstration.

St. Louis will join other communities in protesting this abuse with a rally from 11:00am to 1:00pm – St. Louis City Hall (north side of building) on Tucker and Market. I hope to see you there.

– Steve

When Good Tools Go Bad: Eminent Domain & TIF

February 15, 2005 Planning & Design, Politics/Policy Comments Off on When Good Tools Go Bad: Eminent Domain & TIF
 

Eminent Domain & TIF (Tax Increment Financing) are supposed to be good things – mechanisms for serving the greater good. However, both have been abused. From a recent Post-Dispatch story:

St. Charles County has challenged St. Peters’ creation of a “tax increment financing district” in a case that could have statewide implications depending on how the state high court decides to weigh in.

The case focuses on how St. Peters created a special, 581-acre economic development district within the county and how projects within the district were financed. The land involved is south of Interstate 70 and east of Mid Rivers Mall.

Lower courts have upheld the city’s position. St. Charles County objects to how much money it has to contribute to the project and has appealed. The county is also challenging the constitutionality of the “tax increment financing” law.

The City of St. Peters blighted cornfields. Since when is open land blight? Hopefully we will see the courts narrow the definition to prevent such broad application of the term. It was bad enough when affluent suburban shopping mall West County Center was blighted because it wasn’t as new as competitive malls.

Related to this is the abuse of eminent domain. We’ve seen eminent domain used mainly to take people’s homes, businesses, churches and schools for highways, housing projects, and big box developments. Where is the public good? Please tell me when eminent domain was used to take deteriorating properties away from speculators that were sitting on properties simply for profit. I can’t think of any examples.

Next Tuesday, February 22, the United States Supreme Court will hear the case of Kelo v. City of New London, and decide whether the Constitution allows the government to use eminent domain to take one person’s home or small business and give it to a private developer.

On Monday, February 21, in sixteen communities around the country, groups will demonstrate against this increasing abuse of governmental power. Locally, a growing group of your friends and neighbors from all parts and strata of the community will join this demonstration.

St. Louis will join other communities in protesting this abuse with a rally from 11:00am to 1:00pm – St. Louis City Hall (north side of building) on Tucker and Market. I hope to see you there.

– Steve

When Good Tools Go Bad: Eminent Domain & TIF

February 15, 2005 Planning & Design, Politics/Policy Comments Off on When Good Tools Go Bad: Eminent Domain & TIF
 

Eminent Domain & TIF (Tax Increment Financing) are supposed to be good things – mechanisms for serving the greater good. However, both have been abused. From a recent Post-Dispatch story:

St. Charles County has challenged St. Peters’ creation of a “tax increment financing district” in a case that could have statewide implications depending on how the state high court decides to weigh in.

The case focuses on how St. Peters created a special, 581-acre economic development district within the county and how projects within the district were financed. The land involved is south of Interstate 70 and east of Mid Rivers Mall.

Lower courts have upheld the city’s position. St. Charles County objects to how much money it has to contribute to the project and has appealed. The county is also challenging the constitutionality of the “tax increment financing” law.

The City of St. Peters blighted cornfields. Since when is open land blight? Hopefully we will see the courts narrow the definition to prevent such broad application of the term. It was bad enough when affluent suburban shopping mall West County Center was blighted because it wasn’t as new as competitive malls.

Related to this is the abuse of eminent domain. We’ve seen eminent domain used mainly to take people’s homes, businesses, churches and schools for highways, housing projects, and big box developments. Where is the public good? Please tell me when eminent domain was used to take deteriorating properties away from speculators that were sitting on properties simply for profit. I can’t think of any examples.

Next Tuesday, February 22, the United States Supreme Court will hear the case of Kelo v. City of New London, and decide whether the Constitution allows the government to use eminent domain to take one person’s home or small business and give it to a private developer.

On Monday, February 21, in sixteen communities around the country, groups will demonstrate against this increasing abuse of governmental power. Locally, a growing group of your friends and neighbors from all parts and strata of the community will join this demonstration.

St. Louis will join other communities in protesting this abuse with a rally from 11:00am to 1:00pm – St. Louis City Hall (north side of building) on Tucker and Market. I hope to see you there.

– Steve

Small Percentage of People Voted in June

February 15, 2005 25th Ward 2 Comments
 

From the FYI file…

In June 2004 a special election was held to fill the 25th Ward Aldermanic seat. A grand total of 456 people voted. Forty-two were by absentee ballot – leaving only 414 taking the time to vote on election day.

At the time of the special election we had 5,827 registered voters. With 456 ballots cast, less than 8% of the eligible voters did so. Hardly overwhelming turnout.

Here was the final breakdown:
• Republican Francis Wildhaber: 93 votes
• Democrat Dorothy Kirner: 363 votes

What was really interesting to me is the precinct by precinct turnout. The two precincts East of Grand had 5.45% & 5.72% turnout (01 & 04, respectively) while the two precincts West of Grand had a much better turn out – 8.78% in the 2nd precinct and 9.54% in the 3rd precinct.

We’ll have to wait until March 9th to see the results of the March 8th election.

– Steve

Not Trying to Get the Ward Endorsement

February 15, 2005 25th Ward 5 Comments
 

Wednesday February 16th will be the 25th Ward Endorsement meeting. I can tell you today – the day before – I will not be getting the endorsement of the ward committee. I don’t have the support of the “establishment” and frankly I sleep better at night knowing so.

At last count we had 26 paid voting members. Elected officials that represent some or all of the 25th Ward are also eligible to vote. For example, three different State Representatives – Mike Daus, Tom Villa and Jeanette Mott Oxford – are all eligible to vote in our ward endorsement. Since they will all presumably be in Jefferson City giving the Republican majority a hard time they won’t be able to attend the meeting. But, not to worry.

I know one Representative received a ballot this weekend. It was delivered to the Rep’s house in person. One might think the Committeeman (Norman Sutterer) or Committeewoman (Maggie Lampe) would run around and take care of such things? Well, not in the 25th. My opponent, Dorothy Kirner, delivered the ward endorsement ballot to the Missouri State Rep I spoke with.

Again, I don’t expect to get the ward endorsement so the final result will not be anything unexpected. I’m going to predict 4-6 votes for me.

Related Posts:
• 25th Ward Committeeman Takes Exception to Arch City Chronicle
• 25th Ward Democratic Club Moves Up Endorsement Vote

– Steve

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