Stop Signs Best Symbol of Machine Politics
A big part of machine politics is “constituent service” — giving the people the little things while ignoring the major societal problems. One example is what it takes to get a stop sign installed, or removed, in the City of St. Louis. A petition by residents to the Streets Department? Nope. How about a professional traffic study? Wrong again. Convincing your aldermen to pass a bill through the entire Board of Aldermen? Bingo! Latest example, Ald. Gregali introduced Board Bill #306 on Friday to remove a school stop sign on Bancroft.
Yes, the simple task of determining suitable locations for stop signs is not something we can leave to our presumably professional city staff. No sir, this takes our fully elected legislature and the mayor’s signature — for a single f-ing stop sign! Do we really think that in 1950, at St. Louis’ population peak, the aldermen had time to deal with such trivial matters? But, over the decades as you lose nearly sixty percent of your population you have to invent ways to remain relevant.
Perhaps the number of aldermanic seats needs to be tied to population? A 60% reduction in the number of Aldermen would put us at 11 (11.2), not 28. At each census, if the population grows enough, another seat would be added. In increase to 364,000+/- would bump the number to 12. When we get to roughly 394,000 another seat would be added, and so on.
If you wonder why your alderman is too busy to return your email or communicate via a blog-like website it is because they are serving their constituents — one stop sign at a time.
For problems at the board of aldermen, who should we call?
The really funny part is that they will go through the whole process of passing a Board Bill (committee report and three readings) and not a single Alderman will actually consider the pros and cons. Aldermanic Courtesy dictates that this Board Bill sails through without debate.
Granted it would be a complete waste of everybody’s time, as you state above, to actually discuss this Bill. Just for kicks, I think it would be pretty funny for a group of Aldermen to vote no.
This is unbelievable, and extremely funny. I think it would be a great joke for Leno or Letterman to use on a show (even though I cannot stand those guys).
We need our revolution now!
Not sure if it is urban legend, but I have heard that St. Louis has the most stop signs per capita of any major city, precisely for this reason.
If you complain to your alderman enough, “poof” a stop sign appears. Perhaps the process is similar for one-way streets and “flower pot” street barriers. But once in place they very rarely get taken down even if it makes sense.
Tree removal also suffers from this problem, I’ve heard in the past that older residents not wanting to deal with leaf removal could call their friendly alderman and have a tree removed from the public right of way in front of their house. As a result many streets are severly lacking street trees, while others remain attractive tree-lined streets.
Not sure of the specifics but in general I am kind of glad to see a stop signed removed.
I read the same thing (about being number 1) . . . and because we have soooo many 4-way stops, the stop sign on my corner says “STOP”, with a little red “2-WAY” sign added below that, with yet another larger, rectangular, yellow sign below that saying “CROSS TRAFFIC DOES NOT STOP” – aka, how to “fix” bad traffic engineering and keep people from running into each other since actually stopping at all these signs seems to have evolved into being more optional than mandatory!
Steve is so right.
Having aldermen deal with trash, traffic issues, or crime directly is basically like seeing the Director of Streets collecting trash or Parks and Recreation mowing the lawn.
The way this should be handled is through marketing, and wait, blogging! Aldermen need to actually inform their citizens how to get the City bureaucracy to deal with these issues. If the City bureaucracy is having big failures in service delivery, then aldermen can step in and investigate, however this day-to-day stuff is micromanagement at its best and machine politics at its worst.
No wonder St. Louis is no longer a global city! We have a bunch of trasn collectors in the legislative branch! Maybe it is time the office becomes professionalized with a higher salary and higher standards. Honestly, who would want to actually work hard for 30k? A professional job demands a professional salary.
It’s a culture. People like their alderman to be their personal representative at City Hall.
It’s a longstanding tradition. It’s been like this for generations. The cycle is self-perpetuating.
No alderman would ever change it, and if she did, she becomes an outcast. It’s better to just go along with it.
Ask ANY of them.
All of the comments and Steve’s report are right on the mark. The system as we know it mollifies ANY agent(s) of change that enters this system. Honestly, evaluating the components of Saint Louis City Government, one will quickly identify an astounding number of figureheads: Aldermen, deputy mayor of something, commissioner of this; director of that; board of this, and deputy of that… The basic (essential) functions of all City agencies eventually achieve some resolution; while the advanced planning and removal of current absurdities frequently settle in the black box of legislation, while the ever-convenient forgetfulness of elective officials keep the public at bay. Keep it up Steve, our modern day Don Quixote.
The real question is this: Should government be in the education business?
One of the best examples of how government can destroy good intentions and generate terrible results is the SLPS.
The intitial goals of educationg young people with public funds to generate a more educated work force, benefitting all of society, has become a hornets nest of infighting with only 12% of students achieving proficiency.
The “successful” public schools in our area that are achieving proficiency levels near 70% are largely immune from the destructive domestic and political battles occuring in the City. But even these levels of achievement fall short of the 2014 legal requirements of NCLB and even worse is the practical conclusions. Just imagine, looking at graduation class at our best schools, one of the four receiving a diploma fails to be proficient. Add the trend that Missouri continues to lower standards in an attempt to meet accreditation criteria and you’ll begin to see the burgeoning problem.
As long as these problems are being addressed in this framework, do not expect anything but poor results.
It’s a culture. People like their alderman to be their personal representative at City Hall.
It’s a longstanding tradition. It’s been like this for generations. The cycle is self-perpetuating.
No alderman would ever change it, and if she did, she becomes an outcast. It’s better to just go along with it.
Ask ANY of them.
Historical tradition does not make something good or of value. Many discriminatory practices were justified in the same manner. The ‘culture wars’ are furthered by this argument. Conservatives argue that ‘history and tradition’ are justification for ‘doing it this way.’ Do you agree? I say it’s about time we began looking at why we follow the status quo. The answer and problems which arise from this are self evident.