Reaching My Polling Place

My polling place is just under a mile west of my loft, just west of Jefferson at the Heritage House senior housing building located at 2800 Olive.  In the past few elections I have driven my car but I decided to use transit for yesterday’s election.  The bus ride was direct and short.

Exiting the bus at Leffingwell Ave & Olive St. I noticed the first problem, I couldn’t cross Leffingwell due to no curb ramp on the other side of the street. I needed to cross Olive St. anyway so I did that first.

Unfortunately, the same problem existed when trying to cross Leffingwell on this side of Olive.  Since I needed  to cross the street to vote I had to look for alternate places to cross.

Halfway down the block I found a place to cross, on the east side of Leffingwell was a drive from an alley and the other side was a driveway for my destination.  My first preference to cross a street is a signalized intersection.  Second is a 4-way stop and the least desirable is mid-block. I was well aware that

I have reported this lack of curb ramps to St. Louis’ Citizens Service Bureau via Twitter (@csbSTL).

– Steve Patterson

Update on Taxi Stand on Sidewalk

I’ve been blogging about the placement of a taxi stand on the sidewalk in front of the convention center for years, with few results. In January 2007 I posted this video of a taxi exiting the stand via the pedestrian crosswalk:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRusfBYJ-_8

That prompted the Convention & Visitors Commission (CVC) to add bollards at the two crosswalk locations across Washington Ave.  This prevented the taxis from exiting onto the crosswalk but it didn’t address the primary problem: the former sidewalk was now occupied by taxis.  Where should the pedestrians walk?

Pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk in front of America’s Center has increased since the old St. Louis Centre pedestrian bridge came down but it has still been hard to capture the problem in still images or video.  But Sunday after the Rams game the sidewalks were packed and it became easy to photograph & video the problem with parking taxis smack dab in the middle of the pedestrian sidewalk.

The following video is seven minutes of people walking around the taxis, not riveting but telling of the problem.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CQb8asXp3A

Happily I think a solution is near, I will meet with the CVC next week to see a drawing of their concept on how to return the sidewalk space to pedestrians. I’m finally optimistic about the situation.

– Steve Patterson

Voters Could Always Decide on Earnings Taxes

I urge every voter in Missouri to vote NO on Proposition A on Tuesday.  I’ll explain why but first I want to examine the arguments in favor.

The slogan for passage is “let the voters decide.” Sounds logical enough, why shouldn’t we get to decide? From the pro-A website:

If Prop A passes in November, will the local earnings taxes automatically be eliminated in St. Louis and Kansas City?

Prop A does not automatically repeal those existing earnings taxes. It allows local voters to make that decision in local elections. If Missouri voters pass Prop A this November, the politicians will be required to allow local votes of the people on the existing earnings tax in St. Louis and Kansas City every five years, starting in 2011. These local votes will let voters decide for themselves if they want to continue their local earnings tax or gradually phase it out at the rate of one-tenth of one percent per year for 10 years.

Okay here is where I have  a problem with their wording.  “It allows local voters to make that decision in local elections” makes it sound like we must pass Prop A in order to have a local election on continuing to have an earnings tax or eliminate it and get the 1/3 of our annual revenue through other taxes. This is just not true!

Anyone with a better idea on how to fund St. Louis & Kansas City could use the initiative petition process to propose changes that would reduce/eliminate the earnings tax.

“1. Article V of the City Charter provides a procedure by which registered voters may propose an ordinance or an amendment to the City Charter and have it adopted by the voters, with the same effect as if it had been enacted by the Board of Aldermen and approved by the Mayor. This procedure consists of gathering the signatures of registered voters on an initiative petition.”

But the wealthy backer of Proposition A, Rex Sinquefield, knew if he got petitions on the ballot in St. Louis & Kansas City that spelled out how our sales taxes and property taxes would increase up to 50% to make up for the loss in revenue from the earnings taxes that he wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Their next sentence is “If Missouri voters pass Prop A this November, the politicians will be required to allow local votes of the people on the existing earnings tax in St. Louis and Kansas City every five years, starting in 2011” Clearly they are playing to the anti-politician sentiment we’ve been seeing nationally. Sounds like making the politicians do something, making them give us the right to reconsider the earnings tax every five years.  So?

The translation is this gives Rex Sinquefield numerous times to personally fund the campaigns to end the earnings tax in St. Louis & Kansas City.  It also means when either city goes to sell bonds to finance projects the bond rating will be higher causing a higher interest rate, potentially sidelining projects that might be able to be funded today.

Governments provide services and people pay taxes to fund those services.  There are many ways to fund governments.  St. Louis and Kansas City are both on the state line and have workers paying the tax that don’t live in the city.  Some live elsewhere in Missouri while others live in Illinois and Kanas, respectively.  Both cities provide services within each region that benefit those workers as well as their respective regions.

I have no love affair with the earnings tax and would gladly look at alternative funding concepts.  But until such alternates actually exist we don’t need to be trashing our bond rating and risking future projects. One-third of the St. Louis budget is a lot to try to make up elsewhere.

More info can be found at SayNoToA.org.

– Steve Patterson