A Look At Local Election Results

Voter turnout in the City of St. Louis was an impressive 72.8%! That figure is a bit misleading though, 72.8% of registered voters cast ballots on Tuesday, a total of 142,042, but not every ballot voted on every item. I personally didn’t vote in those races with only one candidate (ex: Circuit Attorney), others did the same.

Here is a list of how many voters did not vote on citywide races:

• President: 456
• Senate: 1,754
• Governor: 3,052
• Lt. Governor: 5,081
• Secretary of State: 5,935
• State Treasurer: 6,199
• Attorney General: 5,251
• US Rep Dist 1: 5,802
• Circuit Attorney: 18,541
• Public Administrator: 11,067
• Sheriff: 10,173
• Treasurer: 8,824
• Amendment 3: 13,748 (change current nonpartisan judge process)
• Proposition A: 8,003 (local control of St. Louis police)
• Proposition B: 5,534 (increase cigarette tax)
• Proposition E: 11,032 (prohibit healthcare exchanges)
• Proposition R: 13,459 (reduce Board of Aldermen)

So 456 people took the time to vote but didn’t pick a presidential ticket? The fewest ballots cast were in the race for Circuit Attorney. Competitive races get higher participation. Hopefully,  in a decade, when we have 14 wards instead of our current 28 there will be increased competition.

Tuesday night when I was at Sen. Claire McCaskill’s watch party at the Chase I checked local results on the KMOV iPhone app, I tweeted the following image that I’d taken as a screen capture.

Oh no, Prop R is going down big time, not just failing to get the 60% approval necessary to change the charter. Very quickly I got replies saying the results from other sources showed the opposite. In the end 65.9% of registered voters weighed in on this important change to city governance. But I’m bugged that 13,459 voters, 14.5% of registered voters, didn’t take the time to make a decision. Though if they had Proposition R might have failed!

But it passed with 61.49% of the vote, just over the 60% needed. So a decade from now you’ll see some real change start to happen.Will the 2020 census record yet another decline in population? Would making the reduction in the number of aldermen have sent a message to young progressives to stay in St. Louis, that we can change? We’ll never know the answer to that last question.

— Steve Patterson

Grocery Shopping By Bicycle

To many people stocking up at the grocery store means taking the car, but not everyone  thinks that way.

When I saw this woman come out of Vincent’s pushing a shopping cart with two bags I expected her to go toward the parking lot. Instead she headed to the bike secured to the bus stop sign. Initially was a bit shocked because, like me, she wasn’t a young 20-something. The more I thought about it I realized I know people my age (mid 40s) to well into their 70s that bike everywhere.

If the bus wasn’t about to come I would’ve stopped her to find out more. Given that she has fold-out baskets on her bike I’d say if she has a car at all it doesn’t get used much for grocery shopping.

Those of you who drive everywhere may find it hard to believe that a person can live in St. Louis without a car, but more and more are doing so.

Note the bike racks in the background, not near the entrance. It’s telling she locked her bike to the sign post rather than one of the two bike racks further away.

— Steve Patterson

Completely Different Economies

Many people use daily deal sites/apps like Living Social and Groupon and many local versions exist now as well. Businesses run deals in an attempt to attract new customers, but the distribution of deals is .

Recently looking at a map (above) of Groupon deal locations it become clear to me the central corridor and south city are my only options, no businesses in north city seem to be participating. A notable exception is advertiser Rambles on 14th Street in Old North had  a recent deal on Living Social.

Perhaps the north city merchants realize the cost of a new customer through such sites may simply be too high, not enough bang for the buck. I looked on Ujamaa Deals but didn’t find anything local:

Ujamaa Deals was founded to directly combat the chronic unemployment plaguing the Black community. No community that spends over 90% of its money with businesses that they don’t own will EVER achieve political, social, cultural, or economic equality or independence!

The idea behind Ujamaa Deals is very simple. The real unemployment rate in the Black community is over 20%, with some estimates as high as 30%, and these numbers are not improving. It is a fact that Black-owned business are more likely to hire Black people than non-Black-owned businesses (about 85% more likely actually). Blacks currently spend less than 10% of their money with Black-owned businesses. So it became obvious to us that the most efficient way to combat Black unemployment is to re-direct more Black dollars to Black businesses in order to help them grow, and when they grow they’ll need to hire more people, and those people are likely to be Black. So by spending money with Black-owned businesses we are creating wealth and jobs for ourselves and decreasing our dependence on others for goods and services.

One sentence really stood out to me:

“Blacks currently spend less than 10% of their money with
Black-owned businesses.”

That’s a harsh reality if true! Looking into this issue I ran across an article by Ujamaa Deals co-founder Lawrence Watkins where he discussed the  4 half-truths about black-owned businesses — and why you should still buy black:

1. Customer service is terrible with black-owned businesses.
2. The prices of black-owned businesses are higher than at other firms.
3. Encouraging people to buy black is racist. We need to encourage people to buy American.
4. There aren’t any black products that I really want to buy.

Obviously much work needs to be done to get a thriving economy is predominantly black areas.   I don’t have any solutions, do you?

— Steve Patterson

Missouri’s Cigarette Taxes Are Embarrassingly Low, Smoking Rates High

Eight states border Missouri, all with substantially higher cigarette taxes than we do. Kentucky is the lowest of the eight and their tax rate is 353%  higher than our rate. On the high end is Illinois, there taxes are 1,165% higher than our $0.17 rate!

Proposition B, if approved tomorrow, will raise our cigarette taxes to $0.96. At that rate four neighbors would have lower taxes and four would have higher taxes — we’d be in the middle.

If Proposition B passes, the best data suggest that we will experience an almost 12 percent reduction in teen smoking and prevent more than 40,000 Missouri youths from starting to smoke. More than 30,000 adult smokers in Missouri will likely quit smoking, and more than 20,000 premature deaths from smoking-caused diseases will be prevented over a very few years. More than 8,000 smoking-exposed pregnancies will be prevented. Furthermore, those of us who do not smoke will have less exposure to passive smoking, further reducing the risk of smoking-related diseases.

Passing Proposition B will result in huge health care cost savings over five years — $4.95 million from fewer cases of lung cancer, $17.69 million from fewer pregnancies exposed to cigarette smoke, and $11.8 million from fewer heart attacks and strokes. Over the long term, Missouri will save about $1.37 billion from health care cost savings from reduced teen and adult smoking. (Guest editorial @ stltoday.com)

Basically Missouri has failed in the past to raise taxes like our neighbors have done.

In Missouri, 25% of the adult population (aged 18+ years)—over 1,120,000 individuals—are current cigarette smokers. Across all states, the prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults ranges from 9.3% to 26.5%. Missouri ranks 48th among the states. (CDC)

Forthy-eight out of fifty!

Approximately 30% of the annual revenue generated from state excise taxes and settlement payments would fund Missouri’s tobacco control program at the Best Practices recommended amount. However, in 2007, Missouri’s funding for tobacco control was 1.7% of the recommended level. Missouri ranks 49th among the states. (CDC)

We’d still be below the national average of $1.34 per pack. Please vote yes on Proposition B to get us caught up.

— Steve Patterson

Food Delivery By Bicycle In Tower Grove South And Now Downtown

I never paid much attention to Griffin Delivery because they only delivered in the South Grand area, which I’ve never lived in. But recently I was attending a Public Safety committee meeting at the Board of Aldermen and Griffin Delivery owner Andy Heaslet was there to speak on another bill, mentioning they’d just started food delivery by bike in downtown. My ears perked up and I passed him my card when he sat back down.

Eager to try out their delivery service I ordered lunch through their website griffindelivery.com. At that time, last month, they only offered lunch from Pickles Deli  (701 Olive) but they’ve since added Tortilla Grille (200 N. 6th) and Lola (500 N. 14th). Heaslet & Goulet told me more restaurants will be added as the service ramps up.

Ordering is done through griffindelivery.com, the menu for each restaurant is part of website. I was able to select the type of bread and cheese for my grilled cheese. You can select to receive email and/or text messages to be notified when the courier arrives at the restaurant and when your food is on the way. My food was still warm when it arrived!

I personally hate talking on the phone but Griffin Delivery offers a high-tech way to get food delivered from localy-owned restaurants in a low-carbon way — by bike.

Right now downtown delivery is weekday lunch and  dinner down south, but they are looking to expand hours in both.

On Wednesday morning I ordered lunch 90+ minutes before I wanted to eat, allowing me to concentrate on some work. I can already tell that I’ll be having food delivered more often now, time to set a monthly limit for myself.

— Steve Patterson