Poll, Will Mayor Slay Get Charter Reform, Police Control, City into County During 3rd Term?

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, in his address after being sworn into office for a 3rd term, said, in part:

We can no longer afford to compete against each other. We must combine our resources and talents to figure out solutions to regional issues as complex as race relations, poverty, transportation, and creating jobs in new industries – and to regional tasks as simple as writing smoke-free laws, sharing public services, and building bike paths.

The world is changing at a dizzying pace, accelerated by a brutal economy. The City and our region will be very different four years from now. They can be better – but not by accident. We have to make it happen.

The City must reform its charter. The City, the inner suburbs, and outer suburbs must combine services. And, I strongly believe, that we must begin to lay the groundwork for the City of St. Louis to enter St. Louis County.

All of these changes — to help those struggling in this economy, to reorganize city and regional government, to find better educations for our children, to reinvest in our neighborhoods, to improve our quality of life, to create jobs in new industries, to engage young college graduates, to build contemporary infrastructure — will require that we talk to each other more often, more directly, and in different ways.

The past eight years have been an awakening—we have shown what we can accomplish if we dream great dreams and if we work together to make them reality. The next four years will see just how far we can really go.

So the poll for the coming weeks asks how much of Mayor Slay’s agenda will get accomplished by the end of his 3rd term which ends in April 2013.  He seeks 1) Charter reform in the city, 2) local control of the police deptment (has been goverened by the state since the Civil War) and 3) get the City of St. Louis back into St. Louis County.  So how many will he get done?  All three?  Two?  One?  Or nothing?  Take the poll in the upper right corner of the main page and then share your thoughts below.  For my post from the Mayors 3rd inaugural with the full text of his speech click here.

Mayor Slay Calls for Local Police Control, City Rejoing County

Yesterday was inauguration day at city hall.  Half the Board of Aldermen were sworn into office as was the Comptroller (4th term) and Mayor (3rd term):

Here is the published text of Slay’s inaugural speech:

In preparation for these formal remarks, I read through some of the many words I’ve used as mayor. There have been a lot of them.

There is one phrase, a phrase that has occurred in speech after speech, which I have come to consider my hallmark. A thousand times – at neighborhood associations, ribbon-cuttings, ground-breakings, announcements, and bill signings — I have said: “ . . . and this could not have happened without the hard work of the people gathered in this room.” And a thousand times, that has been true.

It is especially true today. What has been accomplished over the past eight years has been done — together — by the people in this great room.

President Reed; Comptroller Green; members of my own family and of yours; honored guests; judges; aldermen; legislators; county-office officials; cabinet officers; department heads; all the hard-working men and women who work for the City of St. Louis in patrol cars, on the other end of phone lines, on hose lines, on garbage trucks, on ladders, at desks, and on the business ends of brooms and shovels – thank you for all you do for the people of the City of St. Louis.

An inauguration is as good a time as any to put some things behind us. And I mean to do just that. Given the challenges ahead of us, we cannot afford to keep fighting the old St. Louis fights. So, if you have ever, for any reason, thought my door was closed to you, try it again today. We have a lot of things to do in four years – and getting it all done is going to take every arm, every eye, every pen, and every heart that I can enlist.

The same is true for our region – and I mean both sides of the Mississippi River. We can no longer afford to compete against each other. We must combine our resources and talents to figure out solutions to regional issues as complex as race relations, poverty, transportation, and creating jobs in new industries – and to regional tasks as simple as writing smoke-free laws, sharing public services, and building bike paths.

The world is changing at a dizzying pace, accelerated by a brutal economy. The City and our region will be very different four years from now. They can be better – but not by accident. We have to make it happen. We must understand our strengths – and use them. We must notice our weaknesses – and correct them.

The national economy — and its aftershocks in Missouri and St. Louis – means that many more middle class residents will find themselves vulnerable – to layoffs, to furloughs, to foreclosures – and that already-vulnerable citizens will find themselves at ever-greater risk. Yet, necessity and opportunity have collided. This is fair notice to everyone: I plan to work with the elected officials and business community in the region to ensure that every federal dollar that crosses the Missouri border is spent where and when – and how — it was intended by President Obama and Congress.

I intend to make it the first business of my administration to refocus the attention and energy of government on doing the things that we do best: maintaining parks; providing recreation opportunities; fixing streets, sidewalks and alleys; expanding greenways and bike paths, and marking bike lanes; and using technology to improve communication with residents and enhance the delivery of services. I believe that there will probably be fewer city employees four years from now, but I know for certain that the ones who remain will be more productive, more committed, and better trained. And as City government looks for its correct size, it is imperative that we address – perhaps with state and federal help — the daunting task of fixing the employee pension systems.

There are things that City government has done well. We have won national and sometimes international attention for our prisoner re-entry program, our Problem Property Task Force, the rehabilitation of historic buildings, the renaissance of our Downtown, our efforts to end chronic homelessness, and our initiative to protect children from lead paint.

We will continue to challenge ourselves to do better.

To reinforce our efforts to deliver high-quality services to our neighborhoods I hope to enlist the services of local university graduates in a year or more of service in municipal government. If a mobilized group of young people can revolutionize communication, reshape traditional notions of consumption, and elect a president – they can certainly energize the IT Department, the Planning Agency, and the Citizens Service Bureau.

City government will have my mandate to reduce the amount of energy we consume, and the amount of pollution we produce.

We will do whatever is necessary — no matter whose toes we step on– to expand quality educational opportunities in the City so all children, regardless of income or neighborhood, can get the education they need to compete in a global economy.

We will, using sensible public incentives to attract private investment, continue to rebuild the historic neighborhoods that most need it. The local media will be covering north St. Louis the way they now cover downtown.

We will work together as a City to help the private sector to rebuild our economy and create good jobs in sustainable industries. That means we will have to innovate. It means we will have to retrain our workers. It means we will have to combine the governance of the region’s airports. It also may mean we will do more business with China than with St. Charles or Chicago. It means we will have to take advantage of our strengths, including our great universities, hospitals, and large number of beautiful, historic buildings.

Many of our government institutions and practices were put in place in a very different age, long before anyone considered Mexico and India as threats to our jobs. We will have to become more effective and efficient—and government must be collaborative. The City must reform its charter. The City, the inner suburbs, and outer suburbs must combine services. And, I strongly believe, that we must begin to lay the groundwork for the City of St. Louis to enter St. Louis County.

There are several representatives here today from Governor Jay Nixon’s office and several members of the Missouri General Assembly. Ladies and gentlemen from Jefferson City, it is time to let go of the past. The Civil War ended 144 years ago. In the age of YouTube, I-phones, and Twitter, it is time that St. Louis joined every other city in America and got its own police department. Governor Nixon, I promise we will not use it against the Confederate Army.

There are several representatives of MoDOT here. With a fairer share of the state transportation dollars that are now chiefly allocated to roads, bridges, and highways, the St. Louis region could fund affordable, clean, reliable, useful, and safe public transportation that let workers reach their jobs without burning gallons of gasoline. And we could finally break the “one-to-a-car, surround-it-with-surface-parking” construction habits that waste valuable land and blight landscapes. If MoDOT will not play fair now, it cannot expect us to support its plans in the future – and we will also work with others in the region to find ways to help ourselves.

There are representatives of MSD here today. We will work with them to modernize our sewer systems—not only to get the Environmental Protection Agency off our backs, but also because it will make our city more sustainable.

And in everything we do, we will, wherever possible, use St. Louis companies and St. Louis workers.

All of these changes — to help those struggling in this economy, to reorganize city and regional government, to find better educations for our children, to reinvest in our neighborhoods, to improve our quality of life, to create jobs in new industries, to engage young college graduates, to build contemporary infrastructure — will require that we talk to each other more often, more directly, and in different ways.

The way we share information has changed. Newspapers and radio stations are struggling for audiences. Television has been fragmented into hundreds of channels and time-shifted by DVR and the Internet. As a result, it is almost impossible to develop a consensus on any answer, except “no.”

So, we will have to learn new ways of communicating, of organizing.

Community meetings will take place in neighborhood list serves and web sites. Community meetings will be on-line forums, as well as in person meetings. Every part of municipal life — signing up for summer recreation, Operation Brightside blitzs, street closings/repairs, paying a tax bill, dealing with a bad neighbor, recycling, getting involved in a mentoring program, finding job counseling – must be available on-line. There is no reason why getting a building permit should require a trip to City Hall – or be much more difficult than buying a book on Amazon.

The past eight years have been an awakening—we have shown what we can accomplish if we dream great dreams and if we work together to make them reality. The next four years will see just how far we can really go.

It is time to get to work on the future. It is time to set aside our differences and come together around a common agenda.

I am excited to be your mayor. I am proud of our City. I am optimistic about our future. I am ready to get back to work.

Thank you, and God bless St. Louis.

Still here?  That is a lot to take in.  Let’s go in order looking at selected text:

We can no longer afford to compete against each other. We must combine our resources and talents to figure out solutions to regional issues as complex as race relations, poverty, transportation, and creating jobs in new industries – and to regional tasks as simple as writing smoke-free laws, sharing public services, and building bike paths.

True, we can’t continue competing with each other.  Moving employers around the region doesn’t help the region.  I like that he specifically mentions smoke-free laws.

Many of our government institutions and practices were put in place in a very different age, long before anyone considered Mexico and India as threats to our jobs. We will have to become more effective and efficient—and government must be collaborative. The City must reform its charter. The City, the inner suburbs, and outer suburbs must combine services. And, I strongly believe, that we must begin to lay the groundwork for the City of St. Louis to enter St. Louis County.

Collaborative government?  Yes.  Reform the city charter?  Yes.  Combine services?  Yes.  Reverse the 1876 split from the county?  Not until the 90+ municipalities in St. Louis County get consolidated by at least half.  Both charter reform & rejoining the county would involve eliminating a number of elected offices.  If they remained they’d no longer be elected positions.  Sheriff, Recorder of Deeds, Circuit Clerk, Circuit Attorney, Collector of Revenue, License Collector, Treasurer, Public Administrator and Comptroller are either duplicates of existing offices in St. Louis County or are offices which could be appointed by the Mayor and approved by the Board of Aldermen.

My poll last week was on this very topic.  Only 30% of you took the term “merge” the city & county meant just rejoining the county.  Sixty percent took it to mean a consolidated government form.  Mayor Slay, however, said “rejoin” not “merge.”

There are several representatives here today from Governor Jay Nixon’s office and several members of the Missouri General Assembly. Ladies and gentlemen from Jefferson City, it is time to let go of the past. The Civil War ended 144 years ago. In the age of YouTube, I-phones, and Twitter, it is time that St. Louis joined every other city in America and got its own police department. Governor Nixon, I promise we will not use it against the Confederate Army.

You’ve got to watch those confederates.  We can always tow their cars and sell their event tickets.  Seriously, we should have control of our own police force — for better or worse.

Community meetings will take place in neighborhood list serves and web sites. Community meetings will be on-line forums, as well as in person meetings. Every part of municipal life — signing up for summer recreation, Operation Brightside blitzs, street closings/repairs, paying a tax bill, dealing with a bad neighbor, recycling, getting involved in a mentoring program, finding job counseling – must be available on-line. There is no reason why getting a building permit should require a trip to City Hall – or be much more difficult than buying a book on Amazon.

Obviously I’m a huge fan of the digital lifestyle but I don’t ever see the internet displacing the value of face-to-face meetings.  I do see huge value in having every single municipal form online as an editable PDF document.  We are such a long way from that now.  Most forms are not even in a non-editable PDF format.  I got one form recently as a Word document.  Our city website is stuck in the 1990s so I agree we need a digital overhaul.  Of course with so many elected officials the Mayor doesn’t have oversight in many aspects of city government.

Can Slay make these changes?  It is a tall order.  But we must dig in.  I say a first step is to eliminate partisan elections for city offices — that would simplify elections every two years.  I talked with one Alderman today about reducing the total number.  This Alderman was complaining about the lack of support staff to succeed.  Well, eliminate 14 Aldermen and suddenly you’ve got nearly half a million dollars a year available for better aldermanic pay and/or increased support staff.

This last item was tried in November 2004 as one of four charter reform measures.  Conveniently a classmate made a presentation on the 2004 charter measures last night.  He was one of the original citizen stakeholders that proposed the changes.  A more seasoned political staff took over and poorly pushed four measures on the same ballot.

Proposition D called for a gradual reduction of the Board of Aldermen to 15 with the presiding officer being selected from within the Board rather than via a city0wide vote as we currently do with the President of the Board of Aldermen.  Not sure 15 is the right number but conceptually I agree.

Being the mayor that led the city to successfully change its charter would be an outstanding legacy.  But can he do it?

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Proposed Smoking Ban Ordinance for St. Louis City

Normally I’d not do another smoking related post so soon after the one earlier this week.  But, I agreed to publish the proposed ordinance to ban smoking in the City Of St. Louis.  28th Ward Alderman Lyda Krewson sent along the following note with the draft board bill:

Attached is a draft of a proposed smoke free air ordinance I plan to introduce soon.

I hope you will consider joining me in this effort.  Most states already have smoke free air legislation, including our neighbors, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska & Arkansas… and of course, well known places such as California, New York, France and Ireland.

The following link gives a quick map and summary of the current laws in the U.S.  All but 15 states have some form of smoking ban, to provide smoke free air.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_United_States

Many think this legislation should be done at the state level, and frankly I agree.  But Missouri is unlikely to move this forward.  Many legislators consider it a ‘city issue’.  Kansas City, Columbia, Kirksville, Nixa and others already have a broad smoking ban.

It seems clear to me that Mo’s largest city needs to provide leadership on this issue!

The science is clear… second hand smoke causes or exacerbates a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.  Banning smoking in public work environments is about the health of workers… not about smokers.  About smoke… not smokers.    It is a health safety issue, not a social issue.

The attached draft Board Bill says that  it will become effective in the City, when St Louis County passes a similar ordinance. I am not interested in creating an advantage/disadvantage for a city vs. county establishment.  Let’s take the leadership role on this. Maybe we can move the whole state?

I look forward to our discussions about this ordinance.  The pressure not to do it will be heavy…   I hope you will join me in this effort.

Thanks Lyda

Lyda Krewson
28th Ward Alderman

314-231-7318 (work)
314 607 3452 (cell)
lyda.krewson@pgav.com

You can view a PDF of the proposed bill here.  One of the most important clauses is on the last page:

SECTION SIXTEEN. Effective Date
This Ordinance shall be effective on such date that a similar smoking ban ordinance becomes effective in St. Louis County, Missouri.

So we can pass the ordinance in the city but until St. Louis County passes a similar bill we will keep things as is.  This prevents the challenge of city establishments losing customers to the county.  Read the language and share your thoughts in the comments section because Alderman Krewson will be reading them.

The Urban Cemetery

The urban cemetery is quite different than the rural one.  Urban cemeteries are often squeezed by surrounding development whereas the rural cemetery is lost in the corn fields.

My maternal grandparents are interred in just such a cemetery.  The county roads to reach the cemetery are gravel.  The only structure seen from the cemetery is a long abandoned farm house.

In the St. Louis area many of our oldest cemeteries started out rural and saw development come toward them. A good many were started as a way of moving bodies from cemeteries closer in locations.

Looking at many of the cemeteries on a map it is clear many of them were located on the outer edge of the city limits or beyond the city.

This land, far away from the core, would have been cheaper than vacant land closer in.  Having already moved early 19th Century cemeteries, new ones from the late 19th Century probably wanted to be far enough away to avoid being moved. The wealthy had country estates to the west of the city.  Ladue was incorporated in 1936.   With land to the West taken by estates it follows that new cemeteries would be located along major farm routes out of the city, to the NW & SW.

Yesterday I visited one such cemetery, Gatewood Gardens Cemetery on Gravios near Hampton (map).  Gatewood is in a cemetery row with St. Matthew & the Old St. Marcus cemeteries to the East, Saints Peter & Paul across Gravois and the New St. Marcus Cemetery to the West, just across the River Des Peres.

Gatewood, located on both sides of Gravois, has an interesting history:

Gatewood Gardens Cemetery began with a small congregation of Germans in 1832. They organized the German Evangelical Church and held services in a small schoolroom on Fourth Street, just south of Washington Avenue in 1834. Two years later a gentleman named George Wendelin Wall arrived in St. Louis and became the pastor of the now named German Independent Protestant Evangelical Church of The Holy Ghost. In four years Pastor Wall was able to raise enough money to purchase the First German Church on August 9, 1840. He remained the pastor for three years before a new pastor took over the congregation.

Frederick Picker began his ministry in October of 1843, and by the time he retired in January of 1855 he had accomplished many things. He averaged 420 baptisms and 225 weddings a year, and was instrumental in purchasing ground for a cemetery located on a 20-acre lot. The cemetery was located in the Kansas-Wyoming-Louisiana-Arsenal area in South St. Louis. It opened in 1845 and was called the Holy Ghost Evangelical and Reformed Cemetery. Many victims of the great cholera epidemic of 1849 were interred there and the last recorded burial in this cemetery was in 1901. The cemetery acquired the nickname, “Picker’s Cemetery,” and was commonly called such by the people of the congregation as well as the surrounding areas.

In 1862 the German Protestant Church bought a new cemetery, and called it the Independent Evangelical Protestant Cemetery. It is located at Gravios and Hampton and like the old German cemetery took the name of pastor Picker. IT became known as New Picker’s Cemetery. This cemetery truly became Picker’s new cemetery, when all the burials at the original cemetery were moved to this location by 1916.

An additional plot of land was purchased across the street (Gravios) and New Picker’s Cemetery became Old Picker’s, while the new plot became New Picker’s. The Cemetery remained in the hands of the congregation for many years before eventually being purchased by another church in 1978. This began the downward steps of the cemetery. In 1981 the cemetery would begins its trip through different individual ownership, and the cemetery’s next 15 years would be in continual decline. At this time the cemetery’s name was also changed to Memorial Gardens, and later it would be changed to its current name. When the City of St. Louis seized Gatewood Gardens Cemetery in 1996, the owners owed back taxes totaling more than $234,000. In the past six years there have been many improvements on the land and the records of the cemetery.  (source)

Yes, the City of St. Louis took control of the cemetery in 1996.

The only new interrments allowed are in family plots.  For the most part the city appears to be a good steward.  But you have to wonder if this is a good use of precious tax dollars.  Could a non-profit be formed to buy & maintain the cemetery?  Clearly, a cemetery with no plots to sell has no profit potential.

Poll, What Does”Merge the City & County” Mean to You?

The City of St. Louis was located in St. Louis County until 1876.  St. Louis, not Clayton, was the county seat.  That year the city became its own City-County, or “independent city.”

Prior to 1877, St. Louis County encompassed the City of St. Louis plus all other areas within the county boundaries including such towns as Kirkwood and Florissant. During that time, the county seat was the City of St. Louis. Often called the “Great Divorce,” the split occurred after the citizens of St. Louis County (that included both city and county) voted on the question of whether the City of St. Louis should separate from the county and become an independent city.

The vote took place 22 Aug 1876, and the initial count indicated that the separation question had failed by just over 100 votes. Supporters of separation then brought charges, including fraud, and a recount was ordered. The recount took four months so it was late 1876 before it was determined that the vote for separation had passed.  (Source)

There have been numerous attempts since 1876 to reverse this vote.  All have failed.  This “independent city”  arrangement is part of the Missouri constitution so any change becomes a statewide issue.

Today you will still hear people say we need to “merge” the city & county.  OK, what does that mean?

The landscape is very different today than it was in the late 19th Century.  Does merge mean expand the county boundaries to include the city — making the City of St. Louis a city among the 90+ other municipalities in St. Louis County?  Would Clayton remain the county seat?  That is more rejoin than merge in my view.

Merge would be a bigger task of creating a consolidated government — eliminating most or all of the 90+ municipalities and having one big city-county governement.  If we went this route I think all would agree the resulting entity would be named St. Louis.  But where would the government body be located?  Like other regions that have actually done this, existing buildings throughout the region would be incorporated into the new government structure.

I don’t think for a moment either one will ever happen but it is interesting to ponder.  I’m not neccesarily an advocate of changing the city-county relationship.  I am interested in consolidating the 90+ cuonty municipalities down to less than 10.  Same for school districts, fire districts and such. The St. Louis region

This week’s poll tackles this subject.  So take the poll on the upper right of the main pageand add your thoughts below on how you’d like to see our local governments restructured or perhaps left as is.