(Please forward this email to Walter E.Williams, Editor of West Magazine)
Re: St. Louis City County Merger
Dear Professor Williams:
Thank you for your well thought out editorials. I look
forward to reading them in each issue of West Magazine. I would greatly
appreciate it if you would take the time to read the following, and perhaps, in
one of your upcoming editorials, take the time to educate the readers about the
fact that the proposed changes to our Missouri Constitution is not so much
about merging the City and the County, but more about every Missouri citizen
giving up their right to have a say in whether the area where they live can be
taken over against their will.
About a month ago, my husband forwarded an email to me on the
subject of the City County Merger. It was essentially a call to arms,
urging each reader to find out as much as they could about the merger and
spread the word to as many others as possible. Initially I spent a time trying
to find out who the people were who back the merger and the Better
Together initiative, but then I realized who is behind
this is not as important as what they are doing and why they
are doing it. In order to do this, I think that it is imperative
that the citizens of Missouri know what changes are proposed and what
constitutional rights that they are literally giving up by voting for this.
What I found is that what Better Together is promoting is
not as much about merging the City and the County as it is about taking away
the right (as currently provided by the Missouri Constitution) of the residents
of the City and County to vote and has a voice in the merger, and whether all
of the citizens in Missouri in the future want to continue to have a say in
government or whether our representative democracy can be undermined by having
the area in which they live can be taken over dramatically altered even against
the will of the majority of the residents.
In looking through my late father's copy of the Constitution of
the State of Missouri, 1945, I read that Article VI Section 30 (which entitled
"CITY AND COUNTY OF ST. LOUIS") (a), of our existing constitution
(And you don't have to be lawyer to know this, you just have to know how to
read) it already clearly sets out the framework of how the City and
County can be merged. So why would Better Together need to revise
the Constitution in order for the City and County to merge? Because
our current Constitution states, "THE POWER TO GIVEN SHALL BE EXERCISED
BY THE VOTE OF THE PEOPLE OF THE CITY AND THE COUNTY".
I assume that knowing that if left up to the City and County
voters, a merger would NEVER pass, that they knew that they would have to
subvert the constitutional rights of these voters, and the only way that it had
a chance of passing, is if they allowed all Missourians (who, they would
make sure were less educated about the truth of what they were doing, and who
might think they would be less adversely impacted by the effects of the
merger). So, in order to force the merger against the will of the
people who could be most injured by it, they would have to reduce and dilute
the say of people in the City and County by making it a statewide vote.
The proponents of the merger are telling us that it must be a
state-wide vote as a change in the Constitution requires a state-wide
vote, and in order for the City and County to merge, a change in the
Constitution is required. THIS IS NOT TRUE, as again, the
Constitution already gives the people the right to merge and there
are very little substantive changes being made to Article VI Sec. 30 (a).
St. Louis Public Radio, in an online article and interview with a Better
Together spokesperson, posts a link to view the current proposed changes to
the Constitution at:
https://news.stlpublicradio.org/sites/kwmu/files/201902/redline_comparison_filed_and_revised_amendment.pdf
In looking at this document, it is clear that it does not set out
a merger of the City and County, it sets out a hostile takeover of
the County and the City. Having worked in the City for many years, I feel
that it is important to note that all those who live in the City
and even those who just work in the City, have the privilege of paying an
additional 1% of their earning to the City (which is in addition to the
additional "employment" taxes levied against all employers).
Of these 25 pages of proposed amendment changes only two and a
half are the actual Article VI, Section 30-33 amendment and revision, and
the remaining 22 pages are listed as "Definitions". I have heard
people say that the "devil is in the details". In this case the
devil is in the "definitions", and in the definition lies evidence of
an attempt to subvert constitutional rights of residents of the City and County
(seize and destroy every municipality in the County), and of all Missourians.
As the definitions will not appear on the actual ballot (and probably not on
the petition) it is important to look at them in detail.
When the proponents leave in [Article VI, Sec. 30 (a)
(5)] "The power so given shall be exercised by the vote of the
people of the City and County..." it appears that they want to
give the voter the sense that they will still have a say in how they are ruled.
However, the Definitions set out that "Effective...January 1,
2021...the territory of the county of St. Louis is extended to embrace the
territory heretofore in the city of St. Louis and the county of St. Louis, and
the county of St. Louis so expanded shall continue its corporate existence as
a new political subdivision, body corporate and politic, and municipal
corporation, which is hereby created, with its name "the Metropolitan City
of St. Louis". So, if passed, THERE
WILL BE NO COUNTY AND THEREFORE THE PEOPLE WHO CURRENTLY RESIDE WITHIN THE
COUNTY WOULD NO LONGER HAVE A SAY. They authors of these changes
could have easily used the words, "the people of the newly formed
Metropolitan District", but they (and their slew of highly educated
lawyers) chose not to.
The municipalities in the County of St. Louis (and throughout
Missouri) were formed in part to give people in a particular area within a
County an extra shield to help protect their sovereign rights, when the
government of the County attempts to overstep its governance, and possible
adversely affect them. The extent of the potential devastation to the
municipalities in the County is clearly set out in the propsed Definitions.
If this merger goes through I and all other residents in the
County, will have less representation in government. Right now as a
resident in Wildwood I have two council members and one St Louis County Council
member. If the proposed merger goes through, I will lose the
representation of all of them and my representation will be reduced to a member
of a metropolitan council which will be representing all of the 996,726
residents of the County and all of the 308,626 City residents. There will even
be a "circuit realignment plan" after which my County
Judicial Circuit will no longer exist, along with my current voter
precinct, and a new one for both the City and County will
replace it. This new judicial circuit will be moved, along with the new Metropolitan
City of St. Louis government offices, to the City of St. Louis.
Sections 7 through 10 (page 6-8) of the Definitions sets out the
destruction of the municipalities within St. Louis County. "During
the transition period, the governing body of a municipal district shall
administer the affairs of the municipal district...provided that no
municipal district shall incur any new obligation extending beyond the
transition period...not dispose of its property...and to refrain from any
official action that would impair or frustrate its orderly administration and
implementation...all property, contracts, records, and personnel related to any
such county office shall be transferred to the corresponding office of the
metropolitan city...the entire territory of the metropolitan city shall be a
general services district...shall provide or secure the provisions of general
district services, including within the territory of any municipal
district...any property, contracts, records, and personnel of a municipal
district...within the territory of the municipal district..."
Section 11 (pages 8-9) of the Definitions states, "...The
metropolitan city may authorize the municipal court.. the mayor shall
appoint with advice and consent of the metropolitan council...the municipal
district and the territory therein shall continue to be held responsible for
any such outstanding obligation..." So, it appears that
while the metropolitan city will confiscate all of the properties of the
municipalities, they municipalities will still be responsible for their own
outstanding debt. It continues, "The boundaries of a
municipal district shall not be altered except as approved by ordinance of the
metropolitan city."So, the new metropolitan council would have the
ability to even change boundaries of any municipality without the say of the
municipal residents.
Page 10 of the Definitions gives us an idea of what our new
governing body would look like. "The governing body of
the St. Louis Municipal Corporation shall be comprised of a board of directors
of five qualified voters appointed by the transition mayor, with three
directors appointed for terms of three years and two appointed for terms of two
years." So, the only qualification needed by these people who
will be appointed to represent us is that they able to vote and friends of the
the self appointed mayor of the City and County. It is further set out
in the next section, "The territory of the St. Louis Municipal
Corporation shall continue as a taxing subdistrict of the metropolitan city,
and the St. Louis Municipal Corporation shall continue as a separate taxing
district, provided that it may exercise only such taxing powers of the
municipal district authorized for its exercise by ordinance of the metropolitan
city - except as otherwise provided in this section for satisfaction of any
outstanding obligation." It continues, "St
Louis Municipal Corporation...with respect to a municipal district...may levy
or impose a tax, license, fee, or special assessment solely within the
territory of the St. Louis Municipal Corporation in the manner and for the
purposes provided in this section..." I would assume
that this means that in addition to the taxes already paid to St. Louis County,
the new non-elected municipal board would also have the right to levy and
collect and keep additional municipal taxes. This seems like double
taxation without representation.
BEFORE ANY MISSOURI RESIDENT IS ASKED TO SIGN THE PETITION which
would bring this matter to state-wide vote, they should be fully aware of what
even signing the petition would do. In order to vote for the Better
Together Initiative, City County Merger, Proposed Changes to Missouri
Constitution Article VI, a Missouri voter must be aware that they will be
altering the Constitution of the State of Missouri, not allowing the people of
St. Louis City and County to have their own say in how they should be governed,
and setting a precedence for other power seeking entities to do same throughout
the entire State. If there are enough petition signatures throughout the
state, A VOTE AGAINST Better Together Initiative ,
City County Merger, Proposed changes to Article VI, Section 30 of the Missouri
Constitution will help to send a message that in America and in the State of
Missouri, it is the PEOPLE who have the say on how they will be governed and
NOT the politicians who will have the say on how they will rule the people.
I think that the potential signers of this petition and the potential
voters throughout the State of Missouri have to ask themselves, If these
proposed changes would not effect the people of entire State of Missouri, then
why would the entire State be required to vote on it.
It seems clear that the problem that we are now facing with this
issue is that since the 1950's the people have been leaving the City of St.
Louis to the point where there are fewer people living in the City than there
were 130 years ago. Meanwhile in St. Louis County, over the past decade,
County population was at an anemic growth of less than 1% but under the
guidance of County Executive Steve Stenger (who has graciously agreed to anoint
himself as the new "Metropolitan" Mayor) taking office in 2015, the
population of the County has even declined in both 2016 and 2017.
What the proponents of the Merger don't seem to realize is that
the people don't leave the City and County because it needs to be merged, they
leave it because for decades those in charge have continuously made it a place
where people don't want to live or work. Rather than try to do something to
address some of the problems and make people and businesses want to actually
stay in and come back to the City and the County, these politicians want to
force their same dysfunction and spread it further, and while eroding the
constitutional rights of the people to even have a say in the matter.
Lynn Link