Thomas F. Schlafly, partner at Thompson Coburn LLP, pens an editorial for
Is there any reasonable explanation for the fact that East and West Germany were able to be reunited, yet some St. Louisans persist in regarding any form of meaningful municipal reorganization as impossible? Whatever barriers we might encounter in our community are minuscule in comparison with those that had to be dismantled in Germany.
The Berlin Wall was put up in 1961 and came down 28 years later, in 1989. East and West Germany became separate countries in 1949 and were officially reunited 41 years later, in 1990. The term “Iron Curtain” was coined by Winston Churchill in Fulton, Mo., in 1946. It referred to a barrier that divided Europe from the end of World War II in 1945 until the collapse of the Soviet Union 46 years later, in 1991.
The Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall and the border between East and West Germany were all once viewed as permanent. Not one of them lasted even a half century. The barrier between the city and county of St. Louis, on the other hand, has been around since 1876. The last serious attempt to change it occurred in 1962 with the ill-fated “Borough Plan.” That was 53 years ago, a longer time span than the respective existences of the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall and the border within Germany.
The two Germanies not only had different currencies, they also had two very different systems of government. One was a Western democracy while the other was a brutal dictatorship. When considered in this context, whatever perceived barriers exist in the St. Louis region really aren’t that insurmountable.
The biggest obstacles to change exist in the mindsets of St. Louisans. In spite of being the city that launched the Lewis and Clark expedition and funded the trans-Atlantic flight of Charles Lindbergh, St. Louis can often be frustratingly risk-averse. To those St. Louisans who are anxious about changing the status quo I would pose another simple question: Would anyone in his or her right mind design a system from scratch that looked anything like what we have now? A system in which there’s wasteful and inefficient duplication of services between the city and county of St. Louis, between the county and the municipalities within its borders, and among the municipalities themselves?
Would any right-minded individual create dozens of municipalities whose very existence depends on issuing traffic tickets — some of which are issued for offenses that might actually threaten public safety and some of which are utterly bogus?
The combined populations of the 90 municipalities in St. Louis County account for only 11 percent of Missouri’s population, yet bring in 34 percent of all municipal court fines and fees statewide. Are these municipalities really that much safer than their counterparts in the rest of the state, or are the fines and fees imposed for reasons that have nothing to do with public safety?
A good way to measure the cost of our Balkanization of municipal services is to compare St. Louis with Indianapolis and Louisville, two regions that have implemented consolidation. Our per-capita cost for comparable services is 44 percent higher than what taxpayers in Indianapolis pay and 75 percent higher than what taxpayers in Louisville pay. Is there anyone who would seriously contend that the cost of this inefficiency is worth it?
The cost of German reunification has been estimated at trillions of dollars. By contrast, taxpayers in St. Louis and St. Louis County would actually save money through consolidation … and receive better municipal services as part of the bargain. Having just celebrated our city’s 250th birthday, St. Louisans should not be afraid of change. We need to find a system that works better than the status quo and implement it. Whatever we implement will not be as traumatic as the societal overhaul of East and West Germany and will ease our collective tax burden. Not only will our region survive the change. We’ll all be better as a result, and future generations will thank us.
Current Study: Public Safety