City Vs. County. The pointless fight you've been waiting for.

Of all the silly things we argue about in St. Louis, the merger of the city and county ranks as one of my favorites. The arguments encompass everything I love about news comments sections. Ranging from "But my tax dollars!" to "I don't want the criminal element flooding the county!"

It's a inane argument, really. St. Louis needs the suburb to balance itself out, and the suburbs needs the city of St. Louis to be a vibrant metropolis to draw people from out of town to work and live here. At the moment, the city and county are divided with the county boasting over 90 municipalities. This isn't neighborhoods or anything, these are separate cities, many with their own police and fire departments which costs millions each year in duplicate services.

Remember that when people start bitching about taxes. Meanwhile, the city of St. Louis has possibly the best zoo in the country which is free to anyone who wants to come and paid for by the citizens of the city through a 1% income tax.

Edit: It has come to my attention the county folks pay property taxes to the city for some services. I suppose they can keep coming to the zoo. For now...

The story from STLToday is really interesting. From the article: "A new group called Better Together will launch a 16-month series of public input sessions to discuss the city and county's fractured governmental structure and seek input on ways to improve it."

The language is very careful to explain this is just a study to find ways to improve things for the city and county. From public finance, health and safety to parks and recreation, this group just wants to help improve the area and wants to gauge public reaction. 

Lucky for all of you, I have some public reaction right here for you.

Sitting together with maps and ideas to reduce the number of municipalities in the area now requires a dictatorship. It doesn't surprise me that a comment from STLToday would find idea of cooperation to build a better and more streamlined local government as fiat. Don't try to do the mental gymnastics it takes to get to that conclusion. You'll only sprain something.

And yes, we would be still landlocked, but a google maps search of unincorperated St. Louis county shows there is a lot of empty space for the city to build itself up.

And if anything, we can to take St. Charles in a glorious St. Louis crusade against the west.

There are a lot of comparison's to Detroit throughout the comments here, especially the ones like this which state the county would suddenly go bankrupt if we all merged. I don't know how this would happen, nor do I think Ed Will does either.

Funny enough, Detroit was much like St. Louis before it collapsed in on itself. According to this wikipedia article, Detroit unannexed a lot of their areas, but were forced to bring along local municipality charters which resulted in 330 local governments in the Detroit metro area.

Let that one sink in, and then realize that if the merger did happen, the shitty little counties all over St. Louis would do the same. And then blame any failure on the city rather than themselves and their desire to keep their speed trap tax influx.

God damn I hate the Calverton Park and St. John police departments. I support merger just to get rid of those two shit stains of North County municipalities.

There are lot of reasons for the decline of the city cited in that article, like ease of access via freeway, white flight and urban decay. 

That all sounds familiar for a reason.

Saint Louis city public schools have walked a fine line with accreditation, but at the moment, they are accredited. It's the double secret probational accreditation, but it still counts. Meanwhile, Riverview Gardens and Normandy are busing their students elsewhere because of all that great accreditation.  

But those counties are full of poor people. I'm sure Earl Chesnut would just tell them to stop being poor and everything will get better.

The self hating asshole is probably the commentor I hate the most. Someone who just bashes the city and everyone who lives in it. There is no way for me to love the rich history of St. Louis, the people, the location or the architecture. We're all here because we're just too broke to go anywhere else. If there's one thing I hate and wish I could leave, it's diversity, a growing IT future, great restaurants and the feeling of being a city dweller without it costing an arm and a leg to live anywhere.

So fuck you Paul Cook of Synergetics USA. I'm here because I love it. You can move to one of the coasts and be a whining, shitty comment on their local news websites.

County people are oppressed by the city. I don't even know where that logic train took off from, but I can clearly see it derailed somewhere. Jim, I hope that's not my beloved Busch Stadium you're at, and if so, you better be a city resident because I will start discriminating. Against people named Jim Carroll.

I'm glad to see not all the comments are taking this seriously. And I'm all for laying down a DMZ minefields along Skinker and the River Des Peres to keep them dirty county peasants out of my gentrification. 

Also, Schlafly and AB are in the city, and the Bottleworks doesn't count. Stupid restaurant that doesn't serve fries. "Ooh, it's unhealthy, but here's a wide selection of beers!" That'll certainly knock the weight off. Jerks.

If any of you can explain this, I would appreciate it. All I get is "DOOLEY SUX, BLACK PEOPLE ARE SILLY" In fact, can anyone can explain any of the love or hate flung at Dooley or Slay? They both seem perfectly fine, inoffensive local politicians who shake hands when they are supposed to. People have made them out to be absolute evil reigning over St. Louis.

Then again, these are people who rail against Obama while not knowing who their state senators are. They believe the people at the top have all the power and shake their fists at the skies while the alderman is the one trying to clean up that park you won't stop bitching about.

This is how I win arguments too. Zero substance and a smattering of broad, pop culture references. Then I sit back and bask in how smart I think I am.

Well fuck me running, Paul went to Crown Candy. He must know so much about the city after going to one of the most popular dining areas in the city limits!

Paul, just stay in the county if the city is too confusing for you to understand. Much like the county, the city has good places, bad places and a lot of mixed culture from the people who call it home. But if you're just going to roll around the place with a gun in your hand and a wary eye of everyone with dark skin, just stay out in whatever bumblefuck county you live in because I don't need more idiots with guns in my city.

I'm not sure what part of this people are failing to grasp. Incorporating the county into the city will make the county part of the city, which means the county will receive city taxes. Because they are now part of the city. I seriously cannot think of a better way to lay this out. Maybe if I internet yell it.

CITY TAX MONEY WILL GO TO YOU BECAUSE YOU WILL LIVE IN THE CITY!

Doubt it will really help since most county people can't see past the walls they build up to alienate themselves from each other. I've never seen more closed off and uninviting people then when I'm in the county.

There is no reason for this comment unless Laurie found limited fanfare from facebook friends regarding her dual purchase of a dictionary and thesaurus.

Jesus Christ Paul, you sound like someone dropped you on your head. Recently. You would have to get a secondary ass to pull these statistics from since the primary ass just couldn't handle this much shit.

I'm not saying there's a perfect solution to all of this madness. Merging the city and county will have its ups and downs, but over all would probably be good for everyone. Unfortunately we just don't care enough about the other people in our city. Hell, we hardly give a fuck about the guy three blocks over because they aren't in the same city.

Until people are willing to look over their borders to the rest of the city and county, there will always be a backlash against merging. Maybe the Ladue and Ballwin school districts dip a bit, but if it helps the schools over all, isn't that worth it? Isn't it best to put us all on a more even playing field in which we work together to raise ourselves and our city?

Probably, but you'll only read that here. And I'm just a guy with a blog making fun of stupid people with computers.