The State of the County

Story Update (02/11/2020)

On January 26th, 2020, the story below was finalized and published. Today, sixteen days after that original story, things have continued to evolve. The predicted minimum wage hike to $15 for county employees was put into motion and the biggest question marks regarding the future of the St. Louis County Police Department, the future of Chief Balmer and the settlement with officer Wildhaber have been resolved (Balmer will retire while a settlement with Wildhaber was reached for $10.25 million).

The opportunity for even more progress also exists in the wake of these positive developments. When the Board of Police Commissioners names their pick for Balmer’s replacement, look for them to pick a Chief of Police who’s vision fits with that of Wesley Bell and thus for that vision to be more completely implemented, for example.

Much progress can still be made and we each have a role to play (I for one would love to see the county build a 24-hour shelter for people experiencing homelessness within its borders as part of a more regional effort to tackle the issue) but it’s also nice to give credit where credit is due. And credit is indeed due.

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Previous Story (01/26/2020)

On April 7th Kirkwood will vote. Three Kirkwood City Council seats and the Mayorship are up for grabs. While local representatives, initiatives and reform are the single most important factor for Kirkwoodian’s day-to-day life, there are some things Kirkwood can’t do without a little help from our friends, at all levels of government. (As a side note I have compiled a spreadsheet of all elected officials at all levels of government for residents of Kirkwood as well as some important info on each, feel free to check it out here and use tabs to navigate between levels). Today we’ll explore what that context looks like in St. Louis County, the largest GDP producer in the state. As we will see, the county is not what it very recently was. Continued changes in Clayton could have massive downstream implications for it’s 6th largest municipality.

County Enters Center Ring

St. Louis County politics up until very recently seemed a political backwater, a sideshow to the main attraction that was St. Louis City. Because the city enjoyed extremely comfortable Democratic margins it always seemed that wholesale, interesting, cohesive and progressive legislation would more likely originate there. The characters bigger and the media and public scrutiny more intense. Ever since County Executive Steve Stenger has resigned however, that no longer seems to be the case.

Part of this magnetic shift in the action has as much to do with disfunction on the part of the city —it turns out more cleavages exist in this city than just partisan ones, who would’ve thought? (sarcasm)— as much as it has to do with progress on the part of the county, but there has indeed been progress at the county seat.

Electoral Prospects

Primary Challenge to Page: Of course just because Sam Page has had success governing, there’s no guarantee he will prove as talented at campaigning in a county-wide footprint. Steve Stenger relied on strong support from unions, a base of support that Page has yet to prove he can similarly draw from and one that his primary challenger, County Assessor Jake Zimmerman, is likely to court. Zimmerman, a Harvard graduate and someone who has already won a county-wide election, is impressive, but he lacks a clear message as to how his agenda or ideology will differ in any significant way from that which Page has put forward. So maybe Sam Page will prove to be a one trick pony… but I doubt it. As long as Page is compared to Stenger, that kind of good press will be hard for any challenger to overcome.

2020 Council Elections: Two Democrats, Rochelle Walton Gray and Kelli Dunaway, and one Republican, Ernie Trakas, are up for re-election in 2020. I assume they are all fairly safe, but honestly who knows. The most swing-y district of the council is likely District 3 which Kirkwood is almost entirely comprised of and is currently represented by Republican Tim Fitch. That seat however is not up for re-election until 2022. (Again, see above spreadsheet along with Kirkwood, State and Congressional elected officials spreadsheets here, did I mention the spreadsheet??)

Initiatives

Here’s some examples of the progressive legislation that the county council and executive have recently implemented:

Equity for County Employees: Page has and the council have made numerous improvements to the labor dynamics that they can have impact on. Amongst the reforms instituted or currently in the legislative process is paid maternity leave and an elimination of salary compensation history in the application process for new employees. With first St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura Jones and then Mayor Lyda Krewson implementing a $15 minimum wage for city employees recently, look for this threshold to be the next initiative considered by the county.

Gun Reform: In much the same way that employment reform is difficult without state support, so too is gun reform. With that being said, the county is doing what it can, namely: reducing access to guns for domestic abusers.

Affordable Housing: The brainchild of Lisa Clancy (who we’ll discuss in more detail below), the affordable housing program that Page recently signed into law has two parts: the formation of an affordable housing fund and the restructuring of the St. Louis County Housing Resources Commission. The affordable housing fund portion of this bill is not especially well funded or broad in its initial scope but rather seems to be a seed from which a more robust program can grow. The legislation exclusively provides carrots rather than sticks (it has no ability, for example, to force municipalities to add to their affordable housing stock before funding assistance for other projects is made available to them by the county), likely leading to the affordable housing that is built to be concentrated in north and south county rather than the richer, whiter inner ring and west county suburbs, but it does seem to be a good start, as does the idea to bring more housing expertise and diverse stakeholders onto the commission. Read more about the specifics of the policy here.

3 Continued Challenges

Despite things going pretty well recently, there are certainly always challenges on the horizon; here are four that seem to be the biggest threats to the continuation of that momentum.

Police Scandal The most pressing issue in the county is police reform. In the wake of the $20 million decision in the Keith Wildhaber discrimination suit, Page has replaced four of the five members of the Board of Police Commissioners, the body responsible for ultimately deciding if Balmer will stay on as chief of police or not. This is all very important but at the end of the day St. Louis County Police Department is only one of fifty-nine that are in operation in the county, which brings us to…

Consolidation: If transformative change is to truly occur, it must be accompanied by some sort of consolidation. While some sort of consolidation between the City and County has received by far the most media attention, (and the county has done its part by appointing its representatives to the Board of Freeholders, a step the city still unfortunately has not been able to accomplish on its end), a city county consolidation is by no means a comprehensive enough one. Even if the City was to re-enter the County, attempted collaboration between 1,000 tiny municipalities and school and service districts would still be incredibly burdensome. This secondary form of consolidation could be achieved through two primary means:

1. Reducing Total Municipalities: St. Louis County is currently home to 89 municipalities, many of those municipalities are not self sufficient. Reduction can be achieved a couple different mechanisms. Municipalities, especially smaller ones, could either merge with/annex one another to form more viable entities, or especially geographically isolated municipalities could disincorporate and be reconstituted as part of unincorporated St. Louis County.
2. Consolidation of Services: Even if getting small municipalities and their local politicians to give up their fiefdoms School districts proves difficult, services could still be shared. Fire Departments, Police Departments and school districts (which are separate entities from the municipalities but closely mirror them) could all be consolidated to improve efficiency and equity.

Conservative Out West: Stenger’s downfall and the subsequent effor to right his many wrongs saw the council largely work together across partisan lines. That mutual effort seems to be drawing to a close with 4-3 partisan votes becoming the de-facto count on most legislation. While slim, that 1 vote margin feels about as safe as a 1 vote margin can be. With that being said, there is certainly opportunity for Republicans to play spoiler on a number of fronts apart from council votes.

As the center of the region’s population continues to shift West, collaboration with St. Charles County will likely prove increasingly necessary. I don’t crave a ton of collaboration with St. Charles County —I really have no desire to see the region exurban sprawl grow any more than it already has— but some collaboration will be required. Public amenities like those that are funded by the ZMD (Art Museum, Science Center, Zoo, MO History Museum, and MO Botanical Gardens) as well as sports stadiums and parks, will increasingly be used by people who do not pay taxes to support them (St. Charles County does not currently contribute to the ZMD taxing district). Similarly, TIF competition, crime and economic viability do not obey county boundaries and any policy in St. Charles County will have direct implications of its counterpart across the river.

Across the river, however, lies the likes of Chesterfield, Ballwin and Wildwood, a cohort that seems to increasingly believe their interests to be more closely aligned with conservative St. Charles than increasingly liberal St. Louis. While west county will not “secede” from St. Louis County like people like to suggest, they can make life difficult for it. Everything from a potential St. Louis city-county merger to the ongoing dispute over the redistribution of sales taxes seems like it will polarize along the line between west county and its neighbors to the east.

5 People to Watch

For the current progressive momentum to be sustained, up and coming talent must be fostered and retained. A talent juggernaut is currently forming in Clayton to do just that. Here are five up-and-coming people (in alphabetical order) who are at very different places in their careers but who have all demonstrated their ability to make things happen and their prospects for continuing to do so in the foreseeable future.

Wesley Bell: The nomination of Wesley Bell over 30 year incumbent Bob McCulloch, a little less than a year and a half ago, was a shock to many and perhaps the first sign that a more progressive St. Louis County was primed to take over. His initiatives include increased community based policing, assigning special prosecutors in homicides by police, pledging to never seek the death penalty, reforming cash bail, expanding diversion programs and the county’s drug courts, and promoting equitable due process. On the whole, Bell’s reform package is likely the single most day-to-day impactful change the county has seen. Where he goes from here is mere speculation but if Bell’s desire is to remain in a prosecutor role, the next step on the totem pole would be as challenger to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. That move however is likely some time off. Schmitt is up for re-election in 2020, too soon for such a move, and Bell still has plenty of room to make an impact in his current role, (especially with regards to the previously mentioned County Police leadership crisis). But Bell is young and impressive and eventually what comes next, will indeed come.

Lisa Clancy, the 5th District’s representative and Council Chair might be the single biggest factor in the county’s leftward shift. While she is officially the top ranking member of the council, she is also unofficially its current guiding star, spearheading both the aforementioned public housing legislation as well as the effort to bring more transparency to the council’s proceedings. And that seems to be just the start with this excellent interview via her alma mater, UMSL. While I hope Clancy stays involved at the local level for the foreseeable future (perhaps running for County Executive in a couple of cycles), I also believe her to be the type of person that could eventually win at the state-wide level. Stay tuned and enjoy the ride until then.

Sarah Crosley, a former campaign field director and current executive assistant for the impressive Lisa Clancy, Crosley is a young and exciting leader herself. Crosley is currently running for a city council seat in Maplewood which is basically exactly the right launching pad for a progressive political career. While I don’t know much about the makeup of Maplewood’s current council, I assume it’s gotta be pretty close to the liberal leanings of its residents. The question of where Crosley could eventually have the most impact, (with either state rep or senator likely being the next step) is a logical one. But first thing is first: win the election in April.

Cora Faith Walker: The former State Representative from the 74th district (Ferguson/Jennings) was named as St. Louis County’s Director of Policy after resigning from her position on July 29th. The 35 year old holds a law degree from St. Louis U., a masters degree in public health from Wash U., and served as state representative from from 2016 until this past summer. On making the switch Walker stated: “local government has so much more potential to improve [lives],” likely beyond fed up with the impasse of Jeff City. What comes next for the policy director feels pretty up in the air though. Rita Heard Days 1st district county council seat feels like a possibility but would be a part time position. Perhaps a run for the 14th state senate district would also be considered but that role would seemingly run into many of the same issues that Walker faced as a representative. Finally and most ambitiously is the possibility of eventually replacing Lacy Clay to represent Missouri’s 1st district in DC; there will be plenty of competition but I’d be hard pressed to find a candidate with a more impressive résumé.

Jay Nelson: Nelson, previously a staffer for retiring state senator Jamilah Nasheed, was recently added to County Executive Sam Page’s executive branch staff as Regional Relations coordinator. Nelson was born and raised in St. Louis City and, while his mother lives in the county, in another world would have a role in the city’s government. But, like I said, the county has shifted to center stage. Jay Nelson has not run for office. He does not have a big impressive upset election victory or news-worthy grandstanding moments. Instead, he has defined himself as a smart, competent person working primarily behind the scenes. More than anything else though, he seems, from an admittedly substantial distance, to be an incredibly good person. All this is not to say that he couldn’t or won’t win big elections, it’s just to say it’s people like Nelson who make real political change happen and St. Louis County is better for having him aboard.

Last Word

The County gov is not better than the city’s, nor is it as important. The county benefits from systematic advantages (read: segregation and fewer tax exempt institutions) and any sustained success it enjoys will always be directly tied to the success of the city. But there are good things happening in the county. And that is cause to celebrate for the time being.