St. Louis Has Far Too Many Aldermen
Besides our average Alderman having been in office for 12 years, we have too many. There has been talk about cutting the current number of 28 in half for years. Such a proposal was rejected by St. Louis voters in November 2004. It is time to revisit the issue.
To evaluate where St. Louis stood I turned to my friend Rob Ryan. Ryan is a recent SLU alumni, an employee at RegionWise and a consult along with Mark Baum at Baum & Ryan.
Here is what we know based on what he gathered. St. Louis is #1 or #2 in having representatives representing the fewest number of residents or percent of the population, respectively.
Ryan’s notes on each of the above cities:
St. Louis: The Board of Aldermen is made up of 28 members (one elected from each of the city’s wards) plus a board president who is elected city-wide
Cleveland: The number of council members has decreased over the years. In 1885 there were 50 council members, by the 1960s there were 33, in 1981 Cleveland voters approved reducing council to 21 members, and today there is debate about further reductions (some suggest as few as seven members
Pittsburgh: City council members are chosen by plurality elections in each of nine districts
Milwaukee:Â The mayor oversees a Common Council of elected members, each representing one of 15 districts in the city
Baltimore: The Baltimore City Council is now made up of 14 single member districts and one elected at-large council president
Denver: elected from 11 districts with two at-large council-members
Chicago: one elected from each ward
Kansas City: one member for each district, plus one at large member per district
Memphis: six elected at large from throughout the city and seven elected from geographic districts
New Orleans: The city council consists of five council members who are elected by district and two at-large council members
Cincinnati: members are elected at large
Detroit: city government is run by a mayor and nine-member city council and clerk elected on an at-large nonpartisan ballot
All info on government structure was taken from wikipedia, 2000 pops from factfinder.census.gov
A couple of my unsolicited observations; Out of my non-scientific sample, St. Louis has the lowest population per representative Cleveland is 2nd, but they have been reducing the number of districts for the past several decades St. Louis drops to #2 when you rank by percent of total population per representative, behind Chicago. This really confirms the argument that St. Louis is a lot like Chicago in its collection of semi-independent machine-style fiefdoms. Neither city have any meaningful number of at-large representative positions and both have a bunch of aldermen representing less than 5% of the city’s population
Clearly our current number of representatives is not in line with many other cites. We had 28 wards when our city had half a million more people than we had as of the 2000 census. What is the magic number? Looking at the above I’d say cutting out half isn’t enough. Our current system is broken and does need fixing. I don’t expect the current Aldermen to eliminate their own jobs. We must do it for them.
The question is how do we get it done? I’m not overly concerned about collecting signatures. The big question is do we have some reps from districts and some at large? How do we want to restructure our city charter for the 21st Century?
St. Louis has too many municipalities. Any prediction on who will be the first one’s to actually bite their pride and merge?
Clayton and Richmond Heights had been talking about it; I don’t think it went anywhere, though.
I think you could go down to as few as seven wards, or one-quarter the current total. My new home of Charlotte is approaching 700,000 people and has only seven district-elected reps (plus four at-large). That’s nearly 100,000 folks per council member and still partisan elections, ableit a manager-council form of government.
With a body that small, the Kennedy Hearing Room could become the new chamber (any ideas on uses for the old chamber?). As for at-large reps, maybe just allow the Mayor and Comptroller to sit on the Board (for a total of nine), with the Mayor replacing the President of the Board of Alderman and the full Council hiring a City Manager.
My Denver experience is that the at-large members function much differently than the district members and that constituents only “go to” them when they can’t work with their district rep. The at-large members typically pursue larger, citywide issues, while the district members focus more, but not exclusively, on issues in their respective districts.
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The questions then become a) what is the “right” size/population for a ward or district and b) what is the “right” mix of at-large to ward reps? Get these two answers right and the actual number will become clear pretty quickly.
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Given our local history and traditions, along with the existing political inertia, I agree, simply cutting the existing number in half would be a great and potentially doable first step. I’m also truly unsure whether or not we need any at-large members. Between the President and the Mayor and the other citywide offices, we already have a lot of politicians that should be looking at issues from a citywide perspective; adding more probably wouldn’t change much.
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The biggest question that must be answered will be the perceived loss of power at the ward level, by both politicians and constituents, and how our expectations of personalized problem solving will be maintained. The Citizen Service Bureau seems to be doing a fine job, and my alderwoman actually encourages her constituents to contact them directly (unlike some of the people running to replace her). IF we can shift the BoA’s focus from getting streetlights fixed (about all you can do in small, stable wards) to larger development and policy issues (something that becomes much more real with larger wards), then this proposal has potential (one argument I’ve heard against fewer aldermen is that it would cost more since more staff would be required to take care of the increased workload!) . . .
I had a funny dream involving an alderman last night. The dream began with a group of us in a meeting with the alderman showing everyone a hand drawn map he prepared of his ward.
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The alderman had mapped out every block of the ward showing his plans for the future uses of each lot. They ranged from housing to “programmable space” to commercial. It was a total redevelopment plan. Unfortunately, none of it had any investors.
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Fast forward to the end of the dream. We are now sitting in a banquet hall filled with round tables covered in white tablecloths. There are many well wishers and hangers on.
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In the front of the room, holding a microphone, is the alderman. He is reciting a list of all the good things going on in the ward, and he is preparing to hand out gifts.
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In the front of the room there is one of those shiny chrome and glass boxes, decorated with eye catching graphics and filled with lots of stuffed animals and trinkets. The box is outfitted with a crane that plucks toys from inside the box. It’s the kind of thing you would see in a Schnucks store or a pizza house. The alderman is at the controls.
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He works the machine and pulls out a stuffed animal. At first, it appears to be a Mickey Mouse but upon closer examination it turns out to be an elephant. The elephant is wearing a red vest and it has big, round ears.
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With a big smile on his face, the alderman walks across the room towards me. He hands the stuffed elephant to me.
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Discuss…
There’ve been times when I wondered what it would be like if the city were to just split up into smaller seperate municipalities, each with their own little mayor, ect.
We can’t get the city and county back together so why not let the city just do like the county and be a bunch of little towns all living in their own little world. I know, I know, it would never work. Right! But what’s the first thing to come out of a COUNTY residents mouth when the subject of a city/county merge comes up?
Kinda makes ya think doesn’t it?
^ That’s basically what we have right now. Each alderman considers him or herself basically a mini-mayor, and residents of individual wards are much more concerned about what is going on in their ward than on the other side of town.
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In the tradition of aldermanic courtesy, even the Mayor won’t overturn the policy of an alderman when it comes to business in an individual ward.
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The average ward is about equal in size to the typical county municipality.
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Further, most city residents don’t care much more about downtown St. Louis than the average suburban resident, and they generally don’t visit downtown much more than a suburban resident does either.
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About the only things one ward has in common with another are: shared police, fire, parks, streets and public school systems. Beyond that, they are independent worlds, each with their own sense of identity.
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The funny thing is, go to a place like Watson and Arsenal, and neighbors are freaked about small grafitti on a bus stop. They think the neighborhood is going down the tubes – and call their alderman to have the grafitti removed.
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Go to a different part of the City and the big issues are abandoned buildings and roaming wild dogs.
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What’s the alderman for the 23rd ward supposed to do about wild dogs roaming around at Prairie and Lee?
But Steve, you do realize that reducing the number of aldermen means increasing the size of the ward and the number of people in it, meaning it will even less likely that aldermen who had a difficult time addressing the needs of 12,000 people and a few hundred businesses will then be able to address the needs of 25,000 people and more than a thousand businesses. Not to mention that the larger districts will make it more expensive to run campaigns or challenge incumbents.
I think the answer is better representatives, not fewer.
Antonio French
Candidate for Alderman, 21st Ward
http://www.21stWard.org
How do you think an alderman from one of the city’s more affluent wards can be a factor towards improving some of the city’s more distressed wards? Do you see a role? What actions can they – should they – take?
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Would more resources come to the more distressed parts of the city if there was greater at large representation?
I think a good start for better representation would be to elect Bennice Jones-King in the 21st as opposed to a guy who has no interest in real people and is only concerned about personal gain.
“I think the answer is better representatives, not fewer.”
Antonio has a good point here. While some of us would love to see less aldermen and, therefore, bigger, more expensive elections to replace them, there are definite advantages to the status quo (at least the system’s structure – not necessarily the officials who currently fill it).
Having an elected official represent such a small number of people is one of the things that makes Saint Louis unique. Seeing my alderman when I’m walking my dog or driving around the neighborhood, is one of the benefits to the system – theoretically it should make them more accessible to their constituents. If they are not, we should get rid of that specific official, not the position.
Two PatJ and Antonio French, see Jim Zavist’s post.
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The problem with small constituencies and elections is that officials then tend to concern themselves only with small maintenance-type issues (or minor local development projects, at best) in order to get re-elected. They should be more concerned with city-wide issues. Many would argue that larger districts and more positions elected at-large would encourage representatives to to think outside of their wards and focus more on issues effecting the whole city. We elect alderpeople to be our political representatives, not someone to fill out potholes or replace lamps in streetlights.
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It is true, though, that there can be a lot of benefit to the machine-style governance that comes out of situations such as ours. That’s why on the table above, you’ll find that cities such as Memphis and Kansas City have both at-large and district-elected officials.
Yikes, I misspelled “To.” I guess that means you can feel free to disregard my points.
We’re a city and a county. In order to make a fair comparison with other places, you need to combine the number of seats for a county’s legislative body and the number of seats for the legislative bodies of all the municipalities within that county.
In St. Louis County, there are 7 county council members and 536 municipal legislators (city council members and village trustees), for a total of 543 elected representatives.
If you combine Chicago and Cook County, you get even more. It’s a myth that St. Louis County has more municipalities than anywhere else. Cook County has somewhere around 120.
I think we look pretty good with a BOA of 28. We’re more like Indianapolis-Marion County. Mayor, 29 member council, 9 elected county offices. There are differences. 4 of the council seats are elected at-large. They elect their circuit court, which hears only certain civil matters, and the county superior court, which hears all other cases. The elected county clerk runs the elections. They run their own police dept.
We were once required by the state to have a bi-cameral local legislature, an at-large elected body inclined toward the big picture and an elected by ward body to represent people. Actually we weren’t required to have both, we were required to have an at-large body, the ward thingy is something we just had to have to spite the rest of the state.
I agree with Antonio French.
Reducing the number of aldermen further decreases the chances we will also see minorities elected to office.
For the built environment, I believe the answer we need should be found in promoting zoning reform.
If we want more responsive aldermen then we need a competing party or constant challenges to office. Aldermen will be at their best when challenged.
But I don’t think less government is necessarily the answer but rather government that works.
Doug, how is zoning reform supposed to happen if all of the alderpeople are spending all of their time on pet development projects and small-time maintenance issues? Zoning reform is the kind of citywide issue the board of alderman are ignoring. This is exactly Steve’s point.
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Your point about minority representation is well taken, however. I imagine some kind of affirmative gerrymandering would be done in re-districting after any kind of change in the structute of the BoA that would take place, though.
Uhh, what are you comment posters gonna do about charter reform? Talk and comments on internet blogs sure ain’t gonna change things.
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People gotta do stuff. This stuff is hard work. Internet comments take no effort at all.
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Let’s see who’s gonna lead the way for charter reform, understanding if you try it, you’ll be bucking the establishment.
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Better to just do stuff at the ward level instead of getting all wonky about the ideal form of city government.
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Look at it this way..a visitor comes to St. Louis and finds a diverse, fun, interesting place. They have good memories, and recommend St. Louis to their friends.
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Do you think they’re worried about the number of aldermen or the charter’s provisions?
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If anything, they might find our anachronistic form of government part of our city’s old world charm.
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Message to the wonkish idealists: Get out of your arm chairs and do some stuff!
“Message to the wonkish idealists: Get out of your arm chairs and do some stuff!”
And you’ve done….?
“Look at it this way..a visitor comes to St. Louis and finds a diverse, fun, interesting place. They have good memories, and recommend St. Louis to their friends.
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Do you think they’re worried about the number of aldermen or the charter’s provisions?”
How is this relevant to the post?
I voted for charter reform last time around, unfortunately, most of the City didn’t.
Curious – I voted for charter reform too, and it was beaten badly. What am I doing? Lots of things, but working to reduce the number of aldermen is not one of them.
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There are plenty of folks on this thread ranting about reducing the number of aldermen. What’s their plan to actually make it happen? Any serious ideas? Who’s gonna do the work?
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Oh I get it…”This is my great idea: cut the size of the Board of Aldermen in half. Now you go do it!” Yeah, that always works.
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Let’s see some walk with all the talk.
Cutting the number of seats in half should have minimal impact on minority representation. If the two old wards had black (or white) aldermen, then logically, the new, larger ward will have a black (or white) alderman. And in those cases where, god forbid, there’s one white and one black alderman now, then guess what, we’ll have a contested race and the best man or woman will hopefully win! Either we’re an integrated community and we can move past race-based quotas, or we’re going to remain segregated, to our detriment.
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And while I’m emoting, let me repeat, in my simple mind, the role of the Board of Aldermen is to legislate and the role of city employees is to deliver a high level of city services. Expecting an alderman to be responsible for getting a streetlight fixed is silly – they’re essentially just middlemen. We, us residents, should be able to/just call either the CSB or the Streets Dept. to get the light fixed. That’s what they get paid to do. If an alderman’s workload is going to double with twice as many constituents, then they need to do a better job of delegating and managing constituent concerns. Look at the chart – our guys have the fewest number of constituents, by far. The average is 4 times as many, ±50K-±60K vs. ±12½K. The ONLY reason they would be overwhelmed with a larger ward is that they’d be too busy micromanaging!
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Finally, the cost of running. Yes, it could cost more, but if you want the job, you’ll do it. Two good remedies are term limits and spending limits. Yeah, both would require voter approval, against a tide of negativity from the entrenched incumbents, but there’s no reason why we can’t have/ask for real reform . . .
Racial breakdown of aldermen:
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Ward / Race of Alderman:
1/Black (Troupe)
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2/Black (Flowers)
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3/Black (Bosley)
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4/Black (Moore)
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5/Black (Ford)
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6/Black (Triplett)
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7/White (Young)
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8/White (Conway)
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9/White (Oertmann)
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10/White (Vollmer)
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11/White (Villa)
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12/White (Heitert)
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13/White (Wessels)
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14/White (Gregali)
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15/White (Florida)
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16/White (Baringer)
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17/White (Roddy)
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18/Black (Kennedy)
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19/Black (Davis)
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20/White (Schmid)
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21/Black (King)
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22/Black (Boyd)
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23/White (Hanrahan)
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24/White (Waterhouse)
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25/White (Kirner)
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26/Black (Williamson)
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27/Black (Carter)
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28/White (Krewson)
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Pres/Black (Reed)
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Total:
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13 Black
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16 White
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The city is about 55% African American.
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The Board of Aldermen is 45% African American.
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An increase of one black alderman would increase the percentage to 48%, and an increase of two black aldermen would increase the percentage to 52%.
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The wards with the highest liklihood to change from a white to a black alderman are: ?
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The wards with the highest liklihood to change from a black to a white alderman are: ?
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Why does this matter? We are getting close to the 2010 redistricting effort, and the race of the alderman becomes a huge issue.
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Folks will be paying alot more attention to this issue than the number of aldermen.
Count me as well in agreement with Mr. French. The problem is not that we have too many aldermen. I voted against the amendment in 2004 because I believe to reduce the number of aldermen would reduce the opportunity for public participation.
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If we should expect progress in city government we need to stack the deck with good people with an intimate understanding of their constituencies and the opportunities for good growth.
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The problem is not too many aldermen, it’s that too many of them do a crappy job.
Which ones do a crappy job? What constitutes a “crappy job”?
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Ask their constituents and most would say they do a fine job.
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They pretty much all get re-elected by wide margins. The voters think they do a good job.
dumb me – I must be naieve, but I really don’t care if the BoA is split 42/58 or 60/40 or 50/50 black/white or white/black. I vote for the person who will do the best job, not the one that’s the “right” color. Until we get past this overwhelming racial/racist mindset, it’s no wonder we’re having trouble changing anything else!
Getting St. Louis past the racial mindset is akin to fixing the public schools. It sounds good, but it’s long way off.
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For now, the reality is St. Louis is a racially divided city. Black elected officials are particulary concerned about improving conditions for black St. Louisans and black neighborhoods.
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Given the years of neglect, can you blame them?
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Here’s a question for the optimist types: Which will happen first: the city will get past its racial hangups or the city public schools will be regarded as a succesful school district of choice?
How man good politician’s can you really name? Most are completely set in their ways and do what’s good for their job. Let’s not act like we’re talking about open minded people who ebb and flow with what is best for their communities, they do what is good for themselves and their wallet/ego/political aspirations. You may get a few good ones on a board at one time, but you are still left with tons of the bad.
Steve said it best, if you expect a politician to vote themselves out of an office, you’re nuts. It further illustrates the me first attitude. The only true way to get rid of this mess of government we have in the city/county is for the people to represent themselves.
One last thing, Mr. French I don’t know you. You very well may be a good man, but defending a system that has a history of failing it’s citizens is not saying much for change. You could be just as good of an alderman if you served more people, and most likely there would be a little more power behind what you say. From reading what you write, even as a conservative, I’d much rather see you have a position where you’re voice was heard across the city, not just to a few miles of it. Best of luck in your race.
My wife is heavily involved with our neighborhood association and I attend meetings when possible. An important aspect of the association meetings is the alder(wo)men who attend. As a part-time position these people have other professional demands on their time as well as personal. One of our two alderman doesn’t show up half the time as it is currently.
If we were to reduce the number of aldermen they would represent more neighborhoods and have more meetings to attend. In order to get the same connection to local concerns they would double or triple their commitments or association presidents would have to begin dedicating more time to city-wide meetings. A way to deal with this is of course to reduce the number of aldermen but increase their compensation to allow them to dedicate more time to city and local affairs.
I realize their are other benefits to reducing the number as mentioned by previous posts but I just want to point out this aspect of our current system.
You get what you pay for. From Denver’s website:
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“What is the salary for members of City Council? The salary is $78,173 . . . and $87,539 for the Council President.” [which is elected by the members from their membership for one-year terms]
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“Is City Council a part time or full time job? There is no law that says whether the members must work full time or part time. In March of 1998, the members of Council participated in a survey to determine how many hours they worked. The average hours worked per week was 44.6.”
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“Do Councilmembers have offices? Yes, they each have one office, and the office is either supplied by the City or the City pays the rent for the office. The two at large members and one of the district members have offices in the City and County Building. The other members have offices in their Council districts.”
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“How much is the budget the members of Council get to run their offices? In 2008, each Councilmember receives $225,000 to operate their offices which provides for the Councilmembers’ salary / taxes / benefits, staff salary / taxes / benefits in their office, and oeprating supplies. Staffing costs for these offices are approximately 85% of that budget, and 15% is remaining for operations of the office. Those who rent offices outside of the City and County building receive additional funds to cover the cost of renting a district offfice.”
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If we cut the number of aldermen in half and double each of their salaries, there will be no net change in the overall budget. Increase their budgets to something similar to Denver’s, and yes, the BoA budget will likely more than double, but in the bigger scheme of things (the overall city budget) it would be a “drop in the bucket”, but will likely encourage both more people to run and better management of the overall city budget.
I also accept that, unfortunately, St. Louis is a racially-divided city. As long as the Board of Aldermen consists entirely or primarily of representatives of geographic wards, we will have something approaching racial diversity on the BoA. As soon as at-large members get added, the spectre of shifting the balance of power (racially or otherwise) increases significantly, since the cost and logistics of a citywide campaign are many-times greater than that of one limited to a ward, even if the size of each ward is doubled.
“For now, the reality is St. Louis is a racially divided city. Black elected officials are particulary concerned about improving conditions for black St. Louisans and black neighborhoods. Given the years of neglect, can you blame them?” Short answer – No! But the same holds true for our white elected officials. It all boils down to the reality that, as a city, we’re struggling, especially compared to many other parts of the country (including Atlanta & Chicago, to name two other cities with significant African-American populations). We can either continue to spend our limited city budget on small projects in individual wards OR we can redirect a (significantly?) larger part of our budget on larger, targeted inititatives that will generate more jobs, more revenues, increase property values and make our city, overall, a more attractive place to live and work! This doesn’t necessarily require reducing the number of aldermen, but it will require a significant change in how the aldermen look at the city as a whole . . .
Let’s be real.
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Most aldermen simply don’t look at the city as a whole. They see that as the Mayor’s job, the President of the Board of Aldermen’s job, and the job of the rest of the city-wide elected officials.
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Aldermen are akin to congressional representatives. They see their job – and their constituents measure their performance – to be based on how much they can bring to the ward in terms of resources.
And that’s the fundamental problem!
Charlotte is 55/32 white/black, and its Council 64/36 white/black. Of its 4 (out of 11 total) minority Council members, 3 are district-elected, 1 is elected at-large. The only Democrat (the City gave Obama a super-majority and helped NC go blue) who has thus far declared his intentions to run for next year’s mayoral race (and an emerging favorite for a race lacking an incumbent) is African-American, as well as a former Mayor. Clearly, you can have fewer representatives and still empower minorities, even in a non-minority-majority city.
Dumb Me said: “For now, the reality is St. Louis is a racially divided city. Black elected officials are particulary concerned about improving conditions for black St. Louisans and black neighborhoods.”
And I’ll ask you how many white elected officials are particularly concerned with what’s going on in our city’s ghettos?
The problem (or at least one of the problems) that continues to hold our city back is that we fail to recognize how northside problems affect southside people, or how downtown problems affect midtown people, or how southside problems affect downtown people…
NORTH St. Louis doesn’t have a crime problem. ST. LOUIS has a crime problem.
SOUTH St. Louis doesn’t have an education problem. ST. LOUIS has an education problem.
DOWNTOWN doesn’t have a housing crisis. ST. LOUIS has a housing crisis.
This city is too small for us to have such a case of nearsightedness.
It’s not up to Alderman Kacie Starr Triplett to solve homelessness in St. Louis just because the New Life Evangelistic Center is in her ward.
It shouldn’t be up to me alone, should I be elected alderman, to solve the gang problem just because a large part of the murders happen in or around my ward.
We need to begin to tackle these problems as one city, as a larger region, and as a major part of this state. Because our problems are the problems of the State of Missouri too.
And that’s were my criticism of Mayor Slay comes in. His administration doesn’t bring people together. They tear us apart whenever politically profitable. That’s fine for scoring some short term victories. But in the long run it makes the healing process which will eventually have to occur if we are ever to move forward as a city, that much harder.
^ There you go Antonio…
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I tee ’em up; you hit ’em loooong!
Right on Antonio, and I might add that ultimately the number of aldermen is not the real problem, it is a wasted effort. In theory more representatives should mean better representation. Otherwise one alderman elected city wide would be better yet: you know, to avoid all the confusion.
The fact that aldermen and alderwomen focus on their wards at the expense of the city reflects the lack of vision in the current corporate/governmental structure that sets policy and direction for the city. Those leaders have failed miserably in every way.
I agree it is time for a change.
Brian, in Charlotte, the power is divided between the City Manager and NC Lege. Council hires manager. Mayor cuts ribbons. City Manager and Lege runs things. There are no home rule powers for municipalities or counties in NC. The intent of the local government structures was that Blacks would not have power over the lives of Whites and was brought about by a combination of racism and paternalism. It’s a structure repeated across the country. All the BS about at-large electeds and city managers being progressive was and is just that, BS.
You are all agreeing with Steve, Jim, and I now! With small wards and many alderpeople, an alderperson in a stable ward spends their time responding to citizen requests in their ward like filling potholes in order to get re-elected. An alderperson in a ward with real problems needs broad city-wide effort to address their biggest concerns, but since many other alderpeople are too busy having debris removed from alleys that effort can never be realized. The alderpeople in those problematic wards end up doing the same kind of minor citizen service requests.
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Bigger wards and less alderpeople (and ideally more representatives elected at-large) would force the BoA to pay attention to city-wide issues. Antonio French is totally right. Northside crime, southside foreclosure crises, etc are the whole city’s problems. We’d be a lot closer to effectively addressing them as a CITY if our representatives were forced to think beyond their wards. The best way to force them to do this is to reduce the number of wards and alderpeople.
Howard, why is Charlotte ranked best for Blacks to relocate and start businesses? Maybe the New South is more progressive.
When I worked in St. Louis, I had to plan a MetroLink line through the City with nearly 20 aldermen, each wanting something different. I left those fiefdoms behind to now plan for a place that has faith in shaping its future growth with a interdependent transit-land use plan. Here, the transit agency is not only a City department (though with a County-wide board and sales tax) collaborating with City Planning and Economic Development, but there is a lot less fragmentation. The County is actually one entire school district with mostly neighborhood-based schools. And the City covers areas comparable in range from Wellston to Ladue, all in the same taxing jurisdiction (a City-County merger can’t even begin back in St. Louis, if the City won’t first clean up its house).
Good governance with little fragmentation is hardly the main reason Sunbelt cities are growing, but it certainly adds to their competitive advantage. St. Louis can’t change its geography or weather, but it could at least start reforming its government.
Charlotte’s public transit system is governed by a commission of local elected officials and staffed by Charlotte’s transportation department. Here, the Bi-State Development Agency is governed by a commission of gubernatorial appointees from two states, unaccountable to voters or local elected officials, managed by people hired by the commission, accountable only to the commission, and staffed by people hired by the managers and having no connection to city/county departments or policies.
Swan v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Ed (1971) was the case that made Charlotte the city that made deseg work. Deseg busing, though, was a little too successful there. The integration they achieved resulted in the courts deciding busing was no longer needed and kids started going to nabe schools. (in the interests of keeping this short, I am not going into the magnet school choice deal) But nabe schools in a district with very high racial segregation in housing can only produce segregated schools. By 2003, only 33% of the schools were racially balanced. That district is pretty well known for the dramatic re-segregation.
I pay little or no attention to Best, Worst, Most, Least lists or articles on the top ten dessert treats of celebrities.
Brian asks “Howard, why is Charlotte ranked best for Blacks to relocate and start businesses? Maybe the New South is more progressive.” Actually, the answer is simple economics – Charlotte’s economy is doing much better than ours, the city and the region is growing and there are opportunities for everyone. We, in contrast, watch as our industrial base whithers (Ford, A-B, Chrysler, to name a few recent ones) and we’re not replacing those jobs with new ones. The old cliche holds true, a rising tide raises all boats . . .
I love that quote by JFK. Yes, the Sunbelt already has a competitive advantage in virtually everything from economics to the weather. But I stress again, while St. Louis can’t change its weather, reforming its government could be one step among many to “turn the tide.”
Four simple steps to improving our city government:
1. As Steve said, cut the number of aldermen in half.
2. Abandon the counterproductive Ward system we currently have. Neighborhoods should be grouped together in groups that share similar characteristics (and overall size) to form meaningful Wards. Three alderman ruling over one neighborhood makes no sense at all.
3. Get rid of the concept of aldermanic courtesy. Under the “neighborhood centric” representation model, our 14 aldermen would represent their constituents and their geographic areas, but they primary goal would be making sound decisions for the city as a whole. Our current feudal fiefdom system creates an “us vs them” atmosphere and is the origin of many of our local ethnic and economic divides.
4. Make the position of alderman full-time. With half as many aldermen, the money that used to be spread out can be applied to the remaining aldermen to provide them with the time and resources they need to manage their larger wards.
Of course, this is all a pipe dream and will never happen.