JEFFERSON CITY • Opponents of a statewide vote to merge St. Louis and St. Louis County are pushing back with a flurry of measures that would undercut Better Together’s ballot proposal.
The proposal, the details of which were first unveiled in January, would meld the city, county and all 88 county municipalities into a “metropolitan city” with a unified government and police department.
If Better Together supporters gather enough signatures, the question would be put to a statewide vote in November 2020. Backers filed a revised petition Monday, removing County Executive Steve Stenger as the would-be mayor of the first “metro city.”
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Several lawmakers have filed resolutions that would compete with Better Together on that statewide ballot. The resolutions would need House and Senate approval before voters get a say.
“They’re probably going to get their signatures and they’re probably going to get on the ballot,” former state Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City, told a Missouri House committee hearing on Wednesday, “but unless you put something there as well that prevents that proposal from just rumbling through, it passes.”
The legislative-backed initiatives would by default be placed on the November 2020 ballot, but the election date could change at Gov. Mike Parson’s discretion.
A resolution sponsored by Rep. Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres, says that if a merger passes statewide, voters in the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County would have to approve the merger in a separate referendum for it to take effect.
He said he would not take a position on the merger itself, but said residents in the city and county should “have an independent say.”
Several lawmakers and others who testified before the House General Laws Committee said they are receptive to some kind of consolidation, but oppose the statewide vote method by Better Together.
“It should have the support of the people that live there,” said Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis, who added that “fragmentation” is the region’s second largest problem, behind inequity.
The Better Together proposal, if approved by voters, would strike the obscure city-county Board of Freeholders, a panel that if convened is supposed to consider consolidation, as outlined by a century-old provision in the state constitution.
By contrast, if approved by voters statewide, a proposal by Rep. LaKeySha Bosley, D-St. Louis, would allow a vote on consolidation only if a Board of Freeholders recommends consolidation.
The only voters allowed to weigh in on such a referendum would be voters in the city of St. Louis and the county.
A third measure, sponsored by Rep. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, would classify the city as St. Louis County’s 89th municipality.
The secretary of state’s office has said, most recently with last year’s medical marijuana vote, that if multiple constitutional amendments dealing with the same subject appear on the same ballot and pass, the one with the most support takes effect.
A fourth proposal, by Rep. Shamed Dogan, R-Ballwin, is a nonbinding resolution that denounces the statewide vote. The measure only requires the backing of both legislative chambers, and would not go to the voters.
It’s a “very strongly worded resolution,” Dogan said. “The idea that it should happen without the consent of the governed … is deeply offensive to a lot of us.”
Opponents of the statewide vote packed a Capitol hearing room to support legislative push back.
“Allowing people to vote who are not directly affected, and do not have any vested interest, and do not live in the city nor county of St. Louis, and quite frankly don’t care about this issue,” said Mavis Thompson, St. Louis license collector, “is not only a threat to our democracy but it’s also a misapplication of what I believe the original framer’s intent was.”
No one testified against the legislative proposals.
St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson said Thursday she’s not opposed to requiring separate elections in St. Louis and St. Louis County on the merger plan “if that’s the way it turns out.” She stopped short, however, of saying she supported adding a local ratification requirement.
She said, however, that a statewide vote also would still be required because a state constitutional change is needed to create a new class of city.
“You could do it before (a statewide vote), you could do it after or you could do it at the same time,” she said of the idea of holding separate ratification votes in St. Louis and St. Louis County. Krewson was asked about the proposals in the Legislature at a news conference in her office.
Mark Schlinkmann of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
Read the Post-Dispatch coverage of the Better Together plan to reunite St. Louis City and County.