City, county cooperation not new.

Judd, Dennis R.

In my last column, I talked about the numerous attempts to achieve metropolitan reform in the St. Louis metropolitan area. St. Louis long ago became famous not only for its political fragmentation, but also for how many times reform failed--1926, 1959, 1961, 1989, 1990. Over the years, this record of failure has provided plenty of fodder for urban scholars and for the press.

It may come as a surprise therefore that St. Louis actually has a record of some success in achieving metropolitan governance. These successes have generally escaped attention because most people focus upon the attempts to achieve a comprehensive consolidation of governments in the metropolitan area. But the many smaller, less spectacular achievements are worthy of note.

One significant example is St. Louis County, which has undergone fundamental governmental reform since World II. In a referendum in March 1950, St. Louis County voters approved a "home rule" charter for the county. That charter brought into existence the basics of its current governmental structure, with an elected county executive, 11 departments, and a seven-member council. The previous government had become inadequate in a county that was urbanized at lightning speed, with the number of municipalities rocketing from 41 in 1940 to 84 by 1950. The county's government consisted of a three-member county court that adopted a budget, determined tax rates and legislated basic policy, plus a plethora of elected officials who presided over their own very independent patronage systems. Courthouse politics was byzantine and corrupt.

The new charter adopted in 1950 allowed the county to begin providing necessary urban services and regulations. The process had started even before charter reform, but fitfully. The county had already adopted subdivision regulations and a comprehensive zoning ordinance for the unincorporated areas. After reform, the county adopted a building code, and it gradually began to provide a full range of services in unincorporated areas and to contract services with the multitude of tiny municipalities that had sprung up in the 1940s, many without adequate tax bases or administrative structures. The county, in addition, built a system of parks (32 county parks by 1964) and a county library system.

Not wanting to jeopardize their proposal, those who had drawn up the charter in 1950 kept the multitude of elected offices and their patronage systems. But over time, these were lopped off, one by one. In 1954, following a shooting incident between two county deputy sheriffs, county voters approved a referendum to replace the sheriff's office with the Saint Louis County Department of Police. (Over time, this would evolve into coordinated police standards, training and dispatching services, and the 911 emergency system.) Following a scandal over mixed-up tax bills, the assessor and collector of revenue fell next. In 1966 the highway engineer became an appointed office. Later, in 1968, voters approved a more comprehensive amendment to the charter, this time eliminating most of the elected administrative officials, the prosecuting attorney, and replaced them with appointed officials. In 1970, voters again supported a significant reform, this time approving a constitutional amendment allowing a referendum procedure, whereby a majority of the county's voters could, if they wished, vote to transfer municipal services to the county.

There have also been significant examples--believe it or not--of city-county cooperation. A far-reaching consolidation of services involving both the city and the county occurred in 1954 with the creation of the Metropolitan Saint Louis Sewer District. This reform was borne out of equal measures of desperation and disgust. By the mid-1940s, there were 42 special districts in St. Louis County supplying sewer, drainage, water and fire protection. Many of the sewer districts had completely inadequate facilities that allowed brown water and sometimes raw sewage to be regularly spilled. Parts of the county had no sewers at all, but still relied on cesspools. New subdivisions regularly overloaded existing systems. The sewer district showed that comprehensive city-county reform was palatable, if the motivation was high enough.

The Zoo-Museum District provides another example of successful metropolitan reform in the St. Louis area. By the late 1960s the St. Louis Zoo was in trouble. The five cents in property tax it got from the city of St. Louis wasn't nearly enough to keep up the escalating costs of a modern zoo.

Howard Baer, the president of the St. Louis Zoo Board, worked with the St. Louis Art Museum to persuade the Missouri legislature to authorize a Zoo-Museum District.

A tax proposal was put on the ballot for the April 6, 1971, election, to allocate four cents of property tax for the zoo and the arts museum and up to one cent for the Museum of Science and Natural History. It passed easily in the city and narrowly in the county, but even a narrow victory demonstrated that county residents were willing to pony up for something of regional value.

In the early 1980s, the Missouri legislature agreed to raise the maximum tax for the Zoo-Art Museum District from four cents to eight cents, and for the Museum of Science and Natural History from one cent to six cents. The legislature also added the Missouri Botanical Garden to the list, authorizing it to seek up to four cents per $100 valuation, if the voters approved. It didn't take long for leaders in the city and county to get a tax increase on the ballot. And in April 1983, voters in both the city and the county did approve a doubling of the rate for the zoo and art museum (to eight cents), approved increasing the Museum of Science's takes from one to four cents, and they approved the same tax rate for the Garden.

Once again, the vote was close in the county, but a majority of county voters was, once again, willing to show that they had, at least to some degree, a regional perspective.

There are two other notable examples showing that voters in St. Louis County are capable of a regional perspective. Years ago, county voters agreed to a 3.75 percent tax to support the Convention and Visitors' Commission and the Regional Arts Commission. In April 1990, voters in the county approved an additional 3.75 percent tax increase for the TWA Dome--by a two-to-one margin. The more than $6 million thus raised was more than enough to provide the county's $6 million share of the stadium's bond issue.

The next test of the county voters' regional attitudes will come soon. A proposal is being floated to ask city and county voters to support downtown development by taxing themselves again. Do voters in the county actually identify with St. Louis' downtown enough to tax themselves for it? Do they consider it a cultural treasure akin to the zoo and art museum or a sports stadium?

If you want to find some answers to questions such as these, you should consult the excellent sources I pirated for this information. Jon Teaford's book, "Post-Suburbia" (Johns Hopkins Press, 1997), contains a wealth of information about metropolitan reform in St. Louis. An even more detailed and marvelously written book will soon be available. Later this spring my colleague, E. Terrence Jones, will publish "A Mosaic of Governments: Why St. Louis Has So Many," through a new St. Louis publishing house, Palmerton and Reed. It will appear as the first book in a series on St. Louis and Missouri issues. St. Louis has needed a press like this for some time. You should be sure to buy a copy of Terry's book when it appears. It provides a truly unique perspective on the little-known history of metropolitan St.

Dennis Judd is professor of political science at University of Missouri-St. Louis.