Politics Rotten in St. George; Residents Vote to Get out of the Business of Running a City

Thanks to a movement led by Ms. Carmen Wilkerson, mayor of the municipality of St. George, voters ( population 1,337), decided to disincorporate their town. St. Louis County now has 90 municipalities, not 91.
It's a start.

For decades, studies have shown fractured government to be a major impediment to the growth of the region. The biggest problem is the city-county split, but within St. Louis County itself, the vast proliferation of municipal governments and other taxing agencies has led to wasteful and inefficient government. In some towns, city services are poor to non-existent.

This raises the question as to how many other of the 90 cities within St. Louis County are experiencing the same thing.

Like many of the county's small municipalities, St. George relied heavily on traffic ticket revenue, much of it from an infamous speed trap on Reavis Barracks Road.

Earlier this year, Ms. Wilkerson said, she learned that city officials had been in contact with officials in far-off Charlack, a near-north county municipality famous for government-by-speed trap. The idea was that Charlack would send officers across 10 or 11 county municipalities to run speed traps in St. George, she said.

Again, this raises the question as to how many other of the 90 cities within St. Louis County are experiencing the same thing.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-st-george-slays-the-dragon-of-fractured-government/article_a71678a3-ab4c-5d70-99e5-47f1009b3cff.html#ixzz1ddPgE07K