Thursday, November 24, 2011

St. Louis County parks controversy could haunt Dooley

A botched attempt at raising property taxes earlier this fall had earned St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley an unprecedented amount of criticism. Then he presented the county’s 2012 budget in early November. A proposal to close a number of parks (link includes a map of closures) and lay off employees touched an especially piercing nerve.

Citing a worsening fiscal outlook, Dooley and members of his administration have defended the proposed cuts by saying that the county must live within its means. Failure to do that, they say, will lead to more fiscal problems in the future. But some point out that Dooley’s plan is out of scale when compared to other counties with comparable parks systems. The county council’s chairman has questioned whether the cuts are necessary. And the idea to partner with local and state entities has garnered a mixed reaction.

The opposition to Dooley’s plan was clear during a standing-room-only budget hearing where detractors packed the St. Louis County Government Building in Clayton. With a majority of County Council members stating their opposition, Dooley may have to change course.

This story is published by the St. Louis Beacon.  The complete article can be found at: http://114343-county-parks-controversy-could-haunt-dooley

The following are quotes from various individuals mentioned in this article.

"It strikes at the very core at what we are as a county," Stenger said. "It calls into question for me what the possible goal and objective of this proposal could possibly be. It is so ill-conceived that it effects the very fabric of our community. It is concerning. ... This is perhaps the most ill-conceived proposal I have ever heard of, read about or even thought about.”


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“If you look at him as sincere, you look at him as the author of the cuts,” said Dave Robertson, a political science professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “And I think that offering a very unpopular policy prescription is going to cost you politically in the short and medium term.”

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"If anything, we've been able to hold off the crisis associated with that for several years while we've made due with resources that we have," Earls said. "In some cases, we've had some special one-time funding, we've had some new revenue that's been in place. But our current forecast is there's no new revenue coming in."

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"I have about 30 items that I've identified that could be looked into, at a minimum, on the expenditure side for savings," Stenger said. "We're talking about things like ... energy savings, parkings savings, some fees that may or may not be collected on adjusted services. I have a whole lot of issues I'd like to raise there."

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"I'm always willing to work with them, but I haven't heard anything other than 'I don't like this,'” Dooley said. "Well, tell me what you do. We only have so money to spend."

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"And maybe in times gone by, there might have been a lot of interest in (counties assuming control of the state parks)," Dolesh said. "There's very minimal interest in assuming the costs and liabilities and operating expenses."

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“No way in hell are we closing any parks,” Sonderegger said.

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“These problems are so serious in different places that it’s really hard to find to find a way out that is politically skillful and also solves the problem,” Robertson said. “This is one effort to do that, but it sure did backfire. … If you’re going to cut something, at least if it’s concentrated in sort of one area that geographically is limited, then you might have a better chance at getting away with it. These cuts are going to threaten parks that are popular across the county. They mobilized a pile of people in all different parts of the county.”

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“These two things coming so close together reinforce each other and make observers think that Dooley is politically wounded and will have a hard time recovering,” Robertson said. “To recover from it, he’s going to have to appear to be much more politically savvy about the kind of impact his proposals will make than he has been so far.”

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"They have a right to believe what they believe and I have a right to believe what I believe," said Dooley, when asked if he was at a weaker position with the council. "In the business we're in, we are not always going to agree 100 percent. Does that mean I don't like working with these individuals? That's not true. This is just one issue we don't necessarily agree on."

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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:47 AM

    When our elected officials quit representing us and ignore our requests for action, we will retaliate at the polls.

    Change is needed and change will come.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous4:49 PM

    To quote that great intellectual Forest Gump “ Stupid is as stupid does”.

    ReplyDelete