There’s a new proposal to merge the city of St. Louis with St. Louis County. Rep. Ian Mackey is a Democrat, who represents part of St. Louis County in the Missouri House. He’s pre-filed a bill calling for a statewide election to decide on regional unification.
“So, it would create an initiative petition for voters statewide to vote on to whether or not, whether or not this should happen,” Mackey told radio station KMOX. “There are changes that have to be made to our statutes and ideally to our state constitution in order to make this ironclad.”
Mackey added it would create a single city of 1.3 million people, dissolve the 88 municipalities of St. Louis County, and create a metro-county city government with a single mayor.
“Should we not pool our resources and our energy and our efforts uniformly, or as uniformly as possible, as a region? Or should we continue in this fractured existence of 88 towns in St Louis County and a city that continues to lose population?” he asked. “I think the clear answer is to move forward in a unified way.”
He suggested that there’s an invisible wall between the city and county, which his proposal would get rid of.
“(It would create) a metro Council government similar to other cities that have done this, such as Nashville,” Mackey said. “Essentially a board or a council of individuals, and then a mayor that leads.”
And he emphasized that statewide approval from Missouri voters would be needed.
“Most of the municipalities that exist in St Louis County exist under the creation of a state statute,” he said. “This idea that we somehow have a local government that is completely separate and apart and independent from our state government is just a fundamental misunderstanding of how our government is structured.”
In 1875, Missouri revised its constitution to allow the city to separate from St. Louis County. It wasn’t until the following year where a local vote, with strong support from city voters, approved the split.
KMOX Radio in St. Louis contributed this report.
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