Every time there’s a mayoral election in the city of St. Louis, Alderman Shane Cohn finds himself having the same thought.
Folks in his 3rd Ward who are super invested in that race couldn’t tell you the name of the mayor of Clayton or Chesterfield, he said recently on the Politically Speaking podcast.
“Clayton is one of the wealthiest municipalities in the entire state of Missouri. It's also the county seat for one of the largest counties in the state of Missouri,” Cohn said. “Chesterfield is building their own downtown and wanting to incentivize that as well.”
That regional competition, he said, is terrible for everyone.
“We're too busy competing against ourselves to compete with the outside world, and until we fix that, we will continue to see stagnation and population declines, not only in the city, but also across our region as a whole,” Cohn said.
A major municipal consolidation effort collapsed in 2019 for a variety of reasons. Conversations continued into 2020 before they were cut short by the coronavirus pandemic and politics. A St. Louis-area state representative attempted to jumpstart the conversation again last year, but his proposed constitutional amendment never received a vote.
In addition to municipal reform, Cohn wants to focus his attention in the next three years on changes to city government, including the potential creation of a city manager position.
Here is what else Cohn discussed on the podcast:
- The city is putting the contract for automated traffic enforcement out for bid a second time due to concerns that the vendors could not meet the requirements of the city law governing the use of the tools. While he doesn’t think the law needs any tweaking, “there are now even more layers of concerns, since we have a new federal administration who is obviously over exerting their policing powers. We need to be judicious and cautious in terms of how we're deploying automated technology.”
- Although the final terms have not been approved, St. Louis Public Schools and the St. Louis Development Corporation have reached a deal for the city to purchase Cleveland High School from the school district. That means any potential developers will have just one governmental entity they have to deal with. Community partners, Cohn added, have also worked to raise money for predevelopment costs like stabilization and architectural plans. “Those predevelopment costs can run hundreds of thousands of dollars, which, if you're talking about nonprofits or small-time developers, there's no way that they would be able to take on that kind of burden and responsibility financially,” he said.
- Cohn’s dream vision for the Cleveland property, which is roughly 250,000 square feet on nine acres of land, is a mixed-use development. A third of the city’s population lives within a mile and a half of the property, he said. “It's not just an opportunity for Dutchtown, but it's also an opportunity for all of southeast city to have amenities that we don't have,” he said, including a first-run movie theater, a full-service grocery store and a bowling alley.
- The Dutchtown neighborhood was one of the first neighborhoods where the city implemented community violence intervention strategies. While Cohn said he believed it has helped bring down crime, he and his neighbors are frustrated with the most recent implementation of the program. He’s also concerned about funding, much of which comes from the federal government.
