Category: St. Louis

The town in which I lived prior to my moving to Southwest Missouri has been recognized in Money as one of the best 100 places to live in the US:

Nestled among tall oak trees planted 200 years ago, the neighborhoods in Webster Groves–named for 19th century statesman Daniel Webster–offer considerable economic diversity. Just two miles outside St. Louis city limits, the town has affordable housing that draws young families, plus much more expensive homes.

Funny, that. Actually, the story of the naming is a little more complicated. In the 19th century, there was a school named for Daniel Webster that got a train stop. The school closed, but the train stop remained, so when the townspeople wanted to incorporate to keep the demon liquor out, they applied for the name “Webster.” However, since there was already a Webster, Missouri, they had to append “Groves” on it to get the official town name. True story. You just read it on the Internet.

Was that college Webster University? No, of course not: Webster University 1) isn’t closed and 2) was named for Noah Webster, who donated land to the Sisters of Loretto who ran the then-named Loretto College but who needed a new name since there was already a, you guessed it, Loretto College. True story. You just read it on the Internet.

Hey, wait a minute: Why is Old Trees suddenly on this list after I moved away?

I don’t know why Google Maps continue to include Times Beach, Missouri:

View Larger Map

There it is, in the lower left corner, just north of Eureka on Interstate 44.

Times Beach, notoriously sprayed with dioxin, was disbanded and all of its citizens relocated in 1983.

But there it is, still on Google’s maps.

Come on, we do know what this means, don’t we?

Mayor Francis Slay has asked the city’s building division to require downtown parking lots to hire attendants, in hopes of stopping a rash of car break-ins, his staff announced today.

Police were investigating more than 60 break-ins that occurred downtown and in surrounding area parking lots last weekend.

This means it will cost more to park in downtown St. Louis either for an event or as part of your monthly “privilege” of working in the Big City.

Because the city has better things to do with its time and money than to police the city, and the signs that warn visitors to downtown that your valuables are forfeit are already thick enough to keep weeds from growing in the cracks of the underused and crumbling city sidewalks.

Like saving the building that housed a failed taco joint and/or giving money away to redevelop the site.

A St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline explains the recent census results regarding the city of St. Louis’s population loss:

Does earnings tax hurt city? Observers split

On the other hand, many of the observed split, too, which makes it easier to observe that people and large employers are fleeing the city for some reason.

They’re putting another bridge over the Mississippi River to help Illinoisianitians escape. They want to call it:

Missouri legislators want to name the next Mississippi River Bridge the “Jerry F. Costello-William Lacy ‘Bill’ Clay Sr. Veterans Memorial Bridge.” The costs associated with naming the bridge after those two local congressmen would be paid for by private donations.

Hey, I have an idea: Let’s just call it the Pork Barrel Bridge.

To recap: A young drifter goes into a Starbucks and grabs the tip jar off the counter. A customer follows him to his car, altercates a bit, and gets hit by the car as the young drifter and his Bonnie lass leave. The customer dies.

The customer’s family sues because tip jars are an obvious target for deadly larceny.

It alleges that Starbucks “did not employ security to prevent the perpetration of such crimes” and that it “invited the act of perpetration of said crime” by having a tip jar.

Hey, why not? If Congress can mandate any decision, why cannot the courts determine that anything that can be stolen must be defended by armed security under the penalty of litigation?

So you think you want a home with room for children and hobbies surrounded by a little bit of grass and maybe privacy fence where you can put something more than a toy barbecue designed for apartment balconies? St. Louis County Planners know better:

St. Louis County planners want to change the county’s zoning codes to encourage people to live closer together to save energy and the environment.

The current codes reflect society’s reliance on the automobile and people’s preference for stand-alone houses, one to a lot.

That’s not the future of housing, experts say.

The last line quoted should be That’s not the future of housing if experts have their say.

Because, face it, they’ve spent years and thousands of dollars getting Master of Urban Planning degrees and have studied theories about what people should want instead of what they want–and do–when allowed freedom.

Message: The environment is more important than you are, subject.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch hearkens back to the glorious days of one of their preferred future boondoggle’s past in this glowing look back to the days of commuter rail:

During World War II, its steam locomotives pulled seven coaches and 1,000 daily passengers. One-way fare cost a dime. Ridership fell to 600 by 1952, when cleaner diesel-electric locomotives took over. (They also made the train quieter. Old timers along the route used to set clocks to the rythmic racket of the local’s coal-burning steamers.)

The 34-mile, 85-minute morning run left Pacific at 6:05 a.m. and stopped 19 times at places like Jedburg and Barretts Station, in downtown Kirkwood, at the Webster Park and Tuxedo Park stations in Webster Groves and Tower Grove station on Vandeventer Avenue. Outbound trains did the same in reverse.

Dedicated commuters enjoyed the ride with endless card games. The Rattlers threw parties with the slightest provocation. Drinks all around, of course.

By 1961, with plans under way for Interstate 44, the one-way fares topping at $1.10 paid less than half of the $68,000 annual operating cost.

And then that blasted highway came along and gave people the freedom to travel to their homes when they wanted to, and without losing money! On rail lines built by private companies and in trains run by private companies.

You know what would return us to those swinging days? Government spending! Except then they would run empty trains until such time as the government runs up the cost of gasoline. Except that when the cost of energy goes up that high, there won’t be many commuters.

Gah, being an economic central planner is hard. Fortunately for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, being a cheerleader for central planning is still easy.

UPDATE: Thanks for the link, Ms. K.. Hey, if you’re in IT, check out my blog QA Hates You. If you’re a Missourian or a Tea Party kinda person, you might enjoy 24th State, a Missouri political blog to which I contribute.

Step 1: Illegally collect a fee from “customers” who by law must use your service.
Step 2: Get caught and get told to stop.
Step 3: Keep the $90,000,000 you’ve already collected.

A judge says the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District does not have to refund $90.9 million it collected from a storm-water service charge that he ruled was improper.

…

Dildine recently decided a refund is not needed because the district used money from the charge to provide storm-water service and comply with federal and state environmental laws. He also said customers did not follow proper procedures to seek refunds. Through the district’s taxes, customers would end paying the refunds to themselves, he said.

In other news, municipal water companies, power companies, and pre-selected, compulsory waste haulers are thinking up the names for the new “fees” they’re about to tack onto your bill, legal or not. After all, as long as they use the money to provide their service, they get to keep it if and when they get caught and called out.

St. Peters considers smokeless tobacco ban on city property:

Smoke-filled meetings at City Hall disappeared years ago, but with a brand new Justice Center, city leaders have a new target — tobacco spit.

The city, which already bans smoking in its buildings, is considering prohibiting smokeless tobacco.

St. Peters Mayor Len Pagano said the idea of a ban came to him after he watched a man spit tobacco juice on the sidewalk in front of City Hall. The issue is cleanliness, he said.

“It’s really unsanitary to have something like that and spit it out on the ground,” Pagano said. “It’s like a blob of tar or something.”

Apparently, St. Peters has elected someone who has never stepped in gum on a public street. Either that, or one who sees tobacco as a convenient strop upon which to sharpen his statist mala fides.

If you read between the lines in this short teaser from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, that’s what you can infer.

He talks about a city/county merger:

In a meeting Monday morning with Post-Dispatch editorial writers and reporters, St. Louis County Executive Charlie A. Dooley said a city-county merger would go a long way towards hearling the area’s economic malaise, while also making government more efficient.

Dooley, a Democrat who is running for re-election in November against Republican Bill Corrigan, said that such a union may be feasible in the not-too-distant future.

He said he would be willing to discuss the issue with St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay.

“We need to (merge),” Dooley said. “The chances now are better than before but the city officials of St. Louis are not all on the same page on this issue because they have constituencies that they answer to.”

He’s really preaching to the choir when he tells this to the Post-Dispatch, which has been cheerleading a reunion for years. Realistically, though, the city gets access to county tax dollars and puts its corrupt mitts into county development, and the county gets to be cool as defined by city dwellers and the Post-Dispatch by being associated with the cool city. I don’t see the citizens voting this in, but notice Dooley doesn’t mention talking to the citizens. He wants to talk to other Democratic elected officials to make it happen.

And what else does Dooley get? Hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters to vote in County elections. For people like him.

Dooley also has a plan to consolidate power into the hands of a few county officials:

Dooley also said that he would work to consolidate services among the county’s 91 municipalities, especially police and fire departments.

You like living in a municipality that handles its own affairs, elects its own officials, and holds them accountable? Dooley doesn’t want any of that. He wants you to bow to whomever your friends in Florissant, Arnold, and most importantly the city of St. Louis elect for you. All that delicious, delicious power and authority in the hands of a County Executive. Someone enlightended, like Dooley himself, no doubt.

Charlie Dooley is bold in making these pronouncements in an election year where the political winds are quite opposite of the proposals he’s making. Of course, he’s making them to the St. Louis daily paper whose circulation pretty much only includes the similar-minded these days.

(Cross-posted on 24th State.)