I am against a city/county merger.” That simple quote spoken by Rick Stream is why we support Rick Stream for County Executive.
Local Tea Party supporters and liberty minded individuals know that a small unresponsive government cannot become more efficient by becoming a larger government entity. As a general rule, government closest to the people, or by another name local control, is the desire of liberty minded people. A city/county merger would create a larger bureaucratic government.
The people at Better Together, the organization funding and supporting the city/county merger are actually telling crowds at neighborhood meetings in the city, “If you are unhappy with your current city government a merger will improve services by combining the jurisdictions’ services. ”
Democrat politicians are jumping on the bandwagon. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay initially used the cooperation by the St. Louis city and county police departments in quelling the Ferguson riots as a reason for city/county merger. That was until he instructed Chief Doyle Dotson to remove the city police from Ferguson based on the false pretense that the St. Louis County Police were excessively militarized. Chief Dotson also criticized the use of pepper spray and tear gas by the County Police on protesters, until that too was proved false when it was learned the city police were the first to deploy tear gas at the crowd.
Governor Jay (I Demand Full Prosecution of Daren Wilson) Nixon is now using a city/county merger talk or regionalism, as a way to solve Ferguson’s problems. Every day as the protesters become more persistent and the conduct more outrageous , county residents become even more leery of a merger with the city. Each day city politicians like State Senator Jamilah Nasheed and City Alderman Antonio French interfere in St. Louis County affairs a city/county merger becomes less of a reality.
Rick Stream’s opponent for County Executive, Steve Stenger, has been non-committal on city/county merger, not that anyone should expect much of a committed response on anything from him: