ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

It was April 1999, and the chairman of the board of Maritz Inc. was being honored as the 46th Citizen of the Year in St. Louis.

As former Sen. Thomas Eagleton had done in a similar speech just a few years before, Maritz urged the leaders of the St. Louis region, all gathered for the annual event, to unite the city and the county as one governmental entity.

“Instead of being known as a community which is racially and economically divided with profound disparities, why not become a community where we forget race, color, creed and gender and become known as a big, important, open-minded, generous, kind and forward-looking, 21st-century American city?� Maritz asked. “Why not forget our pettiness, our animosities, our anxieties? Why not become one for the benefit of all?�

Mark Wrighton remembers the speech. He was just a couple of years into his job as chancellor of Washington University, a job that .

Wrighton came to St. Louis from Boston, and he remembers the division of government entities being striking to him when he moved to the metro area that would become his home.

“When I came here, I immediately saw the challenge of the divide between the city and the county,� Wrighton says. For the past 24 years, he has spent much of his time recruiting people to St. Louis, some of the best and brightest faculty and students, from all over the world. They see what he saw, what Maritz saw, what has become obvious after more than a century of division, and decades of decline.

“Many people have the same feeling I did when I came,� Wrighton says. “The divisions in the community are a major barrier to progress.�

Twenty years after Maritz made the call for unity, Wrighton hopes to be a major part of an effort to bring it about.

On Monday, the nonprofit organization Better Together, which since 2013 has been funded primarily by wealthy philanthropist and political donor Rex Sinquefield, to put an initiative on the statewide ballot in 2020 to unite the city and county of St. Louis into a new government entity that will create the 10th largest city in the country.

Wrighton will be the campaign chairman of that effort.

“In my years here, I have come to the conclusion that we can be far better off by bringing unity to the region,� Wrighton says.

“There are parts of our community that are doing very well. But there are parts of our community that are not.�

At its core, that dual reality has always been both the reason why community leaders in the St. Louis region have been pushing some form of unity for decades, and why others have pushed back.

Since Better Together started studying and discussing the issue in 2013, mayors in some suburbs — Chesterfield, Ellisville, Florissant, Green Park and Ballwin, just to name a few — stood in opposition nearly immediately. Things are fine where they live, they say.

But the entire St. Louis area suffers as cities compete against themselves, dividing the potential spoils, and failing to work together toward common economic goals.

Wrighton doesn’t expect that the mayors or other elected officials of the cities that would be stripped of police and court powers if the Better Together proposal passes will come around. But he believes many of their residents will.

As leader of one of the region’s largest employers, with about 15,000 employees and a similar number of students, plus about 30,000 Washington University alumni in and around St. Louis, Wrighton believes his experience will open doors to a lot of voters who, like him, came to St. Louis from elsewhere, and see a division that is unique among American cities.

He plans to engage the help of other major CEOs and community leaders, who he believes will help make the case that a united St. Louis will have a more vibrant economy, more jobs and a brighter future.

As full details of the plan emerge, and some elements are picked apart by critics, Wrighton hopes to keep voters focused on what will happen to St. Louis if yet again, we do nothing.

“This is not going to be something in which there is going to be an instant positive result,� Wrighton says. “But if we don’t do this, the future for our children and grandchildren is going to be greatly diminished.�

The words of Maritz resonated with Wrighton 20 years ago. He’s studied the Better Together proposal and believes it gives the region its “best shot� at becoming a “dynamic, growing community that will be attractive to young people.�

Wrighton, who will not be paid for his efforts leading the Better Together campaign, is well aware of St. Louis’ history as a place where change is slow, where “incremental� proposals, like what many of the mayors are now advocating, are the standard fare.

It’s time to try something different, he says.

“The incremental approach is going to leave us with no momentum,� Wrighton says. “I believe we have to be bold and comprehensive. This is our chance to renew St. Louis.�