DES PERES • , the organization formed to study the factors that could either bring about or discourage a consolidation of St. Louis and St. Louis County governments and services, encountered the first direct challenge to its mission Wednesday.
And despite a concerted effort by Executive Director Nancy Rice to convince an audience otherwise, a fair number of St. Louis County municipal officials left a seminar at no less skeptical about the motives of Better Together than when they arrived.
“I think (Rice) wants to make us believe that there isn’t (an agenda),” said “But why would you go through all this work?”
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Rice attempted to address that exact concern time and again in response to 43 written questions submitted by more than 125 mayors, city managers and other officials gathered by the to acknowledge issues raised by its membership.
“We are not advocating for a plan,” Rice repeated in one form or another over the course of a 75-minute meeting. “We don’t know where it’s going to go.”
Launched in November, the stated Better Together mission is to combine data analysis with public input to determine if a merger or consolidation of the city and county might ultimately result in more efficient and less costly government services.
The group’s first report, presenting a detailed picture of city, county and all but a handful of the county municipalities’ finances, will be released next week. Future studies that examine law enforcement, economic development, public health and parks and recreation will be released throughout this year.
Better Together hopes to issue a final report summarizing its findings by the end of the year.
, the former CEO of , chairman of the Better Together board and the group’s major benefactor, joined Rice in attempting to assure the collected officials that a merger was not the organization’s primary objective.
“The sole focus is to collect information from governments across the region,” Walker said. “Whatever the outcome of this investigation, we will need your input.”
The feedback embedded in the questions directed to Rice however indicated that Better Together — never mind a potential city-county merger — might be sailing against the prevailing wind of popular opinion.
The officials demanded to know the sources of Better Together funding, why no county municipal officials were asked to sit on the board and the measures Better Together planned to take to eliminate the manipulation of data. But most of the queries boiled down to the issue raised by one questioner: “What’s the end game?”
“If we don’t get data then these decisions will be based on emotions and based on how people feel about each other,” Rice responded.
After hearing what Rice had to say, indicated she was willing to see where the Better Together inquiry would lead.
“Anyone who wants to make things more efficient is a good thing,” said Eunice.
But , a trained economist, remained dubious about the processing analysis of the data accumulated by Better Together. When it comes to consolidation, Welch moreover believes the numbers, whatever they might reveal, may prove to be secondary to a larger overriding issue.
“Local communities provide choice and diversity,” Welch said. “People love their communities and make choices to spend money for more police, parks and other services. And when you lump everything together (through consolidation) you lose what makes St. Louis rich — the ability to make our own choices.”
Rice in retrospect was realistic about the outcome of Better Together’s initial face-to-face with the municipal leaders: The organization, she acknowledged, gained few converts Wednesday.
“I don’t know if the prescription is winning them over or not,” Rice said. “But the thing we need to do is keep being honest and transparent. Some we’ll win over, some we won’t.
“But I’ll tell you one thing we can all agree on,” she added: “There’s no lack of interest.”