We’ve spent the last mini season talking about how municipal divides are deeply intertwined with the governments of St. Louis City and County. Loyal listeners know that at the beginning of the year, there was a top-down plan to merge city and county by a group called Better Together. We discussed on our episode “At the Table and Dismissed” and it has been covered extensively by St. Louis Public Radio’s newsroom.
But now, there is a bottom-up process for reshaping regional governance called the Board of Electors, which St. Louis Public Radio’s newsroom has also been following. We wanted to make sure that in all the talk about reorganizing St. Louis City and County, there is also a conversation about racial equity. So We Live Here teamed up with Focus St. Louis for a public forum on Racial Equity and the Board of Electors, often referred to as the Board of Freeholders.
The Board of Electors essentially has a blank check to fundamentally redesign government in St. Louis City and County. Whether one year from now the Board recommends a massive restructuring, or some minor fixes, the only things that limit their power are the constitution, their imagination, and the voters of St. Louis City and County, who must approve their plan. This conversation is super St. Louis-centric, but it’s an important discussion for our hometown, and you can find the entire forum in the video above.
