[Editor’s note: As a sidebar to McPherson’s story about St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann, here is the full text of the letter he e-mailed on Dec. 8 to former Washington University Chancellor Mark Wrighton. I have made minor formatting changes such as paragraph breaks to improve readability, but the text itself is unchanged.
Greater St. Louis Inc. executives have noted that quoted language in the text below is from a Nov. 24 draft of the “STL 2030 Jobs Plan.” The plan was later updated; a more recent draft for public review, dated Dec. 3, is available on the Greater St. Louis Inc. website.]
Mark S. Wrighton, PhD
James and Mary Wertsch Distinguished University Professor
Chancellor Emeritus
Washington University in St. Louis
MSC 1020
St. Louis, MO 63130 USA
Dear Dr., Wrighton,
Thank you for sharing this early draft of STL 2030, Driving a Decade of Inclusive Growth, An Action Plan to Grow Quality Jobs for All St. Louisans, (hereafter “the document”). I am pleased to accept your invitation to provide feedback. I enjoyed the nearly two hours I spent talking to Bruce Katz. Unfortunately many of the issues I identified as holding back economic development in the region did not even make it into STL:2030. Although my feedback below will focus on those missing issues and actual proposals about which I have doubts, there are certainly many proposals in the document that have merit. Generally speaking, I believe everyone applauds the efforts to provide equal opportunity for all our citizens to have a rewarding job or pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. However, the step from trying to ensuring equal opportunity to trying to ensuring equal results has always been much more controversial and the document appears to make some fundamental assumptions that will not be shared by all in the region.
The first proposal in STL:2030 is to “steward an inclusive economy by creating Greater St. Louis, Inc,, a “multisectoral networks of public, private and civic institutions that can together navigate the complexity of challenges that cities face and work to advance inclusive, sustainable and innovative growth.” I trust when they use the word “cities” they are referring to metropolitan areas. Our region has adopted very diverse approaches to economic development and each jurisdiction has shown strengths and weaknesses in their individual efforts, many of which are set out in the document. It is important that any new regional organization appreciate that fact and reflect the diversity of approaches to government generally, and economic development specifically, in the region. The diversity of values, and views of the proper role of government, were apparent in the recent election when the region split close to fifty-fifty.
Hopefully, the executive team and board of directors of Greater St. Louis, Inc will reflect this diversity with a near-equal number of liberal and conservative members, and a near-equal number of left-leaning and right-leaning moderates. Since more than half the people in the region do not live in St. Louis city or county, the leadership should also reflect the geographical diversity of the region as well. That leadership will need to represent the entire region when it appears before the General Assembly and executive branch in Jefferson City or Springfield. Even if we could start out with such a make-up, Conservatives like myself, noting the prominence of liberals in the administration of most civic organizations, are reminded of political commentator John O’Sullivan’s warning that, “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing” I believe, to have an effective regional organization, we will need to guard against that happening with Greater St. Louis Inc.
One of the strategies Greater St. Louis, Inc. plans to implement is the STL Pledge, committing major employers to, among other things, locate, “all or a portion of their workforce near key nodes and districts in the city’s core…” This is a far cry from the non-competition clause proposed by the St. Louis Economic Partnership a few years ago in which jurisdictions were asked “not to initiate contact with any businesses located in the jurisdictions of the counter-parties to this Agreement,… to attract that business to move or expand any or all of its operations or employment base to any other jurisdiction.” More recently, its Principles and Protocols state, “It is never the intent of AllianceSTL to be involved in intra-metro relocations and our strong bias is that it is best for businesses to grow in their current community.” We need new jobs and new investments throughout the region. Relocating existing jobs to one jurisdiction is tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and is a serious departure from present economic development practices.
What are the chances businesses would voluntarily move jobs to the city for free when they have received incentives to do it in the past? The writers of the 1945 Missouri Constitution encouraged investment in the inner cities when they allowed different tax treatment for property in “blighted” areas. Programs like Tax Increment Financing (TIF) have been enacted into law and used to move economic development from one part of the St. Louis Region to another rather than create new economic activity, all well-documented in a study by East-west Gateway several years ago. The authors admit that job relocations to restore the core, “will not be acts of philanthropy.” Here’s how that can work. A business paying property taxes where they are in the region moves to the city in return for a property tax abatement. While the city losses property tax revenue it makes it up with city earnings tax revenue. The move will only cost the employees (the top executives will probably not move) and the city schools. Unless the employee moves to the city or an effected student is 18 years of age, no one gets to express their disapproval at the next city election.
The Earnings Tax is a subject, by the way, that is not even mentioned in STL:2030. If you want jobs to return to the city, do away with the earnings tax. I introduced a bill in the Missouri Senate 25 years ago to do that and replace it with other revenue sources. It failed to pass. In the meantime, most of those other revenue sources have been tapped by the city, but the Earnings Tax remains.
Another topic not even discussed was tort reform. Will businesses that have tried to avoid the courts in the City of St. Louis for decades want to relocate jobs there before passage of meaningful tort reform in the State of Missouri?
The authors of the document contends, “Racial activism is one of the metro’s greatest assets,” claiming that since Ferguson, “The St. Louis region has experienced an exceptional rise in civic engagement and collective action to address persistent racial disparities in policing, education, health, wealth and a whole host of other areas.” Indeed, Centene built a $25 million facility in Ferguson, while the entire business community supported the Concordance Academy and the St. Louis Public Schools. Nevertheless, in September 2017, after a former police officer was acquitted on a murder charge, protestors took to the streets of St. Louis, despite the progress that had been made, for the nation to again see. Such protests seem to be out of the control of local black leaders.
STL2030’s second proposed solution is “to restore the STL core as the vibrant jobs and cultural center of the metropolis.” The goal is 50,000 new jobs within the core of the city, with a good portion available to disadvantaged residents. The authors decry “the vacuum left by decades of job sprawl….” The region had a debate about urban sprawl over twenty years ago and some then argued, as the authors of the document do, that “decentralization had undermined performance.” After that debate, even the Democrat-controlled legislature rejected calls for “suburban growth boundaries.” To their credit, the authors now suggest voluntary pledges over governmental coercion. The City of St. Louis remains, culturally and recreationally, the center of our region. But the Regional Employment Density Map makes it obvious that the jobs center of the region is significantly to the west of downtown; even to the west of Clayton. That center ought to be the starting point for a discussion of economic development. To do otherwise will only create resentment among the majority of people in the region who do not live in St. Louis city or county.
While the authors present evidence of how other metro areas have solved various problems, they have missed opportunities to highlight how jurisdictions in our own region have successfully addressed a problem. Other than being mentioned in the definition of the region, Jefferson, St. Clair Madison and Monroe are not mentioned again. Franklin County is mentioned again once, and St. Charles County is mentioned twice. As an example, the authors state, “race and space are intertwined.” Indeed the large discrepancies in housing values on each side of the Delmar Divide has been allowed to extend into St. Louis County. The document contends fragmentation has hampered collaboration in St. Louis County with its 90 municipalities. They contrasted St. Charles County, where we have five major cities, each with neighborhoods for all types of housing. Housing values per square foot are roughly the same in each municipality, as are the values on both sides of the Delmar Divide line when extended into St. Charles County. Other jurisdictions have successes that can and should be adopted by others.
The document states the “weakness of the core is also one of the central barriers to the growth of the metropolitan region.” The core has been in decline since the 1960s. What is different the last decade is the increase in crime. That increase, on top of the Ferguson experience, has generated so much negative media coverage that the entire region has suffered. Can anyone expect businesses to move jobs to the core before we get the murder rates down and make Metrolink safe? The document mentions crime on page 7 as one factor that contributes to health disparities along racial lines. Eight pages later it identifies crime, in the same sentence with racial disparities, disinvested communities, underfunded public schools and the large number of local municipalities as “cause for concern.” Those are the only two places the word “crime” appears.
Moreover, those crime statistics, which are going to look even worse when the city begins reporting under new FBI crime reporting standards, are harming economic development efforts in the entire region. St. Louis is the only major city in the country that has had more murders than COVID deaths this year. Developers around the country and the world, when seeking a place to put their business, used to look at the St. Louis Region and some of them were attracted to St. Charles County. Today, because of all the bad publicity, St. Louis has been taken off their lists and they never even find out about St. Charles County.
There is an expression of faith that the Brickline strategy, a greenway in North St. Louis, will be a game changer. I hope it will. The incredible efforts to improve the Arch Grounds may have increased tourism, but an increase in crime downtown can quickly neutralize any benefit to business development. The document specifically mentions the restoration of Fairgrounds Park, located along what the Post-Dispatch recently identified as the deadliest mile in St. Louis. How can you ask for a pledge to relocate jobs to the core before we solve the crime problem?
Another Restore the Core strategy states, “Contracts for the work must favor locally owned small businesses, particularly construction firms, that are owned by people of color.” Racial preferences in contracting have been around for decades. I am most familiar with them in the area of transportation, since Federal Highway and MoDOT has had such a program for years. Some successful businesses have developed through the process over the years. One hears reports, however, of minority owned businesses hiring sub-contractors to do the work and thus failing to develop the necessary expertise to compete in a free market. The document offers no suggestions on how to keep the same thing from happening in the pledge’s racial preference program. Would anything be required other than to open an office with a phone in the city to take orders for a product to be manufactured elsewhere? Racial preferences apply to governmental entities, and are constitutional because those entities had a history of discrimination against minority groups. The pledge would apply to private companies and would be entirely voluntary. Racial preferences have always been controversial and the voters of California last month declined to repeal a ban on such preferences that has been in effect for at least two decades.
The third solution discussed in the document is “to build a world class ecosystem for small business and entrepreneurs.” The document points out that small businesses employ almost half of the metropolitan workforce and proposes a ten-year Entrepreneurial Surge to nurture development of small businesses and tech entrepreneurs alike. The authors believe, “St. Louis needs to become a recognized national leader in the growth of successful businesses owned by people of color across multiple industries.” Later on the same page they talk about “black and brown communities.” When they talk about “St. Louis” do they mean the city or the region? When the authors discuss the “brown community” are they talking about Asian-Americans, as well as people of Hispanic and Middle Eastern origin? Are their statistics for minority-owned businesses region-wide or just city-wide?
While the document recognizes the importance of small business, there appear to be very few small businesses that were asked to participate in its preparation. Any of our local Chambers of Commerce could have recommended successful small businesspeople who have direct experience. Most of the businesspeople involved in the production of the document appear to be employees of large business concerns rather than creators of small businesses. My experience is that large corporation do not send entrepreneurs but rather public relations experts to participate in such efforts.
Finally the last solution suggested by STL:2030 is that we “become a talent engine and magnet.” The authors suggest cultivating “deep, mutually benefit relationships between education, workforce training and industry,” but seem to understand very little about Workforce Development in the region. There is no mention of the WIOA and the American Job Centers as part of the remedy for workforce training. They point out that, “For those living in historically disadvantaged areas like the north side of St. Louis, pathways into careers that pay well are scarce, “ and conclude, “duplicated efforts and disjointed programs that are difficult for people to navigate.” While an economic development program, Workforce Development is funded like a Social Services program. While we have many more businesses in St. Charles County asking our Workforce Development to help them fill jobs, the Workforce Development program in the City of St. Louis receives 280% more in workforce funds then our community, even though our population is 115,000 higher.
The authors want every student to receive quality STEM education and exposure to various occupations beginning in pre-K and continuing through high school. They claim local intermediary STEMSTL is already working with educators, employers and families to improve STEM education. Partners for Progress has tried for the last 12 years, under the leadership of Randy Schilling, to promote STEM in St. Charles County. They have helped our schools begin computer science training and usage in preschool and through K-12, started more than 100 robotics teams and launched STEM summer camps.
The authors of the document claim, “Technical skills gaps tend to get the most attention, but many employers report that human skills are in short supply as well. Sometimes referred to as ‘soft skills,’ in reality these skills are anything but. They encompass abilities such as critical thinking, cooperation, growth mindset, working within a diverse team and even appropriate use of personal devices at work.” My experience talking to many employers in St. Charles County is that they see a lack of even “softer” skills like showing up for work, being on time and focusing on the job for eight hours. Ideally, these skills are taught in the home but our second line of defense is the schools.
When we were developing as an industrial society, schools reinforced skills necessary for an industrial job. While some students will still have industrial era jobs, they often lack the discipline displayed by their parents and grandparents. The Missouri School Improvement Plan (MSIP) results show that, in most successful school districts in the region around 90 percent of the students are present 90 percent of the time. In St. Louis Public Schools, 70 percent are there 90 percent of the time. In the Normandy School District the percentage is 65. If students cannot master the soft skill of getting to school on time, they have no chance of developing the higher skills that will land them a good job. If they cannot show up for work on time, they won’t be able to keep any job at all. At one time, the schools prohibited profanity and required the same level of discourse that would later be required on the job. Workplace discourse is now the stuff of lawsuits and if an employee were to use some of the language now allowed in some of our school he or she would probably get fired.
More thought needs to be given to the proper scope of STL:2030. As I have already suggested many important issues have been totally ignored. A discussion about public and private education, school choice and charter schools need to be part of any effort to restore the core. false STL Inc. will have to be involved in a serious discussion with regional interests and the legislature on the future of the airport, which is vital to the future of the region, but this document does not even mention. It talks about lack of a “supportive state government” but does not specifically address what is lacking.
The document recognizes business sectors where the region offers promise. Among those, St. Charles County has an aerospace and defense presence with the Boeing Plant, an automotive with the GM Plant, and distribution and logistics with Amazon and several others. We are happy about NGA in north St. Louis but an almost equal investment is being made in the GM Plant in Wentzville and Amazon has created thousands of new jobs for employees who live all over the region.
The authors explain that organizations like the Bi-State Development Agency and the East-West Gateway Council, as well as initiatives like the St. Louis Regional Freightways have put together multi-year plans detailing needed infrastructure investments in the region. The document suggests, “These plans position St. Louis well for any federal infrastructure funds that become available in the years ahead. The recommended freight infrastructure investments detailed in the plans—replacement of the Merchants Memorial Mississippi Rail Bridge, improvements of I-70 and I-64, additional cargo capacity at Lambert International Airport—will make it easier for St. Louis manufacturers to obtain needed materials and ship out final products.” There is much more to be done. The logistics “Main Street” of the region is the I-70 “Truck Route” designated by MoDOT. When a truck heads west from the “Gateway to the West” it has to squeeze under a railroad on a two-lane Interstate-70 at Wentzville. If it is headed east it has the same problem at the Chain of Rocks Bridge. The new bridge has been funded but the I-70 project has not been put in the STIP by MoDOT.
The document claims to reflect conversations with hundreds of St. Louisans throughout the region over the past 12 months. Among the individuals interviewed or otherwise involved, there are two, other than myself, from St. Charles County, the second largest jurisdiction in the region, and nobody that I recognize from Jefferson or Franklin counties. The Illinois side of the river seems to be underrepresented as well. I only hope that Greater St. Louis Inc. will have more geographical diversity. Other counties that are not in EWGCG were included in the definition of the region but, as far as I can tell, not included in the discussion. I question why the 2018 numbers were used for population when 2020 are available.
STL:2030 gets off to a bad start on the cover page and betrays the bias within. The map depicted on the cover does not go past I-270 in St. Louis County. It features the old core of the region, downtown St. Louis, in the middle, ignoring the existing reality that the majority of the region’s jobs aren’t even on the map. I hope that some discussion of the issues I have raised will be included in your final version. I will make myself available if you would like to discuss these issues further.
Respectfully submitted,
Steve Ehlmann
St. Charles County Executive
