Hidden Power Behind St. Louis?

[IfasehunReincarnated]

Civic Progress: St. Louis Despots Lurk in the Shadows


Who holds power in St. Louis: the shadow government or the people?
Photo by Chris McClarren
By Joe Bruemmer

Civic Progress—ever heard of them? Probably not, and that’s intentional. This shadowy organization is the St. Louis Metropolitan area’s chief power broker, which stands to gain the most from the upcoming vote on the proposed "charter reform" in the City.

In May of 2001, a group of "concerned citizens", later known as Citizens for Home Rule, urged the Missouri State Legislature to authorize a statewide referendum on a Constitutional Amendment (HJR 11). The Amendment supposedly provided the City of St. Louis with "Home Rule". This was followed by the November 2002 statewide "Home Rule" ballot initiative, which passed with 69% of the statewide vote and 66% of the citywide vote. The next step to reorganize the structure of the government of St. Louis City is the charter reform initiative on this November’s ballot in the form of Amendments A, B, C and D.

Few people are aware of the role Civic Progress has within the campaign for Home Rule and Advance St. Louis, or the past campaigns they have been involved with. This organization, through its’ well established, well heeled network, access and influence in the community in general, has repeatedly tried to bend local government to its will, and the Advance St. Louis plan bears all the earmarks of a Civic Progress style "solution". These Amendments are engineered to erode citizen’s right to self governance by specifically ignoring the power that will be gained by the companies that make up the membership of Civic Progress.

Peter Downs, local author and editor of Saint Louis Schools Watch (an online newsletter), focuses on how Corporate Welfare works at the local level. During a recent interview he was asked to describe and define the power that Civic Progress has in this city. His answer was simply, "They own it".

Downs offered some insight as to how Civic Progress has held power for so long, and why the CEO’s who make up the membership feel they have the right to manipulate the system on behalf of the companies they run. "It’s because they own so much of St. Louis. They own so much of the real estate, the jobs, and the checkbooks that fund the majority of the political campaigns" for aspiring and established candidates all over the St. Louis Metro area, especially within the City of St. Louis.

Downs explained how Civic Progress uses their considerable power to politically control the St. Louis metro area, a role gone unseen by the voting population for decades. Referring to Advance St. Louis and their connections to Civic Progress, Downs said "I think there’s a web you have to follow. It’s not Civic Progress, and then bam, they set up Advance St. Louis. It’s a web of intermediary organizations." Downs went on to describe how this web has been re-engineered over the last 20 to 30 years to "get more people on board their agenda".

Advance St. Louis is a project of Citizens for Home Rule, Inc., which is listed as a Missouri non-profit corporation organized and operated for "charitable and educational" purposes. Their stated mission is to "find ways to reverse the economic and population decline in the city and find a more efficient, effective and equitable way to deliver city services". However, activists like Downs charge that the Advance St. Louis plan [Amendments A, B, C, D] is engineered to cede even more power to Civic Progress while simultaneously reducing accountability of the Mayor and elected officials to the people that elect them. The plan relies on transforming elected positions like Sheriff, Recorder of Deeds, Circuit Clerk, Treasurer, License Collector, Public Administration, Circuit Attorney, and Collector of Revenue into political appointments selected by the Mayor and approved by the Board of Aldermen. The plan also reduces the number of Aldermanic wards from the current 28 to 15. It also creates a new position of Chief Administrative Officer, also a Mayoral appointment.

Why does Civic Progress want this plan to pass, given that they "own" the City? "The problem Civic Progress and the major corporations want to address," said Downs, "is what they call ‘fragmented government’ in the St. Louis metro area. We have fragmented government in St. Louis because the people of the St. Louis want fragmented, small government. However, corporations don’t want that, because there are 50 to 100 entities that have different rules and guidelines depending where the corporations want to set their factories or offices. They want to say ‘We deal with one person, one set of rules, for this whole area of 3 million people’." This would suggest that Civic Progress is merely a group of businessmen and women who want to streamline government bureaucracy. Downs claims that their role and agenda is larger than just lobbying for streamlined government.

"This is beyond just lobbying," said Downs. "The right wing rhetoric categorized the Communist Party of the 50’s and 60’s as sitting in the center a number of front organizations they controlled. That caricature really fits Civic Progress and this web of organizations that they control."

"You need a system if you want to control the process and influence what the municipal governments and legislature does," Downs said. "It [the web of Civic Progress] is engineered to appear that everyday citizens have a say in the process, and it’s used as a cover so it sounds like ‘this isn’t what the corporate executives want to do, this is what our constituents want’. It [this illusion] gives legislators an out, and a comfort zone, and the illusion that this is a grassroots movement instead of a corporate initiative to disenfranchise the citizens of St. Louis."

This is not the first time Civic Progress member companies have participated in campaigns like this before, and Civic Progress played a large role in last year’s St. Louis School Board controversy. Downs charges that it was a Civic Progress Company that put together and funded the election of the slate of 4 board members 18 months ago. As to the tactics of the board members after the election, Downs said, "One of the first things they did was to attack the jobs, wages and salaries of the employees in the schools. A lot of jobs were outsourced for much less than they were getting paid previously. They also pushed unions to make concessions on wage and health benefits".

When voters go to the polls this November, will they approve the Advance St. Louis plans for a city government staffed by political appointees "pre-approved" by Civic Progress instead of elected public servants? Will the public be robbed of their right to self-governance? If the Advance St. Louis plans to alter the City Charter become law, it may very well turn out to be the case.

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At the November Elections St. Louis Residents CRUSHED this attempt to usurp power and hand it over to an unseen group of power brokers! Thanks to a widespread grassroots campaign they will have to go back to the drawing board before this BULLCRAP gets a "thumb up" -- THis one victory is for the little guys!