In a municipal general election that sparked intense conflict, St. Louis voters split over the two most controversial initiatives on the April 4 ballot, which came as a pair, Propositions 1 and 2. City voters decided they would approve an increase in local sales tax to fund public services, including support for a north-south MetroLink line, but not to publicly subsidize the construction and maintenance of a professional soccer stadium.
Proposition 1 – a half-cent sales-tax increase that is expected to generate $20 million a year – won by a huge margin, 35,059 votes (60.4 percent) to 22,998 votes (39.6 percent). The bulk of the new funds – $12 million – are supposed to go towards building an 8-mile MetroLink extension from North City to South City. The remaining $8 million is targeted to public safety, job training, a youth empowerment fund and neighborhood revitalization.
Proposition 2 – which would have directed $4 million new business use tax revenue from the sales tax increase to help fund a new $155-million stadium downtown – was defeated, 30,603 votes (52.8 percent) to 27,363 votes (47.2 percent). The city’s share in building the stadium would have been $60 million.
The fight over Proposition 2 drove voter turnout. Thirty percent of registered voters (59,134 people) voted in the city – more than twice as much voter participation as in the April 2013 municipal general election.
Alderwoman Christine Ingrassia, who represents the 6th Ward, said the $4 million would now most likely be divided among the current budget needs. Ingrassia sponsored the legislation for both Propositions 1 and 2. However, the sales-tax increase came out of Mayor Francis G. Slay’s office last spring when trying to devise alternative revenues to the city’s earnings tax, said Patrick Brown, the mayor’s chief of staff. The Major League Soccer proposal was latter attached to it.
In the city, the conflict over Proposition 2 resembled the divide in the Democratic mayoral primary, with progressives outvoting the status quo on Proposition 2. Unlike in the Democratic primary, however, progressives were not a voting majority split between progressive candidates, but rather united on a vote of “no” for public subsidy of a sports stadium – which is becoming a perennial loser on St. Louis ballots.
More unique to the general election on Tuesday was a revival of city versus county antagonism, with city progressives uniting around the idea of not using their tax money to fund another urban amenity for county day trippers.
Many city residents were left smarting by the sales tax increase, which seemed to leave a sort of voter’s remorse in social media morning-after discussions. The passage of Prop 1 hiked the city’s sales tax from 8.679 percent to 9.179 percent. (Chicago has the highest rate with 10.25 percent, and Seattle sits in sixth place with 9.6 percent, according to the Tax Foundation.) In some parts of St. Louis city – like the Starbucks at 2350 South Grand Blvd. – the sales tax will be as high as 11.68 percent because of special-taxing districts.
The proposed new North-South MetroLink line funded by the new tax revenue will be a 17-mile stretch costing about $1.2 billion, said Nahuel Fefer, the mayor’s special assistant. The sales tax increase mainly addresses the first phase – a roughly 8-mile stretch which will cost about $700 million.
Fefer said that the $12 million in tax revenue will allow the city to secure about $350 million in bonds. “With a federal match, that translates to roughly $700 million,” Fefer said. “This would allow us to build a roughly 8-mile line.”
The remaining $8 million in revenue will go towards several other areas. For neighborhood revitalization, the plan is to put $2 million into one neighborhood every year and allow a panel of neighborhood residents to have a strong say in how the money is dispersed. The $1 million Youth Empowerment Fund will go towards recreation and afterschool jobs. Public safety will get $2 million, infrastructure will get $2 million, and $1 million will go to the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE).
As for funding a new soccer stadium, a progressive alderwoman who worked hard to defeat Proposition 2 has a simple solution for soccer boosters: pay for it yourselves. Alderman Megan Ellyia Green (15th Ward) noted that members of SC STL, the soccer ownership group, are individually wealthy and could come up with the $60 million without turning to the public.
“So fans really need to be putting the pressure on them to come forth with the extra $60 million and say, ‘We do want this,'” Green told St. Louis Public Radio. “We want to see a stadium here. We just don’t want to pay for it off the backs off affordable housing, public safety, and public health.”
