Incorporation is absolutely NOT inevitable.  Much of St. Louis County is NOT incorporated.  Sappington & Afton are NOT incorporated.  Only 10% of the Fenton zip code is incorporated, 90% of Fenton is NOT incorporated.

In 1979, a group tried to incorporate High Ridge and it failed.

We are now being told that incorporation is inevitable by the group City for Sugar Creek Hills Working to be a City Committee.  This group would have you believe that progress can't happen unless an area incorporates.

I don't find increased taxation for the same or lower level of services to have any advantage and I certainly am against the additional bureaucracy.  Sales tax is already burdensome to the consumer and businesses and incorporation will only increase the cost of goods purchased in the incorporated areas.

The pro-incorporation group is hoping to break the spirit of those opposed to incorporation by leading them to believe that to fight is futile and that incorporation is inevitable.  This incorporation initiative is not a done deal and we must keep our ear to the ground and stay involved to ensure that coordinated incorporation efforts have a factual and opposing point of view.

Examples of What Could Happen Here

Wildwood City Hall Mess

In the August 7, 2007, election, voters in Wildwood rejected a ballot measure for an extravagant $8 million city hall favored by their city government.  The mayor and city council had tried to thwart a citizen's petition slated for the November ballot by getting their own measure before the voters in August.

Volunteers had spent months collecting nearly 6,000 signatures for a petition which caps the cost at a "much lower" figure of $5.5 million.  However, last July the city council voted to block the measure from the ballot, effectively overruling the citizens and setting up a legal fight paid for on both sides by taxpayers.  FOX2’s Elliott Davis is all over this one:  "Now citizens who collected the petitions will have to spend a lot of money to fight their own city.  The city of course will use taxpayer's money for lawyers to fight their own citizens."

Do High Ridge residents want to waste their time and money on a mess such as this?

Sunset Hills Eminent Domain Disaster

Widely covered by the press during the past year, this is the best example in recent memory of what can happen when local yahoos who don’t know what they’re doing get put into positions of political power.  In this case, the developer simply backed out of a deal after the city government had forced out an entire neighborhood.  Most of the households from the neighborhood are now paying for two mortgages because they had purchased homes elsewhere, but the developer never paid for their original homes as promised.  The mayor and most of the aldermen were promptly voted out, but it has left a blighted neighborhood and ruined lives behind with no clear outcome in sight.

Do High Ridge residents want to risk a similar situation?  Do you trust a group of folks who appear to be clueless (or in denial) about the costs and logistics involved in running a city?

Overland City Officials Squabble at Taxpayer Expense

Again, widely covered by local media, former Overland Mayor Ann Purzner tried unsuccessfully to fire the police chief and city attorney, setting off a year-long battle that eventually resulted in her losing her Mayoral position in a recall election.  Concerned citizens had to spend their time collecting 3,900 signatures to get the recall petition on the ballot, which Purzner and her supporters on the city council tried to keep off the ballot by holding meetings in violation of the “sunshine law”, a court ruled.

Let’s keep High Ridge the way it is now, and avoid any possibility that this kind of time and money wasting will ever occur here.

Small-Town Cop Syndrome

State Representative Mike Frame held a Town Hall Meeting on June 28, 2007, to address the public on “Byrnes Mill Police Issues”.  This meeting was precipitated due to the large number of complaints Representative Frame has received.

Do we really want a bunch of rookie Barney Fifes in High Ridge, or should we stick with the highly competent and professional Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department we already have – and have paid for!?  That’s a no-brainer.

PLEASE DON'T THINK THESE THINGS CAN'T HAPPEN HERE!

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Last modified: 02/15/10