In Peaceful Village, the Voters Vote Next Month

Peaceful Village is a small, nicely named municipality in Jefferson County, just south of St. Louis. I don’t know if it has a theme song, but it should, and we all know what it should be. And, yes, there are almost certainly (mountain) lions that have slept near Peaceful Village.

On April 2, the residents are voting on disincorporating the city. This disincorporation proposal is a clear example of the Anna Karenina Principle at work. This is the rare example where the municipality’s zoning codes are less strict than the county’s codes. Some residents of the area want to disincorporate the city because they are opposed to a treatment center being built in the village. Building the center is legal under the village’s rules but would be illegal (from a zoning perspective) under the county rules. This is a twist on a zoning fight that you don’t see every day.

It is also worth noting the strange circumstances under which the village came into existence in 2008:

In 2007, the Missouri Legislature had passed a controversial law, supported by former Speaker of the House Rod Jetton, to help a wealthy donor create his own village. The donor wanted to bypass building and zoning regulations in southwest Missouri. The short-sighted law was repealed a year later, but dozens of landowners across the state had already tried to take advantage of it.

There is a part of this fight where I side with the municipality. According to some village leaders, the village is allowing the building of some treatment centers after the county has prevented their construction elsewhere. I am not in a position to verify that claim, but I personally think it should be easier for charities to build treatment and charitable shelters in Missouri.

But in the bigger picture, would Missouri benefit from having fewer small municipalities like Peaceful Village? Probably, but not necessarily in each instance. The worst abuses at the local government level in Missouri are found in the special taxing districts like TDDs and CIDs. Yes, we are awash in bad municipal policies in Missouri, but those policies are  found in large, medium, and small municipalities.

In recent years, we have had municipalities in Missouri disincorporate because of corruption, flooding, and, perhaps most commonly, just a general malaise about the community. I don’t know where Peaceful Village fits in on that list. To paraphrase Tolstoy, every unhappy village is unhappy in its own way.

I am glad the people of the village are voting on disincorporation. If the village isn’t meeting the needs of its residents in a manner that justifies the taxes it charges (which I think are comparatively low), then it deserves to go away. That will be up to the residents and voters, as it should be.