Velda City and Northwoods Are Basically Stalking Their Citizens

What do we call people (usually men) who keep asking women out again and again and again despite repeated rejections? We call them stalkers.

What do we call cities that keep asking voters again and again for tax hikes despite repeated rejections? Well, nothing, I guess, but we should call them stalkers, too.

Right now, the best examples are the two small municipalities of Velda City and Northwoods in North St. Louis County. For the upcoming municipal elections in April, Velda City residents are being asked to approve three (three!) taxes that they voted down last year. This includes a marijuana tax and a use tax that they rejected in the April 2023 elections. The third tax increase is a utility tax increase that voters have rejected twice (twice!) recently, in both 2022 and 2023.

In Northwoods, voters are once again being asked to approve a use tax despite voting against the tax in both April 2023 and April 2022. This is ridiculous, and it isn’t a one-time problem.

Last year, for the April municipal elections, four municipalities within St. Louis County placed a use tax proposition on the ballot despite the fact that voters in those cities had rejected the use tax just one year before. Those four municipalities were Chesterfield, Fenton, Town and Country, and the previously discussed Northwoods. Chesterfield voters, in particular, have basically told the city, “I don’t want to go out with you,” and the city responds, “That’s ok, I’ll ask you out again tomorrow.”

Maryland Heights was even more aggressive. There, voters rejected a use tax in November of 2022 yet there they were again in April 2023, voting just five months later on the exact same tax increase proposal.

The Hancock Amendment thankfully requires the public to vote on municipal tax increases. But it violates the spirit of the amendment and common decency to just put taxes on the ballot over and over until the public passes them. While all the examples I have given are in St. Louis County, I assure you this is a problem statewide.

Missouri House Bill 2058 has been introduced to require a minimum space of two years before an issue can be put back on the ballot once it is defeated. This change is sorely needed for Missouri voters. The people of Velda City and Northwoods deserve a break from their governmental stalkers.