But regardless of what is being celebrated, events like these point to a vibrant city.

Sadly, this may not be the case on the other side of the state in St. Louis.

On July 25, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones was on hand to help hype the “Q in the Lou” barbecue festival, scheduled to be held on the grounds of the Gateway Arch in early September. Jason Hall, CEO of Greater St. Louis, a non-profit dedicated to revitalizing the city, was triumphal in saying that bringing this “signature national festival back to downtown St Louis is showing how this community is answering that call taking action and making us stronger.”

Apparently not.

Q in the Lou has been canceled. According the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Sean Hadley, one of the organizers of the event, confirmed the cancellation Monday afternoon, citing trouble garnering corporate sponsorship and VIP ticket sales — and public safety concerns disputed by the mayor’s office.

“We’re seeing a lack of support,” Hadley said. “It’s not there.”

This truly is a shame. St. Louis has a real problem with public safety and the public perception. Subsidized events and buildings won’t change that. It can only be solved by the slow and difficult work of public policy, including increasing public safety, keeping the city clean and orderly, maintaining infrastructure, and doing all of this in a cost-efficient manner.

There is no shortcut, no matter how good the ribs are.

The post STL Q Down the Loo appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The number of people who live in the city of St. Louis fell below 300,000 in 2021 and the metropolitan area also saw a decline in population as the region for the first time recorded more deaths than births. That puts it among just a handful of large urban areas hit by outmigration and a negative birth rate. . . .

As of July 1, the Census Bureau estimated that just 293,310 people resided in the region’s core city of St. Louis, down from the 301,578 people counted in the 2020 census.

St. Louis City had a population of more than 850,000 in the 1950 census. That means today’s population is about a third of what it once was. Deaths outpacing births for the first time in recorded history does not seem like great news, either.

Not all of this is the fault of the city’s leadership. Structural factors are certainly at play here; there are many reasons St. Louis’s population has been in precipitous freefall for more than half a century. And COVID deaths across the country did depress population gains. But that does not mean decline is inevitable.

As noted in the Post-Dispatch article, several peer cities in the Midwest, including Kansas City, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati, experienced population increases over this period. Those cities have many similarities to St. Louis. And St. Louis retains many key advantages, including its central location as a transportation hub and a low cost of living. To quote the late Charles Krauthammer: Decline is a choice.

So what now? A few quotes from the Post-Dispatch article hint at one possible way forward:

The numbers drew another call from the St. Louis metro’s new business and civic booster group for regional unity and a redoubling of efforts by area leaders to draw residents and focus on “inclusive economic growth.” . . .

“At the start of last year, we established Greater St. Louis Inc. out of the core belief that growth must be a top civic priority for the St. Louis metro,” said Greater St. Louis Inc. CEO Jason Hall. “These numbers tell us what we expected and underscore the urgency of focusing this metro on growth and more opportunities for all. Stagnation is the existential threat to everything we love about the place we call home.”

I’m not exactly certain what “inclusive growth” means—I would think that a region that has been hemorrhaging population since the Eisenhower administration should just be focusing on any growth, absent qualifiers. I am not mentioning this phrase just to be snarky, but instead because it is indicative of how St. Louis leaders have approached this problem.

Greater St. Louis, to much fanfare, introduced a plan at the end of 2020 (revised and improved in early 2021, but without significant changes) that was intended to fix what ailed the St. Louis region. Show-Me Institute analysts pointed out the inadequacies of that plan at the time. One of the major problems with the report is that it’s long on buzzwords and jargon like “inclusive growth” and short on actual concrete policy prescriptions or solutions.

I don’t want to belabor the shortcomings of this one report from two years ago. But that report illustrates how many civic leaders in the St. Louis region think, and it represents a well-trod path: Use taxpayer dollars to bribe companies to move here, use even more taxpayer dollars to pay for splashy but economically dubious projects like aquariums or soccer stadiums or trolleys, and bend to the whims and demands of social justice activists when making key decisions.

It’s not that hard to think of a better way to try and make St. Louis a more attractive place to live and work. St. Louis City still has an economically destructive earnings tax. The city also has massive problems with crime. The city could also focus on reducing regulations to improve its ease-of-doing-business rankings. The region as a whole could stop giving away tax subsidies at every available opportunity and use some of that money to fund critical public services or cut taxes.

It would be easy to keep listing examples of what the St. Louis region could or should be doing. But maybe the best argument for trying something else is a simple one: The old approach is what got St. Louis into its current atrophied state. If we keep trying the same things, why would anyone expect things to change?

The post Honey, I Shrunk the City appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The partners have expressed interest in developing a vast retail, commercial, and residential district that, if subsidized, could cost taxpayers millions. Unfortunately, history in the Saint Louis region shows that if you ask you shall likely receive, even if the project is of questionable merit. A prime example of this occurred in 2010 when a Walmart located in both Saint Ann and Bridgeton (two adjoining suburbs of Saint Louis) relocated a spot in Bridgeton 2 miles down the road in order to capture $7 million in public subsidies. Kroenke's plan would not only be costly for Maryland Heights residents; it would also likely move economic activity from other areas in the region, rather than creating new activity.

Periodically reshuffling existing businesses across the metro area was not the original purpose of tax increment financing (TIF). TIF was intended to encourage the development of blighted areas in need of economic growth. Instead, it is often used as a subsidy to attract businesses to areas that are already economically healthy, forcing other government entities like school districts to shoulder the costs of those decisions.

Then there is the separate question of whether it's wise to subsidize construction in a flood plain.  Flooding is still a threat in the areas where the Kroenke development would be built. In fact, as recently as last year hundreds of families were forced to evacuate their homes as a result of flooding. Saint Charles County and the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance (GRHA) have sued Saint Peters over flood plain developments in the past for environmental endangerment, and David Stokes, executive director of the GRHA and a former Show-Me staff member, contends that further development on the flood plain “will just make the [environmental] problems we’ve experienced in the past even worse.” 

Fortunately, Saint Louis is beginning to acknowledge the TIF problems we’ve been discussing for years at the Show-Me Institute.  In the past, municipalities could simply override a county veto with a two-thirds vote and proceed with the projects of their choice, but this year legislation passed both the House and Senate that would limit municipality overrides to financing costs of demolition and clearing land. If this law goes into effect on August 28 as expected—the governor has not technically signed off on it yet—then the seemingly limitless public financing of projects like Kroenke's might be scaled back considerably. 

If subsidizing construction on the flood plain is economically questionable, would hurt local school funds, and could actually threaten the safety of nearby residents, shouldn’t the flood plains be left alone?  

The post TIF in a Flood Plain–A Recipe for Trouble appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Proponents of a new $311 million hotel claim that the project will create construction jobs. At a recent hearing before the City Council, developer Mike Burke said [begins at 46:35], 

Let me talk a little bit about jobs. During the course of construction, which is about 27 months, there are about 1,300 jobs on the site.

Let's be clear about this: there won't be 1,300 jobs for 27 months. If someone were to ask Mr. Burke about this directly, he would probably walk it back immediately. Some jobs, such as heavy digging and foundation, may exist for a few months at the start. Those will transition to other, different jobs once the structure is being raised, and then finally there will be the finishing jobs once the hotel is ready for its final touches. 

Moreover, even the time spent building the hotel won't result in new jobs. The hotel will be just be a new project for those workers who already have jobs. This is why the economic impact statistics for projects such as hotels, stadiums, and airports are so suspect. Proponents want to pretend that without the project in question, people wouldnt be working or traveling or staying in hotels. As my colleague Joe Miller wrote last month regarding a proposed riverfront stadium in St. Louis:

In fact, a paper from an economist at the University of Missouri studied the impact of the Edwards Jones Dome and the Kiel Center (now the Scottrade Center) in Saint Louis specifically. The author found:

By econometrically modeling construction employment during the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s, it was found that there was no more nor no less construction employment within the St. Louis MSA during the time the Kiel Center and the Trans World Dome [Edward Jones Dome] were being constructed…

…instead of creating new construction jobs, jobs were shifted from projects that would otherwise have been undertaken, resulting in no net new job creation in the construction industry.

The author concluded:

These results, coupled with the more extensive analysis given in the article on construction employment, suggest that the net impact of stadium construction on construction employment and worker incomes is zero.

The post Will Building the Convention Hotel Create Jobs? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This post will not discuss the timing of the proposed ordinance. We can only note that the city could have scheduled a vote on public funding for a new stadium months ago. If the city had actually sought public approval, instead of trying to make an end run around democracy, timing would not be an issue.

However, in its effort to justify opposition to a public vote, the mayor’s representatives have again made claims about the stadium’s impact that fly in the face of economic evidence. According to city representatives, the stadium project will create an amazing 3,000 new construction jobs. But academic economists have studied the impact of stadium projects on the construction industry, and found that they have little or no positive effect.

In fact, a paper from an economist at the University of Missouri studied the impact of the Edwards Jones Dome and the Kiel Center (now the Scottrade Center) in Saint Louis specifically. The author found:

“By econometrically modeling construction employment during the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s, it was found that there was no more nor no less construction employment within the St. Louis MSA during the time the Kiel Center and the Trans World Dome [Edward Jones Dome] were being constructed…”

This perhaps counter-intuitive result happened because:

“…instead of creating new construction jobs, jobs were shifted from projects that would otherwise have been undertaken, resulting in no net new job creation in the construction industry.”

The author concluded:

“These results, coupled with the more extensive analysis given in the article on construction employment, suggest that the net impact of stadium construction on construction employment and worker incomes is zero.”

This finding is in line with the bulk of the economic literature: stadiums do not boost economic growth, greatly increase tax revenue, or spur revitalization. A new football stadium is an expensive want, not a need, in Saint Louis City. With its lack of economic merits, civic leaders should reject the public funding for the stadium. If they cannot bring themselves to do so, they should at least allow residents to accept or reject a plan to use public funds for football.     

The post Riverfront Stadium Unlikely to Increase Construction Jobs in Saint Louis appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

 A significant number” of districts have agreed to reduce the tuition costs for transfer students to about $7,250, said Don Senti, executive director of EducationPlus, an organization of area school districts that has coordinated the transfer process for the past two years. That is the same amount most districts charge St. Louis Public Schools for transfer students under the voluntary desegregation program. In the past, tuition rates have ranged from $20,768 in Clayton to a low of $7,927 in Mehlville.

I am very pleased that the school districts have decided to take this step. Actually, I’ve been saying this action was possible all along. Back in January 2014 I wrote:

 Many have lamented that the inter-district transfer law, which allows students to transfer from unaccredited public school districts to nearby accredited districts, may bankrupt failing districts. Normandy and Riverview Gardens, the two unaccredited districts currently allowing students to transfer, are already seeing financial hardship, and reports indicate that Normandy could be bankrupt by the end of the school year. This has occurred because the districts are paying tuition rates that are often in excess of what the districts spend on their own students. This has led some to clamor for a set tuition rate. In a recent position paper by the Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis, area school superintendents stated, “If transfers are made between school districts then a regional tuition rate should be determined.” The interesting thing is that nothing is stopping area school districts from charging a lower tuition rate now. Each district, with a vote of its school board, could decide to set a lower, consistent tuition rate. To date, none of them have. Instead, school leaders are asking for more state government action. This is the very problem that plagues our society in so many regards; instead of taking initiative and fixing a problem ourselves, we allow or we seek greater government involvement. The next time you hear a school leader complain about the transfer situation and how it may bankrupt unaccredited schools, ask him or her what his or her district is doing to help. Are these leaders taking action locally, or are they requesting a solution from Jefferson City?

Eighteen months ago school leaders scoffed at my idea. They wanted a legislative fix. They wanted to stop the transfer program. What changed? Now, area school leaders are acting to stop a legislative fix. The current bill sitting before the governor would improve Missouri’s charter public school law and allow for broader establishment of virtual schools. Eighteen months ago, the education establishment rejected the idea of lowering tuition because they wanted the legislature to maintain the status quo. Today, the education establishment welcomes the idea of lowering the tuition because they want to avoid the legislative fix and maintain the status quo.

The post Maintaining the Education Status Quo appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

If you live in the Saint Louis Metropolitan Area, as a taxpayer you might be the employer bound to such an agreement. The beneficiary of this arrangement? Your local firefighters union.

Nicknamed “evergreen clauses” because they make a contract last forever, these contract provisions are popping up in government collective bargaining agreements across the country. And they create a situation where elected officials cannot alter the pay, benefits, or work rules captured in a union contract unless the union agrees to this change. In practice, this means that pay and benefits can be ratcheted up in years when public finances are good and the union controls public officials, but pay and benefits cannot be brought back down when the union loses its influence or public coffers are tapped.

In West County, the Monarch Fire Protection District has tried to change the terms of its contract with International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 2665, but it is limited by an evergreen clause. At issue in the contract are provisions that state:

• There will be no duties (other than an alarm) assigned to safety staff after noon of each working day. Each working day is a 24-hour shift.
• A firefighter/paramedic works three days in each nine-day period (two-to-three days each week).
• A firefighter/paramedic with 15 years of service (most of the shift staff) is entitled to 27 days of paid vacation each year. Working nine days a month, this comes to about three months of vacation a year.
• In addition to vacation days, a firefighter/paramedic also receives paid days off in the form of sick days and “Kelly” days.
• Sick leave accrues over time and can be “cashed out” for pay.

Perhaps these provisions made sense when they were adopted several years ago, but now the fire district, and by extension the taxpayers, are powerless to change them.

Contracts like this shift the power of government away from the democratic process to the government union benefiting from the contract. Missouri citizens should consider whether they really want their government to have the power to bind itself to a contract indefinitely.

At the time this story went to print, the firefighters union had not responded to our request for comments.

The post The Wonderful Evergreen Clause appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Believe it or not, the same may be said of the sewers serving the 20,000-plus residents of Arnold, Missouri, located on the southern edge of the Saint Louis Metropolitan Area at the confluence of the Meramec and Mississippi rivers.

Missouri American Water has offered to purchase the Arnold sewer system for a total of $13.2 million. This is a win-win proposition for the city and its residents.

The deal not only would provide Arnold with the funds to pay off $8 million in sewer bonds, but it also would supply $5 million in additional revenue. At the same time, the arrangement with Missouri American Water would guarantee timely improvements to the sewer system and lower utility costs for residents.

Arnold currently operates its sewer system as a public utility and charges residents $24.33 per month for up to 5,000 gallons of wastewater. However, like many municipalities around the country, Arnold is not charging residents what it needs to keep the system up to date, especially with increasingly stringent EPA and Clean Water Act requirements coming into force. According to one report, by 2016 the city would need to charge $34.50 per month to provide the same services.

Facing very similar pressures, cities across the country have turned to partial or full privatization of their water and wastewater systems. Deals with private companies typically result in an upfront payment to the city, a commitment by the company to make investments in the water or sewer system, agreement on pricing, and often a stipulation that the private company must retain the existing utility staff. The vast majority of these privatizations have been successful, with more than 90 percent of cities renewing privatization contracts and 94 percent recommending privatization as a method of water and sewer system management.

To cite one example, the city of Florissant in Saint Louis County sold its municipal water utility to Missouri American Water for $14.5 million in 2002. The city spent part of the proceeds on immediate needs and put the rest in a reserve fund. More than a decade later, the privatization is still a success. The lesson from Florissant and other cities is clear: When governments set the standards and carefully manage the privatization process, private operators deliver better, cost-effective service.

If Arnold accepts the deal with Missouri American, it will reap other benefits as well. Public services, like the school district, will benefit from this proposal via the expansion of the property tax base when the assets of the sewer system go on the tax rolls after Missouri American takes control. Residents will benefit from low utility fees, as Missouri American Water has stated that they will not increase rates until 2016. Even after that date, they project they will only charge residents $30 a month, which is less than what the city is likely to charge absent privatization.

While privatization of the sewer system makes sense, Arnold must be cautious on how it crafts and implements a final deal. The city must hold Missouri American Water accountable for the quality of service and the implementation of agreed-upon improvements. Furthermore, Arnold would be wise to follow the example of Florissant by carefully spending its windfall profits.

As long as local officials perform their due diligence, Arnold has much to gain and little to lose from privatizing its sewer system. Come November, residents should not let this opportunity slip down the drain.

The post Arnold Wastewater Privatization: Don’t Waste the Opportunity appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In a recent position paper by the Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis, area school superintendents stated, “If transfers are made between school districts then a regional tuition rate should be determined.” The interesting thing is that nothing is stopping area school districts from charging a lower tuition rate now. Each district, with a vote of its school board, could decide to set a lower, consistent tuition rate. To date, none of them have. Instead, school leaders are asking for more state government action.

This is the very problem that plagues our society in so many regards; instead of taking initiative and fixing a problem ourselves, we allow or we seek greater government involvement.

The next time you hear a school leader complain about the transfer situation and how it may bankrupt unaccredited schools, ask him or her what his or her district is doing to help. Are these leaders taking action locally, or are they requesting a solution from Jefferson City?

The post A Lower, Consistent Tuition For School Transfers Is Possible Without The Legislature appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Saint Louis, Mo., has one of the United States’ most affordable housing markets. One of the reasons for the affordable housing in Saint Louis is the lack of centralized planning by governments in the area. The greater Saint Louis metropolitan area should position itself to continue to benefit from these domestic migration trends by limiting the planning requirements it imposes on homebuilders and developers.

That lack of government regulation and planning and the resulting lower housing costs leads to a lower overall cost of living for residents of the Saint Louis area. There is evidence that the more affordable cost of living is making Saint Louis more attractive to outsiders and resulting in growth for the entire region.

The post Housing Affordability: The Saint Louis Competitive Advantage appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Saint Louis and Kansas City earnings taxes, 1-percent income taxes imposed on those living or working within city limits, have consequences. People have ways of avoiding these taxes, and the single easiest way is through their mobility. Put another way, people choose where to work and what businesses to operate based on a variety of factors, including the taxes in competing political subdivisions. This location decision is particularly pertinent to both Kansas City and Saint Louis, because each one’s metropolitan area straddles a state line. In contrast to metro areas that lie in the center of the state, any tax avoidance in Missouri’s largest cities will have repercussions for the state coffers as well for Kansas’ and Illinois’ benefit. Thus, in addition to the losses in economic efficiency and total productivity that it brings, earnings taxes leave the state and municipal governments with a shrinking tax base and a commensurate decrease in tax revenue, affecting all Missourians.

It is undeniable that the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan statistical area (MSA) and the Illinois side of the Saint Louis MSA are gaining on their Missouri counterparts. The former has made such substantial gains in the last several decades that Kansas City is approaching an even split between the two states in terms of population, retail sales, and total employment. During the last decade, Missouri’s share of total employment within the Kansas City MSA slipped down to 0.57 in 2006, from 0.59 in 1998. Put another way, Missouri would have had another 19,000 people working in our state if the employment ratio had stayed the same. While Missouri is still by far the dominant state in the Saint Louis MSA, Illinois also has gained relative to the Missouri side. The ratio of Missouri employment to total employment in the Saint Louis MSA has fallen during the last decade from 0.85 in 1998 to 0.84 in 2006, reducing Missouri’s employment by 9,500 workers. In both cities, evidence indicates that employment is seeping across state lines, taking with it opportunities for tax collection and revenue accumulation for the state of Missouri.

How much of this phenomenon can actually be attributed to the city earnings tax? Saint Louis and Kansas City are hardly the only earnings-tax-enforcing cities that are losing economic power from their base state. Cities such as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Cincinnati have also seen losses in employment to neighboring states. In fact, from 1998 to 2006, every MSA that includes counties from two or more states, in which one enforces a city income tax, has seen a decline in the ratio of employment within the area subject to an earnings tax relative to total MSA employment, even while similar multistate MSAs without earning taxes have experienced, on average, a modest increase in that ratio during the same period.

An elimination of the earnings tax could have a real, quantifiable impact on the level of total employment retained by Missouri in its two largest metropolitan areas. According to our calculations, eliminating the earnings tax in Kansas City would increase the ratio of Missouri employment to total employment in that metropolitan area by over one-half of a percent, an increase of approximately 4,700 Missouri jobs. Such an injection of employment into the state of Missouri would represent an annual gain of nearly $134.5 million in total state earnings. This increase in earnings would impact the municipal and state tax coffers as well, infusing over $4 million in additional tax revenue into Missouri state and municipal governments.

Missouri would stand to gain even more from elimination of the Saint Louis earnings tax. Our calculations indicate such a change in tax policy would precipitate an increase of more than 6,500 Missouri jobs in the short run, along with nearly $157 million in additional earnings within the state of Missouri. Local governments within the Missouri side of the Saint Louis MSA stand to gain nearly $5 million dollars in supplemental tax revenue from these additional Missouri jobs alone.

Perhaps an even more salient point is that all of these figures forecast benefits for the state of Missouri and its citizens in the immediate future. If the long-term gains are nearly as substantial as the immediate gains appear to be, eliminating the earnings tax could be a paradigm-shifting change for the Kansas City and Saint Louis MSAs, and for Missouri in general. It could help stem the trend of economic activity shifting outside city limits, fleeing toward suburban and out-of-state destinations, and help preserve Missouri’s fading dominance in those areas.

The earnings tax is, even without the concerns raised here, an economic force that adversely affects the cities that levy it, their metropolitan areas, and the state. It discourages investment and cultivation in the urban core, often the part of a city with the most infrastructure and economic potential, thereby weakening the entire economic structure of a metropolitan area and a state as a whole. When these potential pitfalls are combined with increasingly appealing out-of-state commercial options, the earnings tax becomes a formidable enemy to the economic stability of a state like Missouri. It is time to consider whether the costs of the earnings tax are worthwhile. Would the citizens of Missouri be better served by a balanced playing field that allows Saint Louis and Kansas City to compete with surrounding suburban and out-of-state areas unencumbered by the economic distortions produced by the earnings tax? The economic vitality and fiscal solvency of their state may depend on it.

Joseph Haslag is executive vice president of the Show-Me Institute, a Missouri-based think tank, and a professor in economics at the University of Missouri–Columbia. Alex Schulte is an intern at the Show-Me Institute.

The post Missouri Suffers From the Saint Louis and Kansas City Earnings Taxes appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The piece is a nice portrait of school choice in action, where parents recognize that their current school is failing their kids and take the initiative to find a better educational option. These are the choices that relatively affluent people have at their disposal, and it’s a significant part of the reason that children of wealthy families are far more likely than their financially-disadvantaged peers to attain educational success and economic prosperity.

Seeing the way that educational choice benefits these families, we, as a society, should be outraged that so many public school districts flatly refuse to offer even the smallest degree of choice to as many children as possible. Ideally, all families would be able to choose from among both public and private options, but even if private options were not included, shouldn’t students be able to attend any school within their district? After all, these families’ tax dollars are paying for the operation of all the schools in the district, so it’s only fair that they should have the chance to benefit from the best that the district has to offer. Yet even so modest a pro-student reform as this recently drew opposition from the Missouri
Council of School Administrators, the Missouri Council of Administrators of Special Education, the Missouri School Boards’ Association, the Cooperating School Districts of Greater Kansas City, the Missouri National Education Association, the Missouri State Teachers Association, the Kansas City Missouri School District, St. Louis Public Schools, and the Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis.

Because those who have the financial means have
already left the public schools, the only ones left are those without
the the economic and political power to make an impression on the
legislature. And the concerted opposition of the aforementioned groups is what leaves the economically-disadvantaged (and predominantly minority) children of the state at the mercy of schools and districts that, to put it bluntly, aren’t interested in offering them the best opportunity to succeed if that opportunity would mean changing the educational status quo.

The post Choice, Illustrated and Rejected appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

That being said, the only thing you can really do after a long drive is riff on the news you missed:

• The Pew Center on the States (which also released a study I commented on last week) released Grading the States 2008, its annual report card on the performance of state governments. Missouri was one of five states ranked as a B+, behind only three states ranked as an A-. According to the Post-Dispatch, the improvement comes largely from improvements in state-sponsored road projects. Yay, MoDOT.
• The St. Louis Metropolitan and County police departments are going to start pursuing fugitives without warrants for their arrest. Despite the fact that without warrants these individuals are technically not "fugitives" per se, there is an administrative step that prevents warrants from being sought until an individual is first apprehended. This is, coincidentally, why lots of fugitives miss court dates in the first place: Often in St. Louis County, a suspect will be released from custody and assume that everything is hunky-dory until he gets pulled over for rolling a stop sign two years later and finds out that he’s had a warrant for his arrest out since the day after he was first brought in. Happens all the time. That said, pursuing individuals without warrants isn’t the step that needs to be taken. Rather, warrants should be made easier to get in the first place.

The post Quick Hits After a Journey appeared first on Show-Me Institute.