ST. LOUIS — Aldermanic President Megan Green is asking residents to submit their own ideas for new city policies.
And they’re responding, if sometimes tongue-in-cheek.
Submissions to a new online portal launched earlier this month include calls for a data center ban, better sidewalks — and for the Board of Aldermen to replace the opening prayer at its meetings with a rendition of Thin Lizzy’s 1976 hit “The Boys Are Back in Town.”
“I was going to propose safer roads,” one user commented on the pitch, “but this is much better.”
The portal, dubbed “Speak Up, St. Louis,” is Green’s latest effort to make the board more accessible. Last year, Green’s office used the same software to gather public input on how to spend the city’s $250 million share of the Rams relocation settlement. Hundreds of users submitted proposals, commented, and voted before the top ideas were forwarded for board discussion.
Debate on those proposals collapsed earlier this year, and aldermen have yet to allocate Rams funds beyond emergency tornado-recovery aid. Still, the public input process was considered a success — even earning a favorable review from the state auditor.
When the board returned from its summer recess this month, Green announced the portal as another way to bring more voices into city government.
“Residents can get involved in the decision-making process in ways that work for them,” she said.
Users can submit ideas over the next six months. Proposals that receive at least 150 votes will get official consideration from Green’s staff.
If an idea is deemed feasible, Green’s staff is supposed to prepare a memo and circulate it among aldermen and the public. Green may then advance it as legislation, or explain why she won’t.
The 91 proposals on the website as of Friday afternoon ran the gamut. There were plans addressing some of the city’s thorniest issues, like tornado recovery, affordable housing, recycling and building vacancy.
One person suggested replacing stoplights at low-traffic intersections with roundabouts. Another urged the construction of shelters at more bus stops in the city so riders can get out of the sun or rain while they wait.
And then there were the jokes: The call for Diet Dr. Pepper water fountains. The suggestion that the city invest in digging a hole to the earth’s core. The idea of putting all of the Rams cash into a briefcase, burying it, and letting whoever finds it keep the money.
Joshua Lawrence, a local librarian known for highlighting the board’s more interesting moments in videos on social media, submitted a proposal to create a “St. Louis Medal of Freedom” — for himself — which would come with $200,000.
As of Friday afternoon, none of the proposals on the website had reached the 150-vote threshold needed to prompt official review. And several of the sillier ones had been deemed ineligible by Green’s staff.
But the top vote-getter — with 82 upvotes — was the “Boys Are Back in Town” plan.
Green, for her part, said she’d been pleased to see the serious suggestions and unbothered by the others.
“I think it’s ultimately going to be a good platform,” she said. “The jokesters will have their day, but they’ll get tired.”
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Austin Huguelet | Post-Dispatch
St. Louis City Hall reporter
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