Metro needs Dooley
Brittanie Williams | Post-Dispatch
Metro, the St. Louis region’s bus and light-rail mass transit agency, faces a budget gap of at least $40 million that grows larger with every report of slumping retail sales and declining sales taxes. In November, St. Louis County voters narrowly defeated a one-half cent sales tax increase that would have rescued the transit system, at least temporarily.
Now, drastic reductions in service are on the way. On Friday, Metro’s board approved a plan that will cost 600 employees their jobs. The “D” in Plan “D,” as it’s called, might well represent “deep.” The plan cuts close to the bone.
In assessing agency options, Metro President Robert J. Baer said, the staff tried to give first priority to people most dependent on public transit, but Plan D still will hit the working poor and disabled residents hard.
The number of buses in service will be reduced from 299 to 153. There will be virtually no bus service outside the Interstate 270 ring; a route running to Earth City to serve a large concentration of employers is one exception. Amenities such as the Forest Park Shuttle will cease operations. Indeed, 30 of the system’s 57 routes (including all express routes) will be eliminated, and all parts of the community will be affected. On the routes that survive, buses will run less frequently.
Even this plan can be sustained only until June 30, 2011, when services would have to be cut further if new funding is not found.
Our region’s transit system is teetering on the brink, eliminating routes, losing ridership and reducing its eligibility for federal support. Metro never has had a stable source of funding because our political leaders never have taken responsibility for making public transit work.
Prospects for future funding do not look promising, either. St. Louis County pulled back an estimated $10 million in support this year. Funding for public transit by the state of Missouri has been and remains embarrassingly paltry. Given the country’s economic woes, it would be unrealistic for Metro to expect new funding before 2010, the earliest practical time another sales tax increase could be put before voters.
What Metro needs more than anything else is dynamic, inspiring, credible leadership and vision from its board and the officials of the political jurisdictions it serves.
That would involve exercising political power to make public transit a true regional priority, pulling together top regional and state leaders and hammering out a plan to provide stable funding — thus protecting and building on the public’s multibillion dollar investment in transit assets.
The person best positioned to provide that leadership is St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, the elected leader of the most populous county in the region and the area whose residents stand to gain the most from an efficient, convenient public transportation system.
In an interview after the Metro board’s Friday meeting, Mr. Dooley said Metro must be seen as a system “that’s credible and on schedule.” He said we must “pound into” regional and state leaders, especially those of the business community, that public transit is “not a plaything” but a vital part of Missouri’s economy that delivers “people to goods and services and jobs.”
Mr. Dooley’s associates insist that he understands how crucial public transit is to the St. Louis community and recognizes the opportunities it presents for economic development and job creation. If so, now is the time for him to be passionate — and maybe not always polite — and willing to risk precious political capital on behalf of public transportation. That would be a different kind of “Plan D,” with the “D” standing for “Dooley.”
Dooley is quickly showing that he is out of his depth in this job. His answer to everything is raise taxes. HIs irresponsible attempts to shove multiple tax increases on the last ballot show he doesn’t understand. Couple that with the Post’s recent revelation that the County does not plan to use real world valuations on property tax assessments and his ham-fisted handling of the South County trash flap show he idoesn’t get it. Dooley does not possess Buzz Westfall’s ability to bring people together. He is not the manager that we saw in H. Milford or the efficient political persona of Gene McNary. County Executives used to be invisible in the shadow of the Mayor of St. Louis. They were invisibile because they were efficient. I predict the coming storm over property taxes may spawn an effort to recall Dooley. When people see their homes decline in real value by 20-25% and he tells them to expect maybe 2%, you will see a call for new leadership, perhaps before the next election. Dooley and the bureaucrats in Clayton need to understand that we are in a severe recession and things like expanded parks, raises and other amenities will have to wait for better times. Metro is in this mess because Dooley thought he could divert transit money and stick the taxpayers with the bill. He has alienated property owners, bus riders and trash customers, a pretty wide range of demographics. It will be interesting to see if opposition develops to his strange management style.
Let’s be honest here folks, Dooley didn’t even go to college. Anyone else today would never be in this position. Think Sarah Palin and how she was villified by compassionate Democrats because she did not go to Harvard Law.
Dooley should be ousted and will be when people get their re-evaluated 2009 tax bills. I appealed mine in 2008 and was told I couldn’t use the “over-valued” purchase prices from 2007 which they used to overvalue my 2007 tax bill. I had to use sale values from 2008. They should use “adjusted” sales values from 2008, but won’t. Really? Good luck Dooley.
As far as Metro is concerned, this is what should be done. If Dooley had any brains, he would think outside the box. Deseg kids should be taking the Metro to their St. Louis county school of choice. Individual school buses could then be used at the drop off stations to take the kids to school. There simply is no need for those buses to drive all through downtown and out to the county when we have the public Metro system. Since we have it, use it. This would save money and the environment.
Centrist and jjk, you’re both on to something and I would like to continue the train of thoughts:
-I voted against an increase in taxes for Metro because they didn’t do a good enough job selling it. Remember Ross Perot’s use of charts and graphs? I would have like to have seen Baer give the public an easy overview of Metro with expenditures, revenues etc. and show us why they are losing money. I wasn’t convinced that Metro has been run or isn’t being run well enough for me to pay more taxes. I agree that Dooley is not the answer and agree that the agency needs a dynamic leader who can convince the public that Metro is a good/great system to be expanded.
-A few months ago, I was behind a short term parking bus at Lambert and was struck by the fact that the bus did not expel the noxious fumes/smoke that buses typically do. There was a sign on the back of the bus that said it was powered by natural gas. Why can’t our Metro buses run on natural gas?
-Lastly, I think a lot of people are not educated on how easy it is to ride the bus and Metro should do a better job of getting that information out.
It will take a forward thinking leader of Metro to convince me to spend my tax dollars on the system and Dooley isn’t one.
I actually took the time to go down and meet Mr. Baer and I believe he is doing what he can to clean up the cesspool that was dumped in his lap. Clearly, their campaign was not compelling and I think their effort was half-hearted because they realized they were not going to win. Here was my take-away from my meeting. The problem is two-fold: 1. Dooley blind-sided them with his elimination of the County’s contribution and 2. and this is more of a structural issue, when Metro was conceived, Gephardt promised Federal money to operate the system and didn’t get it done before he left. Metro was created on a false set of assumptions that never had a chance without Federal money. It has no relationship to uncaring taxpayers in the County, it has to do with the way the system was created. This recession could actually be a blessing. Diesel fuel costs are now half of what they were and the Feds are looking for places to drop money into transportation projects.
> Dooley didn’t even go to college.
St. Charles county executive Steve Ehlmann, BA, J.D.
Franklin county - no bio, but exec is former superintendent of schools
Madison county - Alan Dunstan has 2 BAs, in government and economics
Mayor Slay - BA political science, J.D.
Jackson county executive Mike Sanders - BA, J.D.
Mayor of Indianapolis - BA in economics, Lt. Col., USMC
Mayor, Kansas City - BA, MBA, MSW, PhD in public administration
Mayor, Spinrgfield - BA journalism, J.D.
Charlie Dooley - Graduate of Wellston High School, SP5, Army
Yeah, it sounds to me like Mr. Dooley is quite the overachiever. So you have to wonder, what sort of idiots are the Republican leaders in this county that they have lost two elections to Dooley, the most recent in which they made no effort at all?
When I made my initial comment, I was unaware of his educational achievements. Had I known, it woud have had no bearing on my comment. The world is full of educated idiots. The smartest guy I know barely graduated from the eighth grade. Judgment does not require a degree. Judgment, good or bad lives or dies on its face, not on the diploma on the wall, or lack of one. One has to wonder whether the bureaucrats are wagging the dog. Whoever is making those decisions, whether it is Dooley, or whether he is letting the help make them, it is his fault. As George Bush liked to point out, “he is the decider” and deciding to let others make outrageous decisions is your fault.
Bob Baer, arguably the most knowledgeable transportation executive, private or public, that has ever worked in this region, can give anyone a clear idea as to why Metro is losing money. I have watched him do so on several occasions over the last 40 years.
What he and others seem unable to do is convince the voting public is that public transportation benefits us all, is vitally necessary for our continued economic and military security, and cannot function successfully in this country without substantial direct government subsidy.
I hope that the next director will be a “dynamic” leader but seriously doubt that we will find, much less attract, a better executive than Mr. Baer. Why would anyone want the obviously thankless task of running an agency that has never had the regional political support it must have to function?
I do not really fault our elected officials, although as leaders, they need to inform the electorate about the economic realities of running an infrastructure. Rather, it is the very simple idea of getting something for nothing, or at the very least, making sure that you pay less for, and use more of, the community’s resources than your neighbor, that lies at the heart of the matter.
Questions such as “why not use natural gas” and suggestions in re school transportation illustrate the fact that, while a high school education is sufficient to answer the questions by making a simple chart of costs vs. benefits, or by looking at a map, even an advanced degree does not necessarily motivate one to do so. In any case, they are irrelevant to the matter at hand.
There is no free lunch. And, while you don’t always get what you do pay for, you (we) almost never get what we don’t pay for.
Mr. Hupert - Not getting what you pay for is the heart of the matter here. While much attention has been focused on recent problems at Metro, the greater problem will always be that transit is only used by a very small minority of people in St. Louis. Even if high gas prices double the number of riders, it’s still a very small minority. Meanwhile, everyone else is broke paying for gas, and even more reluctant to pay higher taxes for a transit system they don’t use.
This editorial is a laugh. The Post Dispatch would NEVER hire an editorial writer who didn’t have a college degree but they think Charley Dooley is the man to lead a multi-million dollar taxpayer-owned system? Increasing the sales tax is a dull uninspired idea. If you want to raise money for public transporation, tax gas, raise it a nickel a gallon, use that money to fund public transporation.
Good point, Scott. St. Louis county’s 2009 budget is $518 million. The county is responsible for 3,100 miles of roads, a police department of nearly 400 officers, an airport, 45 parks including Creve Coeur Lake and Grant’s Trail, a health department which accommodates nearly 50,000 patient visits a year, and a revenue department which assess and collects taxes on every piece of real estate and motor vehicle in the county. How absurd to think that Mr. Dooley is in any way qualified to direct such an organization.
Here’s another way to illustrate the absurdity of Mr. Dooley’s position: Let’s suppose that instead of an elected county executive, we had a county administrator appointed by the council. If Dooley applied for the job, he wouldn’t even make it to the first round of interviews. Were the county council controlled by Republicans, and they hired somebody with Dooley’s qualifications because of his political connections, the Post would rightly attack them for putting such an unqualified man in control of our county government.