Postcard from Mound City/Dan Martin

Some years ago, when the city of Clayton banned the use of plastic chairs and tables at outside restaurants (the mayor said they were “scraggly”) we thought city officials were being a tad snooty.

But now comes…

If you’ve been following the debate about clean indoor air laws in the St. Louis region, you’ve probably heard how sales tax receipts fell when one was passed in Ballwin.

But you probably didn’t know that they also fell before the law…

Time was when having a drink in a North Carolina bar meant having a cigarette, too — or at least inhaling a few coffin nails’ worth of tobacco smoke.
Times have changed.
The nation’s largest tobacco-producing state just became the latest state…

St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann recently proposed that the East-West Gateway Council of Governments study whether local governments get their money’s worth when they give economic incentives to developers.

The council agreed, and as it happens, there’s a deal in the…

For decades, Clayton held firm against the grand fleecing of taxpayers that is the business-incentives game. Now even Clayton has thrown in the towel. Clayton officials say they had no choice, that Centene Corp. is too big to lose.

The game goes…