In the race for ‘Dumbest electoral proposal of the new century,’ the 21st has an early favorite and its right here in North St. Louis County. Kinloch has a proposal on the ballot to make being mayor of Kinloch a full-time job. If this passes, Kinloch would join Florissant (population 53,948) and Bellefontaine Neighbors (population 11,088) as the third city in St. Louis County with a full-time mayor. How many people does Kinloch have, you ask? According to ‘Price is Right’ rules, if you said 450, you lose! (Note, that last sentence is best said while doing an impression of Warner Wolf.)
That’s right, somebody in Kinloch, population 449, thinks it needs a full-time mayor, who will, presumably, be paid a full-time salary by the other 448 taxpayers of Kinloch. The Honorable Keith Conway of Kinloch would be well advised to study what happened in the past few years to Tom Brown in St. Peter’s and Sandra Sobelman in Frontenac, both of who maneuvered to significantly raise their part-time pay while in office and quickly found themselves out of office. Although, after the Shawn Brown debacle in St. Peter’s, maybe Tom (no relation) Brown would have been worth the extra money.
