Clarkson Valley/Wildwood Options: What's Next?

Because Clarkson Valley Mayor Scott Douglass is reading the Missouri legislative tea leaves, he said he had to explore options that would protect the interests of Clarkson Valley's 2,632 residents—thus the with city officials.

"It's time to take protection against the worst for our city," Douglass told Patch, who cited potential future financial factors that may render Clarkson Valley unable to continue operating as an independent municipality.

Douglass said the pressure for smaller municipalities to consolidate has gotten intense over the last two years, with new Jefferson City conversations and laws often about "too many small cities" in the state. He said recommended legislation about supposedly was "not about small cities," but if it goes through, many smaller cities could not survive.

"We had to start asking ourselves where do we go and how do we go there in the future, if the city's revenues and financial situation completely changes," he said.

As previously reported, Wildwood city officials for the second legislative session in a row joined with a few other municipalities to hire a lobbyist to monitor any legislative attempts to change the pooled sales tax approach. Clarkson Valley was one of the six cities combining their resources for the effort. See related article: 

Douglass said the St. Louis Boundary Commission requires municipalities to have a five-year plan for any annexation. "My understanding is that if Clarkson Valley had to go out of business and would need to look at annexation options in the future, a previous five-year plan must have been in place to act upon the next steps," he said.

He said if no cities around Clarkson Valley previously had expressed interest in merging in some fashion in the Boundary Commission's process by the time they would need to disincorporate, Clarkson Valley would go back under the wing of St. Louis County. He said the city of St. George is an example of a municipality that disincorporated, and is going through the vote of its residents, with the matter now likely to have to be settled in the courts system.

"We hope none of this happens. But I would like my city to have set up a procedure regarding how to go to another city, if it does," Douglass said. "We are concerned about legislation that adversely affects our revenue, and I want our citizens to have a choice."

In a Eureka-Wildwood Patch exclusive article published Tuesday, readers who responded to a poll indicated the following results:

• Yes, they favored annexing Clarkson Valley:  46 percent
• Depends, they wanted to learn more details:  29 percent
• No, they did not favor annexing Clarkson Valley:  23 percent

The Patch poll is still open, and can be accessed in the article:

At Monday night's Wildwood City Council meeting, council members asked City Administrator Dan Dubruiel to provide an analysis regarding potential Clarkson Valley annexation/consolidation factors, with attention to the similarities and differences of the two cities.

Douglass said he also is having informal conversations with representatives of Chesterfield and Ballwin, who committed to checking into the Boundary Commission process.

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