RelatST. LOUIS (KMOX) -- Big business comes out in support of merging St. Louis city and county.
Civic Progress and the Regional Chamber, in a joint statement, promise "energy and resources" to support the campaign that would create a new "Metro City" with 1.3 million people.
Civic Progress executive director Tom Santel says "nobody's kidding themselves. It's going to be difficult."
He says the executives who are members of Civic Progress -- which is basically all the big ones -- have had their own struggles with doing business in a chopped-up region.
"Those that have operations throughout the city and county, who have facilites in a number of municipalities," he says, "there's 90 different ways to get a business license."
Spire CEO Susanne Sitherwood is chair of Civic Progress, but she also was on Better Together's task force.
Did she push this plan because she wrote it?
"Our membership was pretty universally in favor of addressing this fragmentation. It wasn't a hard sell on her part," he says. "She worked hard on it, but it wasn't a hard sell."
The two groups issued a joint statement saying they believe the divided nature of the region has led to redundant public services, lagging economic growth, and deep social inequities.
"There's probably some people that live their lives, every hour of every day, in one municipality. But most of us live our life in the region. We cross these boundaries every day. Outsiders don't recognize them," Santel said. "I just think there's so much potential."