St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann made headlines last week when he said in an opinion column that voters should be allowed to vote on combining St. Louis City and County circuit courts into one single circuit with just one prosecutor.
St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell told KMOX last week that his job is tough enough as is, and that he wouldn't support a combination of city and county courts.
"Well, my reaction to Wesley Bell is he's not the decision maker in this in this case," Ehlmann told KMOX. "The thing that people need to understand is, this is not unprecedented. None of the things that I've suggested in that op-ed are unprecedented."
Ehlmann said that for the first 60 years of existence, the city and county were in the same circuit, then the city split in 1876.
Some who read Ehlmann's op-ed thought his idea may have been about Kim Gardener's performance and policies rather than a desire for structural change. But Ehlmann claims it's all about the numbers.
"I have some numbers, comparing the number of cases that have been filed to the number of cases that have been resolved, and they have been going down," he said. "In St. Charles County, it's been going up."
As for the city taking control of its police department, he said that if things continue the way they've been going, it's not a good idea.
"I don't hear anybody out there really defending the status quo with regard to what we have now," he said.
Hear more from St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann on Total Information AM:
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