This was written by Emily, one of our summer interns. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue.
To read more intern articles and interviews on STL Consolidation, please click here.
Hollander: Hello?
Emily: Hi, this is Emily Scott calling about –
Hollander: Yes, how are you doing?
Emily: I’m doing good today. How are you today?
Hollander: Fine. How can I help you?
Emily: So I just kind of have a list of questions about the consolidation between St. Louis City and St. Louis County and then St. Charles County as well. I just want to start off with you just going through who you are, your background, and how you got involved in being a council member.
Hollander: Okay. Well, I am 67 years old and I spent 34 years teaching American history in high school. I also spent my entire life as a basketball coach. Eleven years ago I just retired from classroom teaching and the person running in my district [for a seat on the council] decided to step down and so I ran and I got elected and I’ve been elected to other times. I’ve lived my whole here in St. Charles, and I’ve never really been a politician. Always just been a teacher and a coach, but I’ve enjoyed it the last 11 years.
Emily: Okay, that’s cool! So how are you professionally involved in the St. Louis City and St. Louis County issues, if at all?
Hollander: You know, we’re not really too – we certainly, you know, cooperate with them. We’ve jointly – we have some joint ventures that we’ve entered into. For example, the prescription drug program. You know, the state of Missouri is the only state in the United States to not monitor prescription drugs and so we decided to do it on our own and St. Louis County and Jefferson County joined in with us. But you know, we have a lot of cooperation with police departments and that kind of thing, but most of the time, you know, cooperating when there’s an opportunity to cooperate.
Emily: So would you be in favor of consolidating St. Louis City and St. Louis County?
Hollander: You know, that actually came up before the whole thing [Better Together] came apart a few months ago. We had a resolution that was going to oppose the method of how they would do it. We as a County didn’t think, and again this is a resolution so it’s not binding it’s just our opinion on the subject you know that kind of thing, and just thought it didn’t seem right to have the whole state of Missouri voting on something that is between St. Louis and St. Louis County. Personally, other than disliking the way they we’re going to go about it, I think something needs to be done. A majority of people have that opinion: something needs to be done, but it’s just what should it be. Because, you know, and even though we are in St. Charles here, we are part of the St. Louis metropolitan area and when people read about the problems that exist here, you know the high crime rate and things in St. Louis, that does have an effect on us even though we’re not connected at all. I’ll just give you the example: a number of years ago, I am an assistant basketball coach at Lindenwood University here, and I – we would be recruiting kids from different parts of the country and we would get questions from them and their parents “How close are you to Ferguson?” and I’m like wait a minute, woah, wait a minute. The truth of the matter is everything that happens does have an impact in some small way in what we do. So that’s my thoughts: something needs to be done. You can’t 88 municipalities. You can’t have the duplication of services and different things. It’s just not a very efficient way of doing things.
Emily: Yeah. Would you think that St. Charles should be included in the consolidation plan or do you think that they should still kind of be separate?
Hollander: Oh, yeah. We want no part of that. We have our own government that you know we think runs quite well. We’re, I’d say when it comes to decisions and stuff, part of the metropolitan area but when it comes to that kind of thing [consolidation] it’s certainly St. Louis City and St. Louis County. They’re the ones that maybe belong together.
Emily: Yeah. So how often do you go to the other counties? Like from St. Louis City to St. Louis County? Like often do you travel between the two and kind of like why?
Hollander: Oh, gosh. I go over to St. Louis quite often. You know, in my job which I also work as a student teacher supervisor at Lindenwood and I’ll be observing students in various schools in St. Louis County and of course ballgames. So, I wouldn’t say, you know, that we’re isolated on this side of the river at all. Sometimes people actually kind of act like we are far away, but we’re really not.
Emily: Would you be in favor of consolidating the municipalities of St. Charles County together? Why or why not?
Hollander: No, not at all. It’s a totally different situation. First of all, St. Charles County has almost 400,000 people and it really only has five municipalities that are incorporated unlike St. Louis County. You know we have the City of St. Charles, the City of St. Peters, the City of O’Fallon, the City of Wentzville, the City of Lake St. Louis, and then to a smaller degree, Dardenne Prairie and Cottleville. All those are entities that are large enough to support their own police force and their own ways – I think the smallest of those municipalities that I just mentioned are 35-40 thousand people so consequently I don’t think there are any kind of similar problems there. You know a lot of people don’t realize that there are more people that live in St. Charles than who live in St. Louis City. If you really want to look at it, St. Louis County is largest, then St. Charles, then St. Louis City. I think it’s about seven years ago that our population eclipsed the population of St. Louis.
Emily: Are you ever afraid to go into St. Louis City? Why or why not?
Hollander: St. Louis City – you know at times. Not afraid, I don’t think that’s a good word. I think cautious is a word that I think everyone should use. More so than it was four or five years ago. You see in the newspapers there seems to be more car-jackings and more, oh I don’t know, random drive-by shootings. Those are the things that you know that frighten you. Not necessarily when you’re in Downtown St. Louis of fear of being mugged or robbed or anything of that nature. I think people in general are a little bit more cautious than they were five years ago.
Emily: Okay, would you be in favor of Metrolink expanding out to St. Charles County?
Hollander: Yeah, I have no problem with that. You know, that was something that we got a bad rap many many years ago when Metrolink was beginning that the people of St. Charles voted not to be linked up to it, but that’s not what happened. What really happened was they wanted us to pass a tax and approve the program without any guarantee that it was actually going to come here. People in the St. Charles County basically said “No, that’s not how it’s done. If there’s not gonna be a guarantee, then we’re certainly not interested in being a part of that.” But I personally, wouldn’t be opposed to it. One thing you have to understand is we have an unbelievably efficient highway system that runs into St. Charles County. We have three or four major highways that run from St. Charles County into St. Louis County including 370, 70, 364, the Page extension, 40, so I think the highway system is pretty good. But I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to Metrolink.
Emily: Okay, for you, what has to be a part of any consolidation plan with St. Louis City and St. Louis County? Like what specifics would you think there would need to be?
Hollander: Oh, you know, I just think that there would have to be – I think the biggest thing is the consolidation of the police forces. I think there has to be one form of government that would be fairly divided. If you look at the city of St. Louis, they have something like, I don’t know, 20 something aldermen. And that’s really makes it a factionalized thing. Out here in St. Charles County we have almost 400,000 people and we only have 7 council members, so I think those are the two biggest things. I think the government could be a lot more efficient and well-run and cheaper if you put a lot of services together.
Emily: Okay, and the last three questions I have are just kind of about other contemporary issues. So, the first one is do you like accept scientific evidence of climate change?
Hollander: Yes, I think there’s enough evidence that that’s certainly occurring.
Emily: Okay, have you been alarmed by the recent flooding in the St. Louis area?
Hollander: Oh yeah, I’ve lived in St. Charles County my whole life, so I’ve seen some pretty big floods in ’93 and ’95 and now recently. Yeah, it’s a concerning thing. Part of it concerns the weather which have no control over, I guess, in certain respects, but I think there’s been so many different levees and so many different things that have pushed the river and the flooding in different directions, so it’s just – we’re right now, I just read in the paper today that FEMA was out here in St. Charles County going door-to-door in West Alton and places like that that were severely affected by the flooding.
Emily: And then finally, it’s been released that, I guess a study was done, that African-American drivers in St. Louis are 85% more likely to get pulled over. What are your thoughts on that?
Hollander: Oh, I don’t know. I think statistics can be used to prove just about anything. I mean, if you’re in an area of St. Louis in which the population is 65-70% African-American, that statistic doesn’t seem to me, you know, not alarming. If you’re in a part of St. Louis that is much more – where the numbers are lower than that, that would be alarming. So, I think just throwing out a stat like that without getting into the details is just – I’m not too sure if it benefits anyone.
Emily: Yeah. Thank you so much for being willing to do this interview with me.
Hollander: You’re welcome.
Emily: I hope you have a good rest of your day.
Hollander: Alright, thank you. Appreciate it. Bye-bye.
Emily: Bye.
Follow-Up: Throughout the interview, Councilman Hollander was very open and expressive with his opinions and thoughts on each of the topics. Even when asking him more partisan questions, he gave clear answers. The only question that did not have a concise response was to the statistic of African-American drivers who are pulled over in St. Louis, but Councilman Hollander provided an understandable reasoning as to why he was unsure with that specific question. Councilman Hollander also gave off a comfortable disposition that allowed us to have a more relaxed and natural conversation. Along with giving me detailed answers, Councilman Hollander took the time to go through the history of each issue and a little background of how St. Charles County has been involved with the issues as well. Overall, Councilman Hollander ensured that my questions were fully answered and that his stances were clear.
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