Remember Alcentra, the proposed name for a new town in St. Clair County to be formed from the merger of Alorton and Centreville? Then, public officials in Cahokia caught merger mania and decided to throw in with the other two declining communities.
The dream/nightmare of Alcentra became the dream/nightmare of Cahokia Heights, or rather, Cahokia Heist, the merger of three formerly separate entities, approved by the citizens of each in a referendum this past May.
Mayors of all three now-extinct units promised that the merger would lead to better roads and sewers, better housing, better jobs, better government, and lower taxes, but skeptics questioned, and still question, how consolidation of three of the worst managed municipalities in Illinois could lead to better management.
Sure, there are now two less mayors to pay for and, theoretically, fewer city employees to overpay for underservice, but odds are that the budget of Cahokia Heights will be at least as large as the combined budgets of its three component parts, if not larger, with no discernible improvement in deliverables.
The longstanding sewer backup and flooding problems in the former village of Centreville, for instance, are not likely to be solved any time soon, barring state or federal intervention. But they’re not just a headache for those residents anymore, because the former residents of Alorton and Cahokia will also have to pay for their remediation – and hope that their taxes are actually applied to that purpose and not wasted elsewhere.
Wasted, for instance, in inordinate salaries for public employees whose mismanagement destroyed their communities, but who survived the merger to take what they can get from Cahokia Heist.
The average income for Cahokia Heights residents is $20,000. The average income for Cahokia Heights public employees is considerably higher: 85 grand for Mayor Curtis McCall Sr. and 64 grand for some administrative function performed by Christopher Belt, who earns more than that as a state senator at the same time.
Former Alorton mayor and repeat lawbreaker JoAnn Reed makes $72,000 in the department of nutrition. You get the idea.