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Could Libraries Pave the Way for a City-County Merger?
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Retiring St. Louis Public Library CEO Waller McGuire says the city and county library systems could serve as a real-world test case for broader regional consolidation — an idea gaining renewed attention as local leaders weigh deeper cooperation between governments. McGuire, who plans to step down in October after more than three decades, says the two systems have already merged their catalogs and are open to going further. But complications abound: vastly different tax rates, state law requirements, and the question of whether the public and elected leaders actually want it.
Also in this episode: McGuire has asked the Library Foundation's board to explore a $10–20 million endowment for the iconic Central Library, one of the region's most important architectural landmarks and an extremely expensive building to maintain.
The conversation also turns to St. Louis County Executive Sam Page's recent remarks advocating for a city-county merger — and the mixed reactions that followed. With both governments facing serious budget pressures, is the region finally at a point where consolidation becomes a must?
Host Eric is joined by colleague Jacob Kirn to break it all down.
Show links:
https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2026/03/23/city-county-libraries-experiment-merger.html
https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2026/03/20/on-deck-next-library-leader.html
This is the Art City Report. Your weekly dive with the biggest stories from the St. Louis Business Journal about business and everything else in the whole of the Gateway Art. Sponsored by Meryville University. I'm Eric Seamers. Retiring St. Louis Public Library CEO Waller Maguire says the city and county library systems could serve as a real-world test case for broader regional consolidation, an idea that's gaining renewed attention as local leaders weigh deeper cooperation between governments. McGuire, who plans to step down in October after more than three decades with the system, says the two library systems are already further along than many realize, since they've already merged their catalogs. And he says they're open to going even further.
SPEAKER_01We're very interested in it. It's hugely complex. The step we took to merge catalogs, which might seem simple, but believe me, it was not. That took years of work. And Kristen and I thought that should be the first step to see how that worked. And it would be the first step towards if we decided to move forward with merging. And it has worked remarkably well.
SPEAKER_03And of course, he's talking about Kristen Zorth, his counterpart at the St. Louis County Library System. Joining me now to talk about this is my colleague Jacob Kern, who conducted that interview with McGuire. Jacob, welcome. Hey there. From your conversation with him, what benefits could this bring the potential merging of the city and county library systems?
SPEAKER_02Well, it seems like that there are duplications in terms of administrative and things like that. But really, there was also a focus on if we're going to be looking at merging governments in some way or having the city re-enter the county and thereby losing its county offices and people are scared of what that might look like. Then could we prove that something like that is possible with something that's large scale, but that is, of course, smaller than a giant government merger?
SPEAKER_03So perhaps creating somewhat of a template if it were to be done a la carte style rather than a wholesale switch, department by department. This is what it could look like. How it could happen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it reminds me of for years and a long time ago, there was talk of starting with the health departments in the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County, or starting with the police departments, or things like that. None of that has happened, but it kind of reminded me of that.
SPEAKER_03In this one, it it seems simple. The libraries are a complicated, necessary service, but not one that seems to have heavy implications on public health, public safety, a lot of the things that come with it. But it does have certain complications that make this not just a, hey, let's just come together real easily, sort of thing. What are those complications?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I learned a lot from my conversation with Waller. So the St. Louis County, it makes sense. It has over a million residents, that their library budget would be far larger, about double what the city library budget is. However, the tax rate is lower, so actually substantially lower, maybe half the rate of what city property tax holders in.
SPEAKER_03Wasn't it like a difference between like 55 cents on the dollar of every hundred dollars goes to the city library in the for city residents, but in the county, it's as low as like 17 cents?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was a range of if you're talking about personal property or you're talking about residential property, they had a range there in the county. But yes, it was a really substantial difference in that city property tax holders agreed in 1993 to set this much higher rate. And what Waller was saying was, you know, to have 15 branches for a population. Now we're gonna reveal today, it's I think down to 277 or 278,000 people in the city of St. Louis. He said, you know, that's remarkable that the city property tax holders agreed to have a system that's that robust for that few people. So the systems are quite different. Another issue is that it's not set up in like local ordinance necessarily alone. The library systems are in state law. So that they would have to, someone would have to go to the state and say, hey, we have this plan, and now we need to change the state law that's setting up the city and county systems, come up with a new system, come up with a new tax rate, come up with uh, you know, probably a consolidation plan. I don't know that you would necessarily keep everything the same. So I I would imagine it would be a lot of work.
SPEAKER_03It would seem though that if it were to go through all of that to get a lawmaker to propose a bill, to get the bill supported, to get the bill approved, could be viewed as sort of a tacit understanding that these sorts of mergers, there's reason behind it, there's justification that could pave the way for further actions down the road. I mean, that's all very speculative, but you can see position that way, the symbolism that that might impart.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think that was Waller's point. And, you know, one of his points also, though, was we're not going to go down this path or, you know, expend this capital or his successor won't come October if there isn't will in the community to do this. I mean, he points to the fact, we don't own the library, you do. So if does the public want this? Do the elected leaders want this? He's saying, you know, it is certainly possible and could prove as a test case, but does the population want it and do their elected leaders want it?
SPEAKER_03We're gonna get more into that later in the show. We're gonna be right back after this message.
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SPEAKER_03Welcome back. Jacob, in your conversation with Mr. McGuire, he also made some other news saying that he's asked the Library Foundation's board to look into setting up an endowment for the Central Library. Many locals may not realize, but that's one of our biggest attractions in the region, as considered an important architectural example around the world. Maguire said it's extremely expensive to maintain. The library district does it itself. The city is not involved.
SPEAKER_01Central Library was built as one of the world's great libraries, one of the United States' great libraries when St. Louis was a city of 800,000 and heading up towards a million, and they were literally jostling with Philadelphia and Chicago and wanting to be one of the largest cities in the United States. We're at the corner of 14th and Olive Street, and in those days, the streetcar stops at 14th and Olive, right here outside of Central Library, were among the busiest, not just in in St. Louis, but the world. And Central Library was built and the collection was begun for that city. Now we're a city of 300,000, and it continues to support that building and collection and the staff that it takes to access that collection. So the fundraising campaign to renew Central Library came out of the city and far beyond. The county was very much part of that and even further afield out in Missouri and outside of Missouri. So what I'm hoping is that the fact that it is a resource for the whole region in a literal way and in a symbolic way, I'm hoping that we can share some of those expenses through the endowment.
SPEAKER_02It was a really comprehensive renovation of that building. And so there was all kinds of restoration that happened there. And if there are locals, I know there are a lot of locals who have not been through that building, but I would really encourage you to.
SPEAKER_03City Hall is also an aging building, but beautiful, at one time palatial, now struggling mightily with a tax base that's shrinking, a city that's struggling with its budget. How do you maintain those things for the future? In a way, I kind of see the same thing happening here. You have a an opportunity where a merger of libraries where you have a wider tax base, maybe a larger budget to pull from, that gets built into that. Maybe the maintenance of it also gets folded into those, the joint budget of those two were that to happen. You can see how institutions in the city will continue to struggle going forward to maintain the tendrils of what they used to be.
SPEAKER_02I think that there is precedent for what he's talking about. If you think about the Zoo Museum District, the stuff is mostly in the city overwhelmingly, and it eventually the tax base that does now support it will eventually encompass St. Louis County. One of the problems though that the region is having, and you'll see that in these new census numbers, St. Louis County has serious problems. So even when we extend the paying for the infrastructure into the county, as with the Zoo Museum District, or if we would with the library, St. Louis County is losing residents. Now it's fairly modest, but that's still not good. That's it's really bad. Yeah. So the the question I think becomes even extending city infrastructure payment into St. Louis County, is that good enough when St. Louis County seems to in some ways be going the way of St. Louis City?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You can see the argument that there is at least giving yourself more of a chance by removing redundancies in those various communities. So they, you know, the related administrative costs, but the truth remains that as we are now, the whole is shrinking. I mean, the entirety of the region continues to shrink and struggle. I guess you could also turn around and argue that once you reduce those redundancies and you become a more efficient government, you can maybe expend more resources toward fixing existential problems and attracting more people and changing your outlook. Those are all things that that could be real. I wonder if we're not getting to the point where I don't want to call it desperation, but where the options start to get fewer and fewer. And these things have to be considered now as a must. We're gonna get more into that right after this break. St. Louis has big regionwide challenges, and that means we need big ideas and bold leaders. I'm Eric Seamers, and I'm inviting you to join me at our next Advanced STL event on Thursday, April 30th from 8 to 10 a.m. at the St. Louis County Library Clark Family Branch for an engaging morning of real talk and real solutions. We'll hear from Darra Eskret of Invest STL, Chris Claymeyer of Beyond Housing, and Eric Scrogans of the Opportunity Trust, three leaders already driving change in housing, education, and equitable growth across our region. Head to bizjournals.com/slash St. Louis slash event to reserve your seat today. Welcome back. McGuire's comments, of course, come on the heels of statements made by St. Louis County executive Sam Page two weeks ago of advocating for a merger between the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County. It's not lost on anybody listening to this that this has been a hot button issue probably as far back as 1876 when the city voted to separate from the county in the Great Divorce. But Page's remarks carry some weight. As a leader of one of the two governments involved, albeit a lame duck one, he brings this up without a current proposal on the table. The last time around, a merger idea came up in 2019. His predecessor, Steve Stenger, had openly endorsed the so-called Better Together plan, which later fell apart after Stenger's indictment on corruption charges. Jacob, have you heard much in terms of reaction to Paige's remarks on a possible merger?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I think that the initial reaction emphasized an openness from the biggest business group, for example, that we welcome this type of conversation. And the mayor of St. Louis said that as well, Kara Spencer. But there also in those comments, there was an underlying statement of, but there's no proposal. They kept emphasizing that, but there's no proposal. In St. Louis County, I would say that the reaction was quite different. The county council, by a six to one margin, is extremely hostile to Sam Page. They they actually don't like him in a personal way. And so they have passed a resolution saying, absolutely not. We're, you know, we want nothing to do with this. So I I think that's been that's been interesting.
SPEAKER_03I guess people might ask, why are we talking about this now if there's no proposal? But we're also have to look at the reasons why Dr. Page said what he said. It's because they're facing down a budget crisis. Just this week they announced they're gonna close certain county offices on Fridays. They are dealing with a headquarters issue of their own with the county headquarters. His proposal said, well, maybe the county seat moves downtown, maybe it moves into City Hall and a joint consolidated government. Because they both have building and structural issues we're dealing with. The city is facing major budget issues. That right now, both cities, both shrinking, both the budget challenges, are dealing with these same things. It might be the perfect time to justify such a unification. So even if they come from somebody who is maybe not politically in favor in his own jurisdiction, who is a lame duck, he's putting it out there in the spirit of dialogue. And it seems to have had some effect because it seems like Walter McGuire brought this up almost directly because it was in the the the context of the dialogue in the community right now, because of what Dr. Page said. Did you get that impression that he was bringing this up because, well, I mean, this is already out there?
SPEAKER_02I did. I did, but I think it it's also worth exploring why, you know, why it may be that it doesn't really go anywhere from this person. This is a person who isn't running for re-election, again, who doesn't have relationships with the main legislative body who you would think would need support to do this. It's somebody who's also under state criminal indictment, and the state authorities seem to just try to embarrass him by saying that we want the FBI to invent it to testify against you, implying that there could be a federal investigation against him.
SPEAKER_03And these are, just to be clear, unrelated charges to any government consolidation thing, but related to his use of campaign mailers for a personal campaign, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And so one of the things I've heard is that if he people's reaction, again, getting back to reaction to this, is if uh Dr. Page really wanted to affect some kind of merger activity, that he's the wrong person to be delivering this message and that really it should have been delivered through somebody else.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that is interesting. But we've also we know from our reporting and from correspondence we have with our readers in the business community that there is still a strong appetite for pushing this idea. As many of you know who are listening here, through our advanced STL program, we have opened up a call for big region-wide ideas that can help propel us forward and get people energized. And through that, we've received a lot of dialogue from our readers advocating for some sort of city-county merger. One called for a merger in simply in in in name only with no actual mergers happening. So uh committing to it region wide while allowing the implementation to happen incrementally over time. There has been others who have been opposed to the idea. The former mayor of Ledoux is one of the people who spoke on that. And I continue to get commentaries in my email from readers calling for this in some way, uh, or the continued exploration for it in some way. The folks who are in favor of it vastly outnumber those that come to my inbox, at least opposed to it. Now, this is just a slice of the community through the lens of the business community. But the sentiment's out there. Do you think, Jacob, that sometime in the next six months to a year, somebody might put something out there as a proposal? Or do you think Sam Page's endorsement of this pours some cold water on it?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. I think it is gonna come down to his successor and also Kara Spencer. What does she want to do? She has kind of laid out a willingness to it, but she's she's kind of laid out an agenda that seems pragmatic in some ways. But you wonder, this maybe seems like the ultimate pragmatic move in terms of the city now has a state-run police board that is demanding perhaps as much as$100 million more annually from the city in order to hire 300 plus more police officers and vastly update the capital of the city police infrastructure and buildings and things like that. So St. Louis County has really serious budget problems where the county council fundamentally doesn't even agree that that the county needs to do what Sam Page is doing in terms of taking these services away. But the city also is really staring down something that has become much more serious with this police issue. So you wonder with Kara Spencer, is there going to be an idea looking at this and maybe deciding, like Lida Cruson did back in you mentioned the better together stuff, where Lida kind of looked at the macro level situation and said, this can't continue, and and we need to fundamentally change how this is organized. So I haven't gotten an indication yet what Kara thinks on that, but I think that's the question to watch, is what she wants to do.
SPEAKER_03And this is where the question of political support becomes really important because you would need political leaders who would be willing to essentially vote themselves out of power.
SPEAKER_02And that's what Lyda did. And it was she was through a very nice career at PGAV. So maybe that might have influenced what she was doing. But yeah, I think you do need somebody who's willing to say, even if I don't have a job anymore, it's for the best. So we'll see. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, Jacob, thanks for uh discussing this story with us this week. Uh that's it for this week's episode. To read more on this issue, see the links included in the show notes. And as always, thank you to our supporting sponsor, Meryville University. We'll be back with you again next week. Learn more about these stories and what we discussed in this episode at the St. Louis Business Journal Online, which is business.com slash St. Louis. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Art City Report Podcast Series. New episodes released every week. Subscribe wherever you get to the podcast. If you like this episode, leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.