The last few days of the Post-Dispatch have brought a number of updates to things I have been writing about, so how about some quick links and thoughts? Sounds fun, huh? You think you hate this idea now, but wait until you read it!

In a response to fiscal problems caused by a decline in sales at Northwest Plaza, St. Ann has decided to put a large utility tax increase on the ballot. Prediction: It will lose badly, just like the tax increases on the ballot yesterday in our area all did. My thoughts: Utility tax increases are a particularly terrible idea — balancing a budget on the backs of people trying to pay for the basic necessities of life. A general property tax increase would be better than this. At least that would be tax deductible for state and federal income taxes, practically speaking.

University City will be installing red light cameras at Big Bend and Hanley on Delmar. Regular readers (both of you) will recall my hatred of these things. I was going to speak against them at the city council meeting on Monday, but my hatred of red light cameras ran up against my love of going to Cardinals games. As my family has long known, the Cardinals always win those battles. So we have red light cameras now, but at least I saw a 10-run inning and took my son, Nate, to his first game. In the interest of full disclosure, I was heading to play tennis last night, driving northbound on Hanley at Delmar, when I stopped in the right lane for the yellow and the driver next to me completely blew the red. He certainly deserved something for that move.

Missouri and Illinois are slowly getting closer to an agreement on a new Mississippi River Bridge. This is good news, and I look forward to the final agreement — which I understand, for better or worse, will not be using tolls. 

I appreciated the feedback and critiques from the gentlemen at Missouri Political News Service on my post about 911 systems and expansion. I am always happy to defend my posts and discuss my ideas, and am open to hearing new thoughts and opinions on what I write about.

Finally, I am just gonna give a general credit to Combest, as I linked to a lot of articles here and I almost certainly got some most every one of them from his great website.