There was nothing of the sort, at that moment, with the most visible organization being the Better Together nonprofit group that was gathering data on the massive number of government bodies that provide services in the St. Louis region.

While funded by a wide variety of civic-minded donors, Better Together from the beginning was seen by most in St. Louis as a Sinquefield production. Its employees all work for Sinquefield’s lobbying and political arm, Pelopidas.

The assumption among many has been that when the studies are done, Sinquefield, the state’s most prolific political donor, will simply start a new organization. He’ll then work to fund a statewide ballot issue to somehow unify the various governments that make up a city disconnected from a county that itself has 90 separate municipalities.

Maybe that will happen.

But in the meantime, an upstart young college graduate who spent his youth working at Fortel’s Pizza Den and playing hockey for Marquette High School has plans on being the leader of a truly grass-roots movement that unifies St. Louis.