Border town

One paragraph in Better Together’s 24-page amendment, largely unnoticed by the public, specifically affects Pacific.

The section says that cities “not wholly within the territory of the metropolitan city” are unaffected by the proposal — except for one key point. “Territory located within the metropolitan city,” the paragraph reads, “shall be detached and annexed to the metropolitan city upon the effective date of this section.”

Chris Pieper, a lawyer for the St. Louis law firm Blitz, Bardgett & Deutsch and a primary author of the amendment, explained that the proposal would detach the land, but wouldn’t strip Pacific of its tax revenue there. It instead would order the new metropolitan city to pay Pacific the dollars it would have received from that territory if the reorganization hadn’t happened, even if that revenue rose over time. Moreover, the metro city would keep paying Pacific until the Missouri Legislature changed the law.

Pacific provides water and sewer services in its portion of St. Louis County. It would continue to be paid for such services by those homes and businesses, even after such a merger.

But Pacific would lose control over the land and its development, Pieper acknowledged.