Municipal Partnership

We are a partnership of municipal leaders working collaboratively towards a common vision of neighborly communities, invested families, and successful businesses in the 24:1 Community. We have invited the support of local agencies and organizations, including Beyond Housing.

The work in 24:1 has been nationally recognized by the White House and has been awarded the Robert Wood Johnson Culture of Health Prize. The 24:1 Municipal Partnership has been recognized by East-West Gateway with an Outstanding Local Government Award in the category of exemplary collaboration, partnership, or regional initiative.

The 24:1 Municipal Partnership has demonstrated success in developing an innovative collaboration in order to promote good governance and provide efficient and effective services. All consolidations of services, including policing and municipal mergers, were voluntary and self-determined.

Successes:

• Cost Savings – Municipalities have cut costs and increased efficiency in their services through collective bidding and purchasing on rock salt, fuel, trash collection, and demolition of vacant and derelict homes.
• Municipal Mergers – The first municipal merger in the history of the St. Louis County Boundary Commission was unanimously approved by voters in the Cities of Vinita Park and Vinita Terrace in November 2016.
• Court Hubs – 13 municipalities have created and joined two consolidated court hubs to improve efficiency. This initiative was awarded the Improving Public Trust and Confidence Award from the Missouri Supreme Court.
• Tree Resources – The 24:1 Community Forestry Program was established to maintain and remove trees, catalog the tree canopy in the 24:1 footprint, and educate the public on the benefits of planting trees.
• Policing and Public Safety – Municipalities have pooled resources to provide quality, efficient, locally controlled and community-based policing. North County Police Cooperative and Normandy Police Departments utilize a community-policing model to engage residents and foster trust between police and residents, especially youth, in the interest of enhanced public safety.
• Code Standardization – The Codes Count initiative creates a clear process for municipalities to adopt standardized codes to improve enforcement across maintenance, property, and building codes—all in the interest of supporting the health, welfare, and safety of the community. It was made possible via grant funding awarded to Beyond Housing by the Missouri Foundation for Health to assist in updating municipal codes and training code enforcement officials.
• Education – The leaders of the 24:1 Community have pledged their full support to the children, their families, and the school system itself, with the goal of evolving the Normandy Schools Collaborative into the region’s leader in urban education. The Not Without Us initiative is based on their believe in educational sovereignty that affords local residents the opportunity for consent over school governance and the use of tax dollars.

North County Police Cooperative and Normandy Police Departments are based in a community-policing model to engage residents and foster trust between police and residents, especially youth.

The Normandy Police department provides services to five municipalities, and the North County Cooperative Police department provides services to seven. The North County Police Cooperative developed due to the collaboration of municipalities Vinita Park, Vinita Terrace, and Wellston; the police department has since been joined by four additional municipalities and now serves approximately 9,000 residents.

Partnerships between the police departments and the community have resulted in:

• Ring doorbell cameras being distributed to households at no cost.
• Sports and educational programming with youth and officers, including officer-coached basketball teams.
• The launch of school resource officers at Normandy Schools Collaborative to promote anti-gang activities and safer streets, through an initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.
• A local chapter of Boys & Girls Club.
• Humanity in the Middle, which builds relationships between police officers and Normandy Schools Collaborative students. The program has included college tours and educational trips to Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.
• Citizen Academy, a Police Explorers program for youth, hosted by North County Police Cooperative.

Building a robust base of successful businesses is a strategic goal for the 24:1 Municipal Partnership—and for local residents, who identified it as one of their top priorities for the next decade as part of the Community Vision Report 2020.

Engaging and supporting start-ups, entrepreneurs, and longtime local businesses of all sizes will result in a stronger tax base, increased employment opportunities for local workers, and more places for residents to shop, dine, and enjoy entertainment near their homes.

24:1 Master Land Use Plan

This plan, a new version of which is currently under development, will help the communities in the 24:1 footprint make sound decisions regarding future development projects which will benefit the area as a whole. The process is being facilitated by Beyond Housing.

To develop the new 24:1 Master Land Use Plan, PGAV Planners is analyzing existing community conditions and restraints; utilizing public engagement to guide physical development decisions; and producing a comprehensive plan and practical design for land use.

The plan will highlight areas of growth potential for housing and transportation as well as economic development—including commercial office, industrial, and retail development.

In 2014, the Missouri Board of Education removed the local Normandy School Board from power, dissolved the school district, and removed state accreditation for poor academic performance. An appointed Joint Executive Governing Board replaced the elected board, and the district became a new entity directly controlled by the state called the “Normandy Schools Collaborative”, a public school district serving 23 municipalities in North St. Louis County.

Since its inception in 2016, the 24:1 Municipal Partnership has actively sought to improve educational outcomes for students in the Normandy school district. For example, one of its earliest actions was to secure a $750,000 grant for school resource officers.

Through mostly local and regional philanthropic interventions, the district has made some progress against the Missouri School Improvement Program standards and was provisionally re-accredited in 2018.

Despite these steps forward, Normandy students remain significantly behind their peers across the state.

Since 2013, more than $40 million has been redirected to neighboring districts in transfer tuition and transportation payments while the district struggles to make investments in instructional quality and infrastructure improvements for the remaining children, who number more than 3,000.

Not Without Us Initiative:

The municipal leaders of the 24:1 Community have pledged their full support to the children of the Normandy Schools Collaborative, their families, and the school system itself to evolve the district into the region’s leader in urban education. They are committed to starting an ongoing conversation with the community, anchored in these beliefs:

• Public education can prepare young people of any race, ethnicity, economic demographic, and background to be future leaders.
• Locally elected school governance and accountability is important.
• Our community can attract and retain quality teachers who understand the complexities of teaching in an urban environment.
• All students deserve healthy living and learning communities.
• Ensuring sufficient funding for high-quality education must be a collective priority.

To learn more about the 24:1 Municipal Partnership’s Not Without Us initiative, download their position paper.

The 6,106 publicly owned trees in the 24:1 Community bring an estimated $440,900 in eco-benefits each year—saving water and energy, reducing greenhouse gases, cutting carbon dioxide, and increasing property values.

The tree canopy is catalogued by a forester at Beyond Housing through the 24:1 Community Forestry Program—a program that was made possible by an initial five-year grant totaling $500,000 from the Missouri Department of Conservation to Beyond Housing, the first such collaborative grant ever awarded.

A management plan for the entire area is being developed to help familiarize the public with the benefits of trees and to track maintenance and removal needs across the municipalities within the 24:1 footprint.

Grants from various state and federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, are allowing the 24:1 Community to manage and improve its tree canopy—and contributing to the long-term goal of increasing the community’s vibrancy.