Mark Maxwell
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05/19/2026
Every few weeks somebody types "they defunded the police" into a comment box and hits send like they've said something true.
They haven't.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department budget has gone up every year since fiscal year 2020. $137 million dollars then. $204 million dollars now. 48% growth in six years.
Nobody cut anything. The argument isn't about defunding. It's about whether a state-appointed board with no accountability to St. Louis voters can demand a quarter billion dollars and just keep going up from there.
Get the facts right, then have the argument.
A Missouri appeals court unanimously upheld Christopher Dunn's exoneration today. He spent 33 years in prison. The only evidence against him: two eyewitnesses who later admitted they lied. One said he named Dunn because of a gang rivalry. The other said police pressured him. Both said it was too dark to see the shooter. No forensics. No fingerprints. Just their word. Christopher Dunn remains free.
I asked South City Alderman Shane Cohn a blunt question on behalf of his constituents: what's in the $230 million Rams settlement bill for South Side residents? Is it really just a slightly less broke water department?
His answer was more urgent than that.
Cohn says the St. Louis Water Division has burned through all of its reserves. It cannot issue bonds without a cash infusion. Water rate increases are already being discussed to fund infrastructure repairs that have been deferred for decades.
The Rams bill puts $30 million toward water infrastructure, structured as an interest-free loan the Water Division has to repay by 2036. Cohn says that's not a consolation prize. It's a lifeline.
He also wants more than the $5 million currently in the bill for vacancy enforcement, a problem he says hits Southeast City neighborhoods just as hard as North City.
Public hearings on Board Bill 22 begin Tuesday at City Hall.
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