By Jo Schaper
A proposal to string the trees of a seven-acre tract at 1700 plus acre Greensfelder County Park with ziplines and an aerial ropes and adventure course slid to a haul on December 11, shortly before a St. Louis County Council meeting where those who opposed the development planned a rally outside the County [...]

By Jo Schaper
Boat launch fees at George Winter Park in South St. Louis County will now be policed by an “Iron Ranger,” according to Tom Ott, acting director for the St. Louis County Parks and Recreation Department.
“This is something new that we’ve just instituted this late summer,” he said. “We intend for it to [...]

By Jo Schaper
Although major cuts to the St. Louis County Park system were averted in December, the swing of the budget ax still has some sting.
On January 25, County Executive Charlie Dooley announced that 20 full-time and four part-time parks employees were being laid off. According to a reliable source, three recently hired law [...]

Because our focus is usually elsewhere, Traveler isn’t often concerned with the ins and outs of St. Louis County politics. Since the St. Louis County parks issue is at its heart a budget issue, we focused some effort to understand it.
Jo found this explanatory story by Paul Hampel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch/STL [...]

It’s a fact that Don Corrigan of the Webster-Kirkwood Times, the South County Times, and probably more publications, is known to Traveler staff. After all, we carry his nature books: Show Me Natural Wonders and Show Me Nature’s Wrath. We’re entirely separate publications, but in these days, newsprint people need to stick together.
In [...]

(The editorial was actually written by Emery, although I (Jo) concur with his sentiments. This is the email we got in response: )
You can read the editorial here.
Ms. Schaper,

Posted December 21
The St. Louis County Parks closure proposal has moved to a new phase, that of finding funding, and I’ve started a new Traveler Links page. And after the first three weeks, the old one had gotten unwieldy, to say the least. Time to link to the old, and start a new one. [...]

By Jo Schaper
I’m a country girl at heart. Though I’ve always lived on that undefinable border between St. Louis Metro and rural Missouri, I really hate to go into the tall-towered heart of the city, neither downtown St. Louis nor, especially, Clayton.
Last night I spent five hours in Clayton, two outside with the [...]

By Jo Schaper
If St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley or the County Council had any doubts that residents were unhappy with plans to shutter 23 of 63 parks next year, those doubts were laid to rest when some 500 folks showed up at a protest rally and budget hearing in Clayton last night to demand [...]

News release from Gov. Jay Nixon regarding St. Louis County Parks crisis:
Gov. Jay Nixon announced today that his administration has begun discussions with St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley about the potential for joint state-county management of some county parks otherwise slated to close.
On Oct. 31, county officials reported that budget constraints could lead [...]