3 seek to lead Jackson as mayor

When the contest to become the next mayor of Jackson officially began in December, the race quickly stacked up as a choice between two city hall insiders with modest differences on city issues against an outsider who wanted to shake up the status quo.

The intervening months have seen a dispute over whether the outsider, businessman John Graham, would be listed on the ballot because he delayed paying his 2006 property taxes. In the end, a court decision blocked Graham from the ballot, so he is pursuing a write-in effort.

The insiders, retired teacher Barbara Lohr and businessman David Reiminger, with 17 and 14 years' experience, respectively, in city government, continued a campaign that seemed likely to turn on personal style as much as city issues.

Mayors serve two-year terms. Perhaps the biggest issues facing Jackson in the coming two years will be additional fire and police protection as the town grows, the fallout from three 12 percent increases in electric rates and how to prepare the corridor along the East Main Street extension for commercial exploitation.

While the big issues generally dominated the campaign discussion, in the last week of the campaign, Reiminger and Lohr engaged in a public dispute over whether Lohr's votes on a recent controversial issue before the Jackson Board of Alderman constituted an ethical breach. Lohr agreed with a council majority that voted to abandon a street corridor in a new subdivision under development by Ron Clark. Reiminger opposed the move, and Mayor Paul Sander, who is stepping down, vetoed the act.

The board put off voting on Sander's veto until after he leaves office. Clark and Sander have been antagonists for years over various city issues, and Clark's sister, Kara Clark, beat Sander in a contest for county clerk in August. His company, Clark & Sons Excavating, is a contributor to Lohr's campaign.

Reiminger raised questions about Lohr's ethics in voting on the issue. Lohr has defended her vote as reflecting the wishes of the property owners who asked for the street abandonment and said her actions were not influenced by the campaign donation, which occurred two months before the street issue surfaced.

Testing the limits

Lohr, a retired teacher at the Career and Technology Center, served 12 years on the Jackson Planning and Zoning Commission, including six years as chairwoman, before winning election to as a Ward 1 alderwoman in 2002.

The electric rate increases were unavoidable, Lohr said. Utility payments in Jackson help support vital services such as fire and police protection. The city's growth is testing the limits on those services, she said. A tax increase to pay for a new fire station could be justified if the city's insurance rating changes in a way that would prevent an increase in homeowners costs, Lohr said.

As the East Main Street interchange moves forward, zoning issues will dominate discussions. The corridor will be zoned for commercial use, but the zoning should also shield current homes from bumping up against new businesses, Lohr said.

"We do not want our folks who have been in residences for years have a commercial area right across the street from them," she said.

A new challenge

Reiminger is seeking the mayor's job after 14 years as an alderman. He owns Overhead Door of Southeast Missouri and tells audiences that he's seeking the top job as a new challenge and because his sons are ready to take more responsibility for day-to-day operation of the business.

"My compassion for the city was probably the driving force behind that," he said of his decision to run.

While the city has imposed higher electric rates, the board worked to keep them as low as possible without cutting other services dependent on the revenue, Reiminger said. Jackson residents pay nothing for trash pickup, he noted, and taxes would have to increase if the electric rates are cut. "The police, the fire, the parks -- all these things cost money," he said.

A survey of Jackson residents in 2005 returned a favorable response to the possibility of a tax increase for a fire station, Reiminger noted. But Reiminger wants to aggressively pursue commercial development of the East Main Street corridor and other areas,

"We can get the development of the commercial part up here bumped up to get that rolling," Reiminger said.

Shielding existing residential areas can be balanced with the push to develop East Main Street, he said.

First foray

Graham is making his first foray into politics. He operates Graham Business Machines, a business he founded in 1986. Graham lost the coveted first spot on the ballot because of the tax issue. He blames city administrators for not warning him that he could lose his spot and said it is part of a pattern of keeping people out who may make waves.

Graham has continued his campaign that focuses on the run-up in utility rates, the use of electric revenue for other city functions and what he perceives as a strategic failure on the part of city leaders on the East Main Street extension and Interstate 55 interchange project. Graham wants to reduce the reliance on utility customers to pay other city bills, thereby reducing rates.

In Graham's view, Jackson should have annexed the area east of the interchange years ago rather than allow it to become part of Cape Girardeau. Jackson is in a much better position to provide fire and police service to the area that will be developed into a major business and retail zone, he said.

Little can be done now on the East Main Street issues, he acknowledged, but it shows a failure of city leadership.

Graham's attack on city leadership isn't going unchallenged. Alderman Phil Penzel said an aggressive annexation stance would have undermined long-standing agreements on annexation between the two cities, undermined future cooperation and forced Jackson to take on huge costs for road building and utilities on the east side of Interstate 55.

"Our area received $10.8 million of federal funds for this project by Jackson being a partner with Cape, the county and the university," Penzel said in a letter to the Southeast Missourian. "Without that partnership, the federal funds would have passed us by."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 125