Aircraft manufacturer misses deadline

Financially troubled Renaissance Aircraft failed to meet Monday's deadline to make bond and lease payments totaling more than $61,000 and could face eviction from a city-owned hangar at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

That's not the only financial issue facing the city council.

Cape Girardeau city workers would get January pay raises under a pay plan being considered by the city council.

City officials are working to fine-tune the plan drawn up by Condrey and Associates Inc. of Athens, Ga.

The council will hold a special study session next Monday at 5:30 p.m. at city hall to review the plan. Mayor Jay Knudtson said the council needs to make a decision before the end of the year.

As for the troubled aircraft manufacturer, the city council discussed the issue behind closed doors Monday night before the regular council meeting. But city officials later refused to disclose what action the council had taken, citing legal concerns.

City attorney Eric Cunningham said city officials will announce the city's action later this week.

The council in early October set a Nov. 1 deadline after Renaissance Aircraft failed to meet an Oct. 1 financial deadline.

In a prepared statement last month, Cunningham said city officials wanted to give the company time to get its financing in place so it could manufacture and sell aircraft. But he said at the time that constraints set out in bond documents wouldn't allow the situation to continue for long.

City officials had said that Renaissance Aircraft owed $61,210.17, due by Monday.

The city sold $2.6 million to construct a hangar for the company and pay for the extension of water and sewer lines to serve the business.

Renaissance Aircraft relocated from Eastman, Ga., to Cape Girardeau in 2001 with promises of manufacturing hundreds of two-seater propeller planes a year and creating at least 200 new jobs.

Plagued by litigation, the company never could get its financing in place and ultimately laid off the few employees it had.

Renaissance president John Dearden said in September that he hoped to get the company up and running soon, possibly partnering with a firm in Oklahoma. Dearden couldn't be reached for comment Monday night.

Perhaps $1.6 million

As for the employee pay plan, consultant Steve Condrey told the city council that it could cost an estimated $1.6 million to raise the pay of all 367 full-time city employees to bring them up to the median salaries for 12 municipal governments and three other entities -- Southeast Missouri State University, Southeast Missouri Hospital and Midwest Waste Service.

"This starts to bring you up to where you need to be," Condrey told the council at a study session at city hall prior to the regular meeting. "Right now, you will have to make decisions on how much you can spend."

Condrey said the cost included more than $1 million to boost the pay steps and expand the number of pay steps from 12 to 22. Another $573,413 would be needed to make pay adjustments based on employees' years of service.

The plan won't put Cape Girardeau at the top of the pay scale compared to the 15 cities and employers surveyed.

"Half would pay more than you. Half would pay lower," he said.

City manager Doug Leslie said Cape Girardeau has lost police officers to other cities who are paying higher salaries.

City officials said the pay study looked at all city positions, not just that of police officers and firefighters.

As part of the pay analysis, the consulting firm surveyed the cities of Ballwin, Blue Springs, Chesterfield, Columbia, Jefferson City, Joplin, Springfield, St. Charles, St. Joseph and Sikeston in Missouri, Carbondale in Illinois and Paducah in Kentucky.

After-hours clubs banned

In other business, the council voted to permanently ban after-hours clubs, citing concern about public safety.

The council earlier this year imposed a temporary ban on such establishments after a man was murdered outside the Taste after-hours club on Good Hope Street. The crime and the resultant public outcry resulted in club operator Patrick Buck's decision to permanently close the business.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123