Board supports plant expansion

A manufacturing plant expansion that could bring 40 to 42 jobs to Jackson won support Monday from the Jackson Board of Aldermen, who agreed to apply for a $420,000 grant to widen roads feeding the city's industrial park on Route PP.

ARI-Jackson Manufacturing produces more than 5,000 different items at the 120,000 square foot facility that first opened in 1985. The grant, under the federal Community Development Block Grant program, is aimed at helping promote business expansions that provide good-paying jobs with full benefits, said Margaret Yates of the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission.

The city would be the applicant for the grant and responsible for handling the paperwork involved but would not need to provide any local matching funds, Yates said.

During a public hearing on the application, Yates said the business seeking the money preferred to remain anonymous at this time. The application isn't final yet, she said.

The money would widen roads feeding the plant so it could handle more trucks and traffic, she said.

City officials revealed the company's name when pressed; all the members of the board and all top city officials knew which business would benefit from the expanded roads that would be built if the grant is approved.

Yates said it will take about a month to learn if the application has been approved once it is submitted.

ARI-Jackson Manufacturing is a division of American Railcar Industries of St. Charles, Mo.

Helping these companies is important to the city's economic health, city administrator Jim Roach said. "We are being proactive," he said.

In other business, the aldermen set four public hearings on zoning issues for May 21. The hearings will give the public a chance to comment on zoning rules for the East Main Street extension, a new baseball park on the north side of the city and the maximum height for commercial buldings.

Before the board began work on its regular agenda, John Graham, third-place finisher as a write-in candidate for mayor, urged them to refuse to certify the results of the April 3 election. He said the vote was unfair because David Reiminger, an alderman who came in second in the balloting, had not filed necessary paperwork with the Missouri Ethics Commission and should have been excluded from the ballot.

"You have an attorney," city attorney Tom Ludwig told Graham. "Why don't you take it up with them?"

The board approved the certified vote.

City clerk Mary Lowry, after the meeting, produced a packet of papers that included the required personal financial disclosure form for Reiminger. The disclosure was required to be on hand at the commission's office in Jefferson City by Feb. 6 for a candidate to remain on the ballot. The commission excluded one candidate from Ste. Genevieve County for failure to file.

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126