Cape City Council approves TTF sales tax for April ballot, rezoning request

An ordinance was unanimously approved by Cape Girardeau City Council members Monday night to include the question of renewing a one-half of 1% sales tax for the city’s transportation improvements on the April 7 ballot.

The Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) was first approved by voters in 1995 with TTF 1, and voters have extended the sales tax every five years. Funds generated by the tax have helped the city complete several phases of Bloomfield Road, Veterans Memorial Drive, Silver Springs Road, Broadway, the widening of Mount Auburn Road, multiple maintenance projects and more.

The ballot item proposes re-imposing the sales tax for five years beyond its current expiration date of Dec. 31, 2020.

“I think we’ve got to keep it,” Mayor Bob Fox said after Monday’s meeting. “We’ve done hundreds of millions of dollars in improvements in our city’s streets, and we’ve done that on the backs of a lot of people who don’t even live here.”

The tax is generated from sales within the city, and Fox said 60% of the funds are generated from consumers who don’t live in Cape Girardeau.

“Where else can you live in a city with all this infrastructure coming up around you — whether it’s new City Hall, new airport, new fire station, new police stations, everything else — and 60% of that is paid by people who don’t live here?” Fox said.

During open discussion, the mayor said his primary focus was to get the item approved for the April ballot and the time between now and the election can be used to further investigate possible projects to fund with the tax.

Fox said members of the council have been presented multiple options for future transportation projects, and a consideration to extend Veterans Memorial Drive will be decided pending a decision from the governor’s office regarding grant funding.

“If we got that grant, we’d be foolish not to do [the extension of Veterans Memorial Drive south] because you’re giving away $2.7 million,” Fox said.

City council members also held a public hearing for a request to rezone 1205 S. Mount Auburn Road from M-1, a light manufacturing/industrial district, to R-4, a medium-density multi-family residential district.

The rezoning request was submitted by Shamela Armour, who owns the development and is planning a three-story facility at the property to be used for an assisted-living and memory care community.

“It will be a resort-style, retirement senior-living community with services for assisted living and people diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease,” Armour said during the public hearing.

Upon its first reading, the motion was passed unanimously by the council.

“Cape Girardeau is a fantastic community for people to travel to for health care — to look at for elderly care, for memory care,” Ward 1 Councilman Dan Presson said before the vote. “Having an additional facility in the City of Cape Girardeau is fantastic for incredible jobs, bringing in population and adding great services to our already existing services. I just think this is a cool project.”