Cape city council selects 11 projects for $1 million from casino money

Cape Girardeau City Council members pared a list of 24 projects down to 11 at a special meeting Wednesday night, planning for nearly $1 million they will have if a casino ultimately does come to the downtown area.

At the three-hour meeting, council members debated a full wish list that they had compiled to spend $1 million of the $2 million the city will receive from Isle of Capri in exchange for the municipally owned property along North Main Street where the casino developers hope to build.

Bigger ticket items include repaying $323,000 to the city's emergency reserve fund, which was depleted to handle the ice storms; trail-connecting sidewalks on Kingsway Drive from Food Giant to the trailhead near Cape Splash ($125,000); design work for a new waste-water treatment facility ($125,000); designing a streetscape in the riverfront area ($120,000); and for walking trail lighting and widening at Arena Park ($100,000).

Some of the smaller items included improving and landscaping the parking lot at the River Heritage Museum ($50,000), establishing community gardens ($50,000), put in as many as two dog parks ($25,000), accelerating the tree-planting program ($25,000), contribute to Melaina's Magical Playland ($25,000) and get a study started to market the Commander Premier Aircraft Corp. building ($25,000).

The council approved the city plan, which will be forwarded on to the Missouri Gaming Commission by an Oct. 1 deadline. The provisions of the plan include the details of the development deal, as well as a revenue-sharing plan, which will calls for the organization of group that will allocate 3 percent of the city's net gaming-tax revenue to Cape Girardeau, Cape Girardeau County, Scott City and Jackson.

But the bulk of the meeting was dominated by the priority list for the $1 million.

Some of the items that were removed from consideration included a pedestrian bridge over La Croix Creek, a generator for Shawnee Park Community Center, a program to fix or demolish condemned homes and street lights from Southeast Missouri State University to River Campus.

Mayor Harry Rediger said some of the removed items could be considered later from other funding sources, including a special fund that Isle of Capri would contribute to for community improvement projects. Since construction would take 18 to 24 months, that money won't come in for some time.

"Be assured," Rediger said, "if we take anything off, we can still find funding for it as we move forward. This is a more urgent list because this is up-front money, things that need to be done while the casino is being built."

Council member John Voss said at the outset that he was perhaps in a "different place philosophically" than other council members. He suggested paying off the city's emergency reserve debt was a top priority.

"That has weighed pretty heavily," he said. "This would be taking care of our own fiscal house."

Council member Debra Tracy, who recently came out publicly against a casino coming to Cape Girardeau, said she was against putting together a list like this one at all.

"This is like a Santa Claus list for people who only want to think about what they're going to get and not what it's going to take," she said. "It may be an anchor for that area, but it will change our society. We will be different."

But council member Mark Lanzotti said that the projects should have a wide effect.

"They should touch as many people across a wide area and affect many different types of people," he said.

Next up is the public hearing Monday at the River Campus hosted by the Missouri Gaming Commission, which precedes an election Nov. 2 in which voters can weigh in again.

smoyers@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

401 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, MO

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