Cape Council approves issuance of bonds for West Park Mall project after tense back and forth between members

The Cape Girardeau City Council saw tension among members Monday, Aug 19, while meeting to approve allowing the Cape Girardeau County Industrial Development Authority Board (IDA) to issue bonds supporting the West Park Mall redevelopment project.

Previous Southeast Missourian reporting stated River City Centre representative Lucas Haley and John Hansen, managing director of the Westwood, Kansas-based Integra Realty Resources (IRR), had met with the IDA and presented plans for West Park Mall at a July 9 meeting.

Hansen said to the council at the meeting that what they are doing in approving the bonds is a part of executing what was approved in October in terms of the Tax Increment Financing plan and redevelopment agreement.

According to the agenda report, “This (approving the action) shall allow for the Authority to issue its Tax Increment and Special District Revenue Bonds (West Park Mall Redevelopment Project), Series 2024 (the “Series 2024 Bonds”), for the purpose of (1) reimbursing the Developer for certain costs relating to the redevelopment of West Park Mall, (2) funding a debt service reserve fund to secure the Series 2024 Bonds, (3) funding capitalized interest on the Series 2024 Bonds, and (4) paying the costs of issuance of the Series 2024 Bonds.”

The vote passed by 4 to 2 with Ward 2 Councilwoman Tameka Randle and Ward 5 Councilman Rhett Pierce voting "no", and Ward 1 Councilman Dan Presson being absent.

Before the vote took place, Randle said she had a statement about the West Park Mall development. Randle said she didn’t want to “mince words” as she called the action of approving the bond as “disastrous” and “detrimental”.

“If this bond is approved by the council, we will continue to pad the pockets of million-dollar private developers' accounts while our city community and citizens lose their hard-earned dollars,” Randle said. “If council approves this reckless request that's ongoing, and we as a council definitely identify as having our party screwed up and our citizens to lose faith in us as leaders. So I've asked all the questions I have, my mind has not changed, and the direction that we will go in to approve this would not be good for the city. Allowing the requesting for asking taxpayer dollars is ridiculous. ... We just approved for regular, hard-working people to pay extra in water, but we got many dollars to help them all, and so that's where I stand with that.”

After Randle described the action as a “disservice” to the community, Mayor Stacy Kinder began to respond and said that she thought that was a mischaracterization of the project. Randle said to Kinder, to not tell her about her character.

Randle told Kinder to share her point of view but not to disregard what she just stated.

Kinder responded and said, “I’m trying.”

Kinder said that’s her opinion and then tried to respond to what Randle said in her statement.

Randle responded and said Kinder was not an “expert to critique” what she stated. Randle said Kinder should share her comments and see whether everyone is “aligned” with her on the council.

“These things (concerning West Park Mall) have been approved six to one for the past year,” Kinder said.

“Well, we still got to vote, and we got new council members,” Randle said.

After the meeting, Kinder said to the Southeast Missourian that she took issue with what Randle said since Kinder thought Randle implied tax dollars gathered from the city were being paid to the developers.

“In my mind, that sounded like she was saying, we have money right now that we are taking from the city budget and giving to the mall project. And that is false. The developers and all of these agreements are only going to use new tax dollars that are generated from their new sales at the mall or from their increased property values, as the property is improved upon,” Kinder said.

After the meeting, Pierce said part of the reason for saying no to the vote issue was that the outlying buildings were not being built yet.

“I feel that there is a substantial or significant issue with the outlying buildings not being able to be built and if that's not done, I don't see where the mall is just going to magically be redesigned and bring in that type of revenue,” Pierce said.