Cape Girardeau City Council to review $211 million in capital improvements

The list is long and loaded with numbers, some of them reaching into seven figures. But the most striking one may be the final tally: $211 million.

That's the total price tag on the 155 projects that make up the proposed Capital Improvements Program that the Cape Girardeau City Council will sift through at a special study session Monday night.

If the list is lengthy, it's also diverse, ranging from a $7 million police department annex to a $25,000 dog park.

The list includes funded and unfunded projects for transportation, environmental, recreational and community development projects. Reviewing and updating the city's five-year Capital Improvements Program is an annual job mandated by city charter.

The council will have a public hearing Feb. 22, and the council must adopt the program by April 1, according to the charter.

"This will be our first broad brush at it," Mayor Harry Rediger said. "We're going to talk about everything. We'll be perusing through those projects to look at putting a priority on them. The unfunded part is a wish list, but it's a little more than a wish list. They're things that have been identified as future needs."

There's no money to pay for most of the projects -- 111 that total about $169 million -- according to the 80-page draft of the program.

Projects with no funding source, compiled by city department heads, include remodeling fire stations, sewer extensions, new street lights, ramps at the airport and renovations for the Common Pleas Courthouse.

The most expensive item on the unfunded list is the $74 million sewage treatment plant, though Cape Girardeau voters could essentially move it from unfunded to funded if they approve two ballot measures in April to pay for the new plant.

Some of the other projects have lingered on the list for years. Outside the wastewater treatment plant, the largest ticket item is the $7 million police station addition on South Sprigg Street. That project, first proposed in 1998, would provide a two-story, 16,000-square-foot addition to the north and east sides of the police station.

"We've had a need to expand for more than 10 years now," police chief Carl Kinnison said. "Our building is just bursting at the seams. Every closet in this building is an office now. We've simply outgrown the building."

For two years, 21 officers have worked in a trailer outside the station, Kinnison said. Officers from the traffic division, school resource officers, nuisance abatement, narcotics and sexual assault investigators share space in the trailer, though they don't all work at the same time, Kinnison said.

While finding funding is generally the problem for many of the unfunded projects, Kinnison hopes the public safety sales tax can be extended for another 10 years after it expires in 2014 to pay for the addition. The first 10 years of the tax, approved by voters in 2004, addressed the building needs of the city's fire department. Kinnison said he doesn't see any other funding source out there except for the tax.

"I don't see any action taken on it until we are successful in getting phase two of the public safety sales tax," Kinnison said.

The council will also review projects that do have funding sources, such as repairs to the North Main Street levee and floodwall, the Riverwalk Trail, street paving, sidewalks and other roadwork. The program includes revenue from Isle of Capri's purchase of land from the city. That $1.6 million will pay for a community garden, renovations at the River Heritage Museum, Broadway streetscape design, recreational trail lighting and a dog park.

But assistant city manager Ken Eftink, who also is director of planning services, said the big challenge is to try to find funding for the rest of the projects. The council will offer direction to staff, he said, saying which projects should be given priority.

"That's the big discussion, how are we going to pay for them?" Eftink said.

No doubt, he said, any major projects would have to be paid for by increases or extensions of existing taxes.

"There's very little money coming from the general fund to the Capital Improvements Program," he said. "Almost all are tied to some special tax issue approved by voters."

smoyers@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent Address:

701 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, MO

Link: To see the entire proposal: http://www.cityofcapegirardeau.org/files/Planning/Draft_2011-2016_CIP_1-20-11.pdf