Cape hopes for capital ideas to improve city

Problems like the need for more green space and better storm-water management demand swift answers, city leaders said Monday during the annual review of Cape Girardeau's capital improvements projects.

Addressing these problems will be made easier by gathering data for the city's comprehensive plan, they said.

The CIP meeting is required by the city charter and held to allow the city council the chance to make suggestions to city staff before the five-year plan is formally adopted in March.

"The Capital Improvements Program has become a kind of wish list between staff and council, but I think it is incumbent upon us to integrate the comprehensive plan and some of the more urgent findings of that plan," Mayor Jay Knudtson said Monday.

Knudtson feels this sense of urgency in part because he believes the revision of the city's comprehensive plan is revealing pressing city needs for more green space and better storm-water systems.

Knudtson challenged the council and city staff to "think outside the box" to try to prioritize projects that have stayed on the list for years without receiving a funding source."I think we all have to be very eager and receptive to make significant changes to this... and it's something we've not typically done," he said.

Storm-water management, he said, is a persistent problem. The Cape Girardeau Public Works Department has identified 113 street sections in the city as "high water streets." These street sections are susceptible to flooding during severe weather and dot the city at fairly regular intervals.

Of these street sections, 35 were closed during a storm in August when several inches of rain fell on the city in a matter of hours.

The new Capital Improvements Program proposes $4.7 million in storm-water improvements over the next five years but identifies few funding sources for the work that staff and the council agree is badly needed."We really have such a desperate need in this particular area that it's going to be very difficult to address through the normal budgetary process," Knudtson said.

City manager Doug Leslie said most state funding for municipal storm-water programs dried up five years ago. The change occurred when budget cuts froze the funds for a Missouri program that doled out money to counties like Cape Girardeau specifically for storm-water programs.

"It was quite valuable for cities such as ours," Leslie said.

Cape Girardeau proposes to spend $259,000 on storm-water projects in the upcoming fiscal year, but this rate of spending may not be enough to address the need, some officials said at the meeting.

"If comprehensive planning identifies this as an issue, I don't know how we get the funding but we need to prioritize it," said Councilwoman Marcia Ritter.

Also discussed were improvements to the city's green space. In upcoming months, action could come in the form of green-lighting a project to connect city parks with walking trails and implementing an ordinance that requires a percentage of green space from commercial and residential builders.

Knudtson calls the improvements "a quality-of-life issue."

Action by the council will likely come in response to recommendations made by Arcturis, the outside planning firm reviewing Cape Girardeau's comprehensive plan. Arcturis' recommendations are expected in two to three months.

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245