CAPE, JACKSON CITE COOPERATION; CITIES HOLD FIRST JOINT MEETING

Cape Girardeau and Jackson city officials Monday night stressed the need for cooperation as the two cities began working on agreements over new highways, annexation and other joint issues.

The Jackson Board of Aldermen and Cape Girardeau City Council held their first-ever joint meeting to act on shared issues.

The spirit of cooperation was strong, and officials from both cities said working together will benefit both cities.

The joint actions will "project a positive and progressive image that will pay off in many ways," said Jackson Mayor Paul Sander. "It's a beginning, and we feel very good about coming here tonight," he said.

Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III called the meeting "a great evening for both communities. It's a great evening for the region. Both of us coming together as a united effort is going to carry a lot more weight than Jackson wants East Main and Cape wants our road, and both of us fighting each other all the way."

Cooperation, Spradling said, is "the best remedy" for the shared issues facing the cities.

Presiding County Commissioner Gerald Jones said he was "thrilled" by the joint meeting. He watched from the audience, but Spradling and Sander both said Jones was instrumental in the joint venture.

"I was so happy about seeing this," Jones said. "Cooperation is going to go so far in this county that it's just unbelievable. We haven't seen the start of what's going to happen when the two major cities in this county work together."

Both cities agreed to allocate funding toward the development of an east-west interstate from Paducah, Ky., to Van Buren, Mo.

The city of Jackson will allocate $5,000 and Cape Girardeau $10,000 to be distributed through the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association.

The cities are "making an investment in economic development" with the funding, said Sander. The route is vital to the region's economic growth, said Spradling.

"If it goes past us, so does growth, so does industry, and we will be on the back burner," Spradling said, saying the communities have to be "up front and aggressive" in lobbying for the development of the route.

Monday morning the Cape Girardeau County Commission voted to allocate $10,000 toward the development of the route, Jones said.

Funding from all three entities will be distributed quarterly, and will be contingent on progress reports of the route's development.

The two cities also approved a joint resolution supporting the development of the East Main-Interstate 55 interchange and a Route K-Highway 74 link to the interstate.

Sander said Jackson's East Main project will be set up in two phases, with the first being the city's extension of East Main toward the interstate. That funding has been allocated, Sander said, and he hopes the state will come through with the interstate interchange.

Cape Girardeau officials want the Missouri Department of Transportation to build a new Highway 34-72 bypass to ease traffic congestion between Jackson and Cape Girardeau. But connecting the bypass to Route K would add too much traffic to the already overcrowded route, Spradling said. So Cape Girardeau officials want to extend the new Highway 74 to Highway 25 and develop Highway 25 as part of the bypass.

A joint committee to study annexation issues was also approved.

The committee will help answer "questions of where the cities should logically go," Spradling said.

The cities can't approve an annexation agreement that will bind future councils, he said. "But I think it's important that both communities design a general location where they both want to grow."

Such a plan, he said, will ensure that the communities "don't get into the arguments that we had a few years ago that were very divisive in both communities and crated a lot of distrust in both communities."

Cape Girardeau will be represented by Spradling, Councilman Richard Eggimann, planning and zoning commission chairman R.J. McKinney and city planner Kent Bratton.

Jackson will be represented by Sander, Rodney Bollinger of the public works office, Alderman Kerry Hoffman and Bernard Proffer of the planning and zoning commission.

Sander said the joint committee will be looking at long-range planning issues, and no action may be seen for "a number of years."

The two cities also approved studying the cost and feasibility of linking their water systems at the interstate for emergency purposes.

If such a plan is feasible, Sander said, the link would be greatly helpful in the event of a disaster such as an earthquake or major fire.

And both cities approved on first reading ordinances that would allow Jackson to use the bulletin board system on Cable Channel 5 for community announcements.

The city of Jackson will pay 20 percent of the initial capital investment plus 20 percent of any future upgrades or repair costs and an annual maintenance fee.

In exchange, the city of Jackson will be able to use 20 percent of the available messages to promote events in their community. The agreement will last three years.

Both mayors stressed the meeting is not a precursor to any kind of merger between the cities. Cooperating on shared issues is only logical, Sander and Spradling said.

"I hope the rivalry, if we continue to have it, does exist on the football field," Sander said.