CHAFFEE BOND PROPOSAL VOTE POSSIBLE

~Correction: Inaccurate information was included in a story concerning Monday's Chaffee City Council meeting. The story should have said Councilman Jerry Wolsey voted against denying a special-use permit for a bait shop at 322 West Parker. (CORRECTION RAN 1-23-91 PAGE 9A)

CHAFFEE -- City officials Monday announced their intention to place a bond issue on the April ballot for improvements to the city's waste-water treatment plant.

Chaffee City Council members took no action on the matter at a meeting Monday night, but City Attorney David Summers said the council would have to do so by its next meeting Feb. 4 to get the issue on the ballot.

Acting in place of absent City Administrator Reece Brown, Ward 4 Councilman Tom Cunningham announced the city's intent to pursue the bond issue.

The issue would finance deepening of a final cell in the city's four-cell sewage lagoon, Chaffee Mayor Ron Moyers said. The work needs to be done to bring the lagoon's effluent into compliance with guidelines of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Moyers said the department had approved a permit for the work.

"Now what we have to do is pass the bond issue," he said. "If the bond issue passes, of course, it does not increase anyone's taxes; it just allows us to borrow money ... at a low interest rate.

"We're really going to try and play on that to make sure people know that we are not passing a tax," he said.

Cunningham said if the city is lucky it could get an interest rate of 15 percent.

Monday's announcement ended months of silence on how city officials would pay for the work. Moyers and five council members settled on the option of deepening the lagoon last June, but city officials said they did not know where the money would come from.

Moyers had expressed the possibility of refinancing outstanding bonds on the plant while virtually ruling out the possibility of a tax increase.

The overall cost of the project would probably be more than $300,000, city officials said. In June the cost of the project was estimated at more than $150,000.

Neither Cunningham nor Moyers Monday specified what type of bond the city would pursue. Under a revenue bond, the city would need a simple majority vote for the issue to pass.

Also Monday, the council voted to donate land to the North Scott County Ambulance District for construction of an ambulance building. The land is north of Chaffee Nursing Center on Highway 77, city officials said. Cunningham said the land covers about an acre.

The ambulance service moved out of Chaffee City Hall following an ambulance garage fire in November. The service later operated out of a Chaffee home, Sally Wehmeyer, a member of the district's board of directors, had said.

In other business:

On a 6-1 vote, council members voted to deny a special-use permit that would have allowed a bait shop in a residential area. Only Ward 1 Councilman Bill Cannon voted in favor of the permit. The permit would have allowed the business to operate in Ward 3 at 322 West Parker.

Moyers asked city residents to support military service personnel from Chaffee who are in Saudi Arabia or on their way to take part in the Persian Gulf War. He said he knows of five such Chaffee residents.