CHAFFEE COUNCIL WON'T OPEN CITY HALL TO GROUPS

CHAFFEE -- Chaffee City Hall is still off limits to any community organizations wishing to meet there.

City council members voted at their regular Monday evening meeting to turn down several requests Mayor Ron Moyers said he received from service organizations that wanted to use the council chambers for meetings.

Community organizations previously used the council chamber for meetings, Moyers said, but the practice led to some damage. Ward 2 Councilwoman Irmgard Chronister said cigarette burns turned up.

The proposal met with firm resistance from Ward 1 Councilman Jerry Wolsey.

"The majority of the citizens of Chaffee want their council chambers preserved where they can come down here when they want to, and voice their opinion in a nice council chamber," he said. "And I'm afraid if we let all these organizations in here, we might run into some problems."

City officials said that if one organization was allowed to use the building, the building would have to be open to all. Moyers had added the organizations could be presented with a list of rules, something that had not been done before.

In other business, the council voted to have signs put up on Helen and Elliott streets that would notify truck drivers they are not to use these streets. Semi-trucks have been using the side streets, Moyers said, which are not part of the city's truck route and are too narrow for the trucks.

"Recently we had a truck almost turn over in one of the ditches over here because of it getting on a side street," he told the council.

The council's newest member, Ron Eskew, was sworn in to replace former Ward 3 Councilman Randy Dooley. The council appointed Eskew to fill the seat at its Dec. 2 meeting at the request of Moyers.

Dooley resigned from his seat after moving to Ward 4, leaving open an unexpired two-year term. The seat will be one of four council seats up for election in this April's municipal election.

Also Monday, the council:

Passed an ordinance subordinating a $50,000 city promissory note on the Columbia Sportswear building to a loan being made to the building's owner from Capital Bank of Cape Girardeau. The building's owner, Penzel Construction Co. of Jackson, is switching to Capital for the loan from First Exchange Bank in Cape Girardeau, said City Attorney David Summers.

Summers said the ordinance keeps in force a previous arrangement with Penzel. The city sold the Columbia site to Penzel for $50,000 as long as the company constructed the building to be used by Columbia, he said. Summers said the city agreed to the promissory note, figuring at the time that it would never receive the money anyway.

Voted to buy emergency lights for City Hall and the Police Department. The lights will be used during power failures until the city's emergency generator is started. The lights, seven to eight in all, will run $55 to $65 each, said Moyers.

Went into closed session to discuss personnel.