Chamber coffee features health, taxes and Elvis

Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce members who made it out to the Show Me Center for First Friday Coffee got to talk health and taxes and dance with the help of a dead music legend.

The event kicked off with representatives from the sponsoring Southeast Missouri Hospital talking about the chamber's third annual Shape Up Cape program. The four-month contest pits teams from participating chamber businesses in a friendly competition to see who can score the most points for exercising.

According to Rhett Hendrickson with Southeast, 71 percent of lost productivity in the workplace is attributed to health problems unrelated to sick leave.

"Last year, Southeast spent $2.8 million on the maintenance of medical equipment," Hendrickson said. "But we all need to focus on the health of our human equipment."

He later added "good health is good business."

Next, Debbie Leoni, director of Southeast Missouri Hospital's Fitness and Wellness Center in Jackson told the gathering that Shape Up Cape provides the two things that she deems as necessary for people to take responsibility for fitness: friends and accountability.

To cap off the first part of the event, Fitness and Wellness Center assistant manager Scott Givens came out clad in a white, sequined jumpsuit and a jet black wig with sideburns to pump up the crowd. Swinging to the tune "Jailhouse Rock," the thinner Elvis impersonator told the audience that fitness was "all in the pelvis."

Shape Up Cape begins May 15 and runs through Sept. 25.

Talking taxesAfter the crowd settled down from the impromptu concert, Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson and city manager Doug Leslie got up to push the city's proposed fire sales tax.

The quarter-cent tax would generate $2 million annually to fund police and fire department improvements.

Half of the money would go toward capital expenditures, like a new fire station and an expansion of the current police department. That part of the tax would expire after 10 years.

The other half would be permanent and pay for operating expenses. According to Leslie, the city's police and fire departments desperately need to replace out-of-date equipment and facilities and to offer more competitive pay to police officers.

"I know taxes stink," Knudtson told the gathering. "But we can't do anything to budget for the situation we're in."

trehagen@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137