CITY WILL PURCHASE SIGN FOR OSAGE CENTRE

When motorists drive by Arena Park, they can read about coming activities there on a lighted sign. The Cape Girardeau City Council has appropriated money to erect a similar sign on Kingshighway next to the Osage Community Centre, Parks Director Dan Muser told the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau Advisory Committee at a meeting Wednesday afternoon.

Muser came to the advisory board meeting to report on the Osage Centre and the Shawnee Park Sports Complex, which were built with funds from the Convention and Visitors Bureau hotel and restaurant tax.

In an interview after the meeting, Muser said city officials have done preliminary work on the sign but still haven't put the project out for bid. Muser said he hopes the sign will be up by the end of the year.

He said the city always planned to have the sign. "It was just a case of not being able to get everything you wanted with the money that was available at the time."

He reported that the center's meeting rooms, banquet room, gym and weight rooms pulled in about $5,000 in fees in each of its first two months of operation, which was more than the city expected. Projected over a year that would pay for less than one-quarter of the operating budget of $260,000 a year.

"It's not a business, it is a community facility," Muser said. "We're not charging fees such as one would charge if one were running a business. You have to have fees that the community would expect for a community facility."

Muser reported that Life Christian Center has rented two meeting rooms for services every Sunday for three months. He said he was reluctant to enter into longterm arrangements that would tie up the rooms and render them unavailable to the public for other uses. "But a rental is a rental." he said.

As of June 30, the Shawnee complex had hosted two softball tournaments and had three rained out and one canceled. Ten more were scheduled through the summer, he said. He did not include soccer tournaments in the total.

In other business, the board:

-- heard a report from the committee to explore the possibility of starting an RV park in the Red Star area on flood-plain land bought out from homeowners. Walt Wildman, an advisory board member and committee member, said the group expanded its scope to include putting a park on flood-buyout land in the Meadowbrook area within sight of Interstate 55.