COUNCIL EXPECTED TO RECONSIDER SIGN ISSUE

Nearly three months after Councilman Tom Neumeyer first introduced a political sign ordinance, the law may be headed for final passage.

At the Cape Girardeau City Council's Sept. 16 meeting, Neumeyer proposed a law designed to limit the placement of signs. He wanted them kept off all public property, including city right of way.

Neumeyer said city staff felt such a law would be too difficult to enforce. It would mean determining where right of way was -- the number of feet differs from place to place throughout the city -- then measuring to see if signs were on it. Neumeyer revised his proposed law to prohibit signs within 10 feet of an established street.

The law also prohibited political signs from being posted 90 days before or seven days after an election.

Councilmen gave Neumeyer's law final approval on Oct. 21 by a 4-to-3 vote.

At the next council meeting, Mayor Al Spradling III expressed some concerns about the law. He cited a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court case involving a Ladue woman. She had placed a sign on her lawn objecting to the Gulf War, and city officials demanded she take it down.

The Supreme Court ruled that the city violated the woman's First Amendment right to free speech.

Spradling moved the Cape Girardeau sign law be repealed. The council likely will vote to do so tonight.

But councilmen will be asked to put another law in its place. This one goes back to Neumeyer's original idea -- prohibiting signs on all public property. There is no specific restriction on distance from streets.

Neumeyer said he originally proposed the law in response to citizen complaints.

"They were sick of all the signs placed on right of way," he said. "They thought it was inappropriate, especially when some candidates put signs on medians."

The revised law brings back concerns about enforcement. Councilman Richard Eggimann had argued that Cape Girardeau police had better things to do than measure the distance from signs to streets.

City Manager Michael Miller said Sunday that police would deal with enforcement issues as they arose.

Tongight, the council also will take its first post-election steps toward increasing the city's water supply.

On Nov. 5, Cape Girardeau voters passed a $26.5 million water system bond issue. The money will be used to drill wells along the Mississippi River and increase treatment capacity at the water plant on Cape Rock Drive. Additional funds will pay to expand the distribution system.

Councilmen are expected to approve a contract with Piper Jaffray Inc. and A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. for investment banking services. The group will sell the bonds when the market is best for the city.

City officials are waiting to see if the federal government will fund mandates in a clean water act passed by Congress. If so, a state revolving fund will be set up to pay for water system improvements. The city could sell its bonds to the fund and save $12 million in interest.

A quarter-cent sales tax to pay off the bonds will be collected starting in April.

Design work on the new treatment system is expected to begin at the first of the year, and construction may begin in fall 1997.