Federal ruling unlikely to derail Cape DREAM plan

A federal court ruling that raised constitutional issues about community improvement districts will help guide, but likely not derail, plans for implementing Cape Girardeau's DREAM Initiative Master Plan, Old Town Cape executive director Marla Mills said Wednesday.

When contacted Wednesday, Mills had not heard about the ruling, handed down last week by U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber. In a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, Webber determined a state law giving extra votes to nonresident landowners and allowing landowners to vote who are not qualified to vote in other elections violated the U.S. Constitution.

Mills said state law provides three paths for creating a community improvement district and only one gives voters the power to choose district directors. Of the other two, one puts the power to choose directors in the hands of a governing body like a city council while the other method creates a district as a not-for-profit corporation with directors chosen by the members of the corporation.

"The bottom line is that I am not certain but I don't think it throws a monkey wrench into things," Mills said. "It sounds like a clarification that doesn't change anything we have done so far."

Over three years, Cape Girardeau developed, with state help, a plan for revitalizing three areas of the city's core. Known as the Downtown Revitalization and Economic Assistance for Missouri, or DREAM, Initiative, the project included a master plan approved in July by the Cape Girardeau City Council that calls for creation of a community improvement district to help direct redevelopment and raise money to fund it.

The areas targeted by the DREAM Initiative are the Broadway corridor from Southeast Missouri State University to the Mississippi River, the downtown business district along Main and Spanish streets and the Haarig-Good Hope area near the River Campus. For example, the DREAM plan calls for a major beautification along Broadway to spur development of university-oriented businesses.

When the plan was approved, Mills and other city leaders said creating the community improvement district was a major step toward implementing the plan. Informal talks about the boundaries, taxing needs and structure of a district have been underway since July, Mills said Wednesday.

Two-year process

Completing all the work needed to create the community improvement district will be about a two-year process, Mills said. The court ruling will now be part of the discussions. "We are not concerned that it went to court and we have a ruling on it."

In the federal lawsuit, 14 voters living within the Robinwood West Community Improvement District in St. Louis County objected when some property owners received more than one ballot in an election of directors. One property owner who lived in the district and owned two parcels received three ballots, for example.

Webber ruled that the state law allowing multiple ballots violates the one-person, one-vote standard established in the 1960s. He also ruled that because a property owner need not be a registered voter, the law allowed convicted felons on parole or property owners who happened to be younger than 18, the legal voting age, to cast ballots.

In a news release, Brenda Jones, executive director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri, called the ruling a victory for equality. "It is a fundamental rule of democracy that each voter gets an equal say in who will represent them in government," Jones said.

The powers of a community improvement district include the ability to propose property taxes to voters. Districts set up as political subdivisions can also seek voter approval of sales taxes. All community improvement districts require a petition signed by more than half the qualified voters in the district and owners of property equal to 50 percent or more of the district's assessed value.

Negotiations with property owners in Cape Girardeau will help shape the district's boundaries, Mills said. A petition drive will begin after time for public input. At this point, she said, it appears the district will be set up as a political subdivision to give it access to sales tax revenue, but little has been settled.

"As to whether we have a board that is elected or appointed, we haven't decided which way that could go," she said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent addresses:

Cape Girardeau, MO