FUND VOTE RESCINDED BY COUNCIL

The Cape Girardeau City Council on Monday rescinded action it took last month and voted unanimously to forward to the Convention and Visitors Advisory Board eight proposals for use of excess tourism funds.

At its Jan. 22 meeting, the council approved a motion directing the city staff to determine if tourism funds could finance the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) and construction of a sports complex at Shawnee Park, while allowing a year's Show Me Center bond payment in reserve.

The motion was made by Councilman Al Spradling III, who Monday said he was willing to rescind the matter because of the "furor" his original motion caused.

Several of the council members said they had received criticism for not giving proponents of various tourism fund proposals the opportunity to promote and further study their projects.

Last year, the council sent a group of about 30 proposals for use of the tourism fund which is financed through hotel and restaurant sales tax receipts to the Convention and Visitors Advisory Board for its recommendations.

The board narrowed the proposals to eight, including continued CVB funding and the Shawnee sports complex proposal.

The council Monday approved a motion by member Mary Wulfers to further study all eight of the projects selected by the CVB board. Her motion included funding for the CVB at its current level and setting aside the reserve bond payment.

The motion also included a request that the city staff study the affect of using the additional funds to retire the Show Me Center bonds early. The board's recommendations would be sent back to the council within six months, Wulfers said.

During Monday's study session, the council said the board would work with city staff and proponents of the eight proposals to determine funding methods, costs and potential revenue of each project.

"Whoever has a proposal and wants it, they ought to put up the money and time to do a cost analysis including operating costs, upkeep and revenue projections," said Spradling.

He said he favored sending all eight proposals back to the CVB board. "Since there's been enough furor over this already, we ought to let them have it," he said.

Councilman David Limbaugh said: "I just don't want people to feel they were closed out of the process."

But Councilman David Barklage questioned whether support for the motion was based on ulterior motives. "It makes good sense, we avoid the issue for six months until after the election," he said.

The council terms of Barklage, Spradling and Hugh White expire in April. Barklage is the only one of the three who didn't file for re-election.

"That's not my reason," said Spradling. "There's just been a big reaction. I don't want to have these people sand bagging us and I think that's what (they're) doing. I think it's our duty to the public, and we owe it to these people wanting these projects to have their say."

Wulfers said the CVB board failed, due to time constraints and a lack of council direction, to fulfill its initial responsibilities with regard to the original 30 tourism fund proposals.

"When we initially decided to undertake this project, we did decide the CVB group would analyze all the proposals and come back with a list of recommendations," she said.

"They did that in such a minimum way, I find it hard to believe they did anything at all.

"The process we set out was that the board was going to wade through this and come back with a recommendation. I have no problem with sending it back and getting full reports on each study, Wulfers said."

In other business Monday, the council voted to have the city pay half the costs of storm water work done last year on two streets that were included in the city's asphalt overlay program.

At the last council meeting, several residents of the neighborhood criticized the quality of the paving work. City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said Monday two of the streets, Mary Ann and Montgomery, required more drainage work than is typical for such projects.

Several residents of Montgomery also were upset that they received no prior notice that the street work, which is billed to abutting property owners, would be done.

Fischer said Monday that in the future, the city will send letters of notification to all affected property owners.