GATELEY TO HAVE HEART SURGERY

Last week, Councilmen Melvin Gateley and Tom Neumeyer planned to compile the results of a house-by-house survey of southeast Cape Girardeau. But that was cut short when Gateley took ill.

Gateley, who is in his early 70s, is now in Southeast Missouri Hospital and expects to undergo open-heart surgery Wednesday.

Neumeyer said he won't work on compiling the surveys until after Gateley's surgery. If it looks like Gateley's recovery will take a long time, Neumeyer said he would move forward without him.

The two councilmen convened an ad-hoc group in June to work on preserving and upgrading the area around May Greene Elementary School.

On July 2, nine people met at City Hall and picked up survey forms. Those nine and others covered every street in an area bounded by West End Boulevard on the west, William on the north, Southern Expressway on the south and the Mississippi River on the east.

They filled out forms that would alert the group to problems at specific addresses. The forms have a checklist that includes junk, trash, overgrown yard, abandoned auto, abandoned house, missing house number, and paint peeling. They also took note of well-kept homes and other neighborhood assets.

The original plan called for compiling the results in early August and soon after meeting to develop a plan of action. That is, until Gateley's illness intervened.

Gateley's wife, Ella, said her husband had a serious infection of his mitral valve last fall. The mitral valve controls the flow of blood between two chambers of the heart -- the left atrium and left ventricle.

She said his surgeons would either repair or replace his mitral valve plus perform bypass surgery. She asked that any get-well cards be sent to his home at 1725 Brookwood, Cape Girardeau, Mo. 63701.

Gateley, a retired educator and an Oran native, served as principal of at L.J. Schultz School for 21 years before his retirement in 1986. He has been active in the community for years -- as a deacon at First Baptist Church, as a member and past president of the Breakfast Optimist Club, as chairman of the city's Bicentennial Commission, and a member of the Vision 2000 Community Relations Council. He has been active in the Boy Scouts and raising money for charity.

He was first elected to the City Council in 1992. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1994.