Gov. Blunt willing to change or repeal new village law

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Gov. Matt Blunt said Thursday that he is willing to work with county officials who want to change or repeal a new law making it easier for landowners to incorporate as villages.

Blunt signed the provision into law earlier this year as part of a much broader bill addressing various local government issues. But he now says the issue wasn't too important to him and he didn't know who was backing it.

The new law has generated concern among some Stone County officials and residents because a representatives of a landowner are attempting to use it to designate property near Table Rock Lake as a village. That could allow the landowner to bypass certain county government rules.

County government leaders from around the state may work to repeal the provision during the 2008 legislative session.

"I'm open to discussing a change," Blunt said Thursday in response to questions at a Capitol news conference. "The provision was not of particular importance in the decision to sign the legislation."

The bill amended state law to make easier for residents to petition county officials for a vote on incorporating as a village.

Specifically, it sets no minimum population for an area to become a village, and requires no regularly laid out public streets, businesses, schools, parks, churches or other such entities that might typically be in a town. The law says that if 15 percent of the registered voters sign the petition, the local governing body "shall submit" the question to the voters.

If incorporated as a village, the area could be exempt from county jurisdiction on such things as planning and zoning ordinances.

The same day the bill became law, on Aug. 28, five residents filed a petition with the Stone County Commission seeking to incorporate several hundred acres as the Village of Table Rock. The land is owned by Evergreen National Corp., of which Lebanon businessman Robert Plaster is president and chairman.

Dozens of residents from neighboring areas have expressed concern at public meetings, and the county commission has delayed taking action on the village request. An attorney for the petitioners has sued in an attempt to force the commission to put the matter on the next general election ballot.

Neither Plaster nor the attorney, Michael Cully, of Springfield, immediately returned telephone messages left Thursday at their offices.

Blunt said he knew some Stone County residents were concerned when he signed the bill into law, but he did so anyway because the bill contained numerous other provisions supported by lawmakers around the state.

As for the language on incorporating villages, "I didn't know how it arrived in the legislation," Blunt said.

Rep. Dennis Wood, R-Kimberling City, has said House Speaker Rod Jetton got the provision inserted into legislation as a late-hour addition, unbeknownst to many of his colleagues.

Jetton, R-Marble Hill, has declined to comment about the issue.

Wood said he was told by House research director Bill Tucker that Jetton personally delivered the change in the incorporation law to research staff, asked that it be put in proper legal language and later picked up the finished version. The language was included in the 211-page bill that ultimately passed.

The House's chief clerk, Adam Crumbliss, is leading an internal investigation into whether anyone at House research breached legislative confidentiality by informing a lawmaker about a legislative provision being drafted at the request of another lawmaker, said House spokesman Aaron Willard.