HISTORIC JOINT MEETING SET TO GO

When the Cape Girardeau City Council and the Jackson Board of Aldermen sit down for a joint meeting Monday night, they'll be making history.

And in the process, they'll also be acting on five issues of mutual concern: shared access to Cable Channel 5; two major local road projects; annexation; a potential interconnection of the cities' water systems for emergency purposes; and the east/west highway project.

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at Cape Girardeau's Osage Community Centre, 1625 N. Kingshighway.

The joint meeting is the first anyone remembers in the communities' contentious history.

The cities' mayors -- Jackson's Paul Sander and Cape Girardeau's Al Spradling III -- say it only makes sense for neighbors to cooperate.

"Nothing but good, I think, can come out of this meeting for both towns," Sander said.

"It's a first step in the right direction for the communities to get together and at least discuss matters of common interest and hopefully resolve some matters of common interest," Spradling said.

He and Sander hope the joint meetings become a regular occurrence -- at least annually or semi-annually -- in the future.

Over the years, the two cities have grappled over annexation, population growth, commercial and industrial development and, of course, high school football.

The rivalry is still there, Spradling and Sander said, but it has changed.

Spradling called it a product of "the good, rich environment that we all exist in, something that's positive, not negative."

And while the rivalry still exists, he said, "that doesn't mean the two cities can't get together and work in an amicable way and talk about issues that concern us both."

"A large number of people realize we have grown together, like it or not, at the interstate," Sander said.

And in light of that growth, he said, "it makes much more sense to cooperate on those issues than to continue to squabble over those issues."

Sander said the joint meeting is "a public meeting of what's been happening for the last three, four, five years."

For the last few years, Sander, Spradling and Cape Girardeau County's Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones have been lunching informally to share ideas and concerns, and Monday night's meeting grew out of those lunches, Sander said.

Both mayors emphasized that while the two cities are joining forces on a few issues, that doesn't mean there's going to be any merging going on.

"The issues day-to-day, we don't want them in our business, and they don't want us in theirs," Sander said. "Neither city has any interest in any type of merger. They will maintain their independence for decades and centuries to come, and that's the way everybody wants it."

"Absolutely not," Spradling agreed. "That is not a discussion item. It has never been a discussion item. I don't think there is any question of the two cities merging. And these meetings are not introductory to anything of that nature."

Monday night's agenda includes:

-- Ordinances for both cities for Cable Channel 5 access and funding. The city of Jackson will pick up 20 percent of the operating cost of the cable access channel and will in turn be allowed to post news items on the community calendar feature.

-- A joint resolution by both cities supporting the extension of East Main Street to Interstate 55 and supporting construction of a Highway 34/72 bypass to ease traffic congestion between Jackson and the new Highway 74/I-55 interchange in Cape Girardeau.

The state has proposed several routes for the bypass, but Cape Girardeau officials don't like them because they would funnel too much traffic onto Route K, which is already over utilized.

Instead, they want to extend the new Highway 74 west to connect with Highway 25 south of Dutchtown. Highway 25 could be improved north to Jackson as party of a Highway 72 bypass.

-- Discussion of establishing a joint committee on annexation issues.

The committee's charge would be ascertaining the "best and most likely" annexation patterns for both cities, Sander said, "and to hopefully let each other know what the other is thinking before we step on each other's toes."

-- Discussion of possibly connecting the cities' water systems for emergency purposes.

At this point, Sander said, the cities are only going to "explore the possibilities" of linking the water systems.

The two cities aren't merging, and neither are their water systems, Sander said.

But joining the two systems at the interstate would allow the cities to share water in the event of a disaster, such as an earthquake or major fire, he said.

-- Discussion on the East/West highway project.

Both cities are considering pledging conditional funding "toward economic development" of the corridor sometimes called the I-66 project, Sander said.

The next several months will be "very critical as to what type of highway we get from Paducah to Cape Girardeau/Jackson and Van Buren to Cape Girardeau/Jackson. That's our interest in it," he said.