LAKE BILL HEARING SCHEDULED TODAY

A Missouri Senate committee will hold a hearing today on a bill that proponents hope would revive the Cape Girardeau-Bollinger County lake project.

The Senate's Local Government and Economic Development Committee will hold the hearing at 2 p.m. in the State Capitol.

Sen. Jim Mathewson, D-Sedalia, chairs the committee. Mathewson formerly headed the Senate as president pro tem.

State Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, has introduced the legislation. Kinder is one of four senators who will present bills to the committee today.

The hearing on all four bills is expected to last about an hour. That will leave little time for testimony on the lake bill, Kinder said.

Both proponents and opponents are expected to testify at the hearing.

Kinder said the committee likely won't vote on the lake bill until next week at the earliest.

The lake bill would amend a 1990 law that gave the Cape Girardeau and Bollinger county commissions the power to put a 1-cent sales tax issue on the ballot. The measure also allowed for creation of a lake authority to oversee the development.

The lake project never left the dock seven years ago. The Bollinger County Commission in July 1990, refused to put the tax measure to a vote, and Cape Girardeau County commissioners followed suit.

Kinder's bill would allow lake proponents to circulate initiative petitions to get a tax issue on the ballot in both counties.

Kinder said voters should decide the fate of the lake project. "That was the problem seven years ago. It never got to the voters," he said.

Kinder's bill also would limit a lake authority's power of eminent domain and prohibit the authority from rezoning the farmland surrounding the lake as long as it remains in the hands of current owners or their heirs.

The bill authorizes a lake authority to set up a separate planning and zoning board to control zoning around the lake.

It also would allow the two county commissions to terminate any lake tax once the authority's financial obligation had been met. Currently, the tax expires 25 years from its effective date unless voters grant a 10-year extension.

A delegation of lake supporters led by Gregory Williams, executive director of the Regional Commerce and Growth Association, will attend the hearing. Other supporters scheduled to attend include Millersville area cattle farmer Mike Kasten; Mary Miller, director of the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau; and lake consultant W.B. Sandlin.

Miller said she would testify if asked, but only as a tourism industry expert.

Cape Girardeau's city government, she said, hasn't taken a position on the lake project.

Kasten owns land in the area of the proposed lake and is the son of state Rep. Mary Kasten. Mary Kasten said she won't vote on the lake legislation should it come up in the Missouri House because it would be a conflict of interest.