LANDFILL LAW, STREETS WILL BE BEFORE COUNCIL

The Cape Girardeau City Council meeting tonight will include a staff report on the city's compliance with a state landfill law and consideration of improvements to streets where residents weren't happy with the work.

The city responded last year to the solid-waste law by implementing citywide recycling, a plan that has been criticized by some.

In December, City Councilman Dave Barklage suggested that the public works department present a report on the city's compliance with new state landfill mandates.

Barklage made his suggestion at a meeting where the council nixed a plan to charge $5 for collection of discarded Christmas trees no longer allowed in Missouri landfills. The Missouri solid-waste law is intended to decrease by 40 percent the amount of waste deposited in landfills by 1998.

Members of the city staff Dec. 16 reported to the council the city's plans for a composting operation, which started this year. The proposal also is in response to the solid-waste law that now prohibits yard waste in landfills.

Barklage said last month the city staff should defend itself and clearly explain to the public that the solid-waste changes in Cape Girardeau are a result of the city's response to state mandates.

The council also will consider whether to accept the street improvements and issue tax bills, despite objections from the residents of the street. About 20 of the residents gathered at the council's Jan. 20 meeting to object to the street overlay work.

The city paved the streets as part of its three-inch asphalt overlay program, which paves mostly gravel streets with the improvements assessed to property owners.

The city staff has recommended the council accept the street paving work and issue the tax bills.

About 20 people from the area of Montgomery, Louis and Brink Streets complained at the Jan. 20 council meeting of the poor quality of asphalt overlay work there last year.

The council Jan. 20 voted to table acceptance of the improvements until the city staff could again inspect and review the work.

But in a letter to the council, City Engineer J. Kensey Russell wrote that the city's reinspection and review determined that work to Montgomery and Louis streets is not significantly different from other previous paving work.

"It is our feeling that the contractor has adequately met the obligations of the contract," he wrote.

In other business tonight, the council will consider:

A public hearing regarding the request of Claude and Dorothy Foeste for a special use permit to replace a storage building at Foeste Nursery, 1021 N. Clark.

A resolution to authorize a contract with Sverdrup Corp. for professional services for a waste-water treatment project.

20A resolution to authorize a contract with S.H. Smith and Co. Inc. for engineering services for Belleridge Subdivision street and sewer improvements.

A resolution to authorize a contract with Schemel Asbestos Abatement Co. for asbestos removal at the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport terminal building.

A resolution to authorize an agreement with Union Electric Co. for street lighting and electric service.

Conditional approval of a package liquor license for Wal-Mart Supercenter, 3439 William.