MAYOR WANTS LIST OF PROJECTS

Cape Girardeau plans to tell voters what projects would be funded with a transportation sales tax and in what order they would be done.

Mayor Al Spradling III and City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said Wednesday public input will be sought in deciding which road and bridge projects would be funded with the tax.

"There would be no need to take an issue like this before a vote of the people if you didn't have a list of priorities that would be included in this sales tax funding," Fischer said.

Spradling wants the city council to hold two public hearings this spring to get citizen input. He said the city also will seek input from the Planning and Zoning Commission and the surface transportation committee of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce.

"My goal is to make sure that the people know what they are going to vote on," the mayor said.

The council voted Monday night to place a half-cent, seven-year sales tax on the June 6 ballot. The tax would generate $24.3 million for transportation projects.

Cape Girardeau voters have twice defeated transportation tax measures, once in 1986 and again in 1987.

While a final list of road and bridge projects hasn't been drawn up yet, Fischer and Spradling said most of the projects are included in the city's five-year capital improvements plan or the unfunded needs list.

Fischer said the sales tax would finance about $17 million worth of projects from the unfunded needs list as well as those transportation projects that are scheduled for the third, fourth and fifth years of the current capital improvements plan.

In the current five-year plan, only projects in fiscal 1996 and 1997 have solid funding sources, Fischer said.

There are 31 transportation projects on the unfunded needs list, and 23 others that are currently planned for fiscal years 1998 through 2000.

Projects on the drawing board for fiscal years 1998 through 2000 include reconstruction of Perryville Road from Meyer Drive north to the city limits, widening and reconstruction of a portion of Broadway, the extension of Hopper Road from Mount Auburn to Kage, and a number of airport improvements.

The unfunded list includes construction and reconstruction of sidewalks throughout the city and the widening of William Street from Sprigg to Main.

Also on the list is construction of Vantage Drive, a planned outer beltway east of Interstate 55 that would extend from Hopper Road to the Cape Girardeau exit at Highway 61 and then north to Route W.

Fischer said the transportation sales tax would allow the city to proceed immediately with projects such as the Perryville and Bloomfield Road improvements instead of having to wait for future funding.

If the city needs additional funding for street projects in the future, the council could ask voters to extend the sales tax, Fischer said.