P&Z OPPONENTS DROP LAWSUIT AGAINST COUNTY

JACKSON, Mo. -- Planning and zoning opponents will drop their lawsuit against the Cape Girardeau County Commission because it would be too costly to continue the fight, their attorney said Monday.

"That is what they should have done a long time ago," 1st District Commissioner Larry Bock said after he learned the suit would be dismissed. "That was just a frivolous suit."

But Walter S. Drusch, the attorney for the 75 plaintiffs, dismissed such criticism. "We still believe strongly in our position," he said.

The lawsuit accused the county commission of illegally spending money to develop planning and zoning regulations before November's election on the issue. It failed.

Drusch said the four leading plaintiffs in the case decided to drop the suit rather than have to get written and notarized answers from all 75 plaintiffs to questions posed by the commission's attorney, assistant prosecuting attorney Scott Lipke.

Scott County Associate Circuit Judge Hense Winchester, over Drusch's objections, had ordered all the plaintiffs to answer the questions.

"The county commission is obviously going to continue its heavy-handed manner, at taxpayers' expense, to run us into the ground financially, and they have now succeeded," Drusch wrote in a draft of a letter he plans to send all the plaintiffs in the case.

High legal costs

Jackson, Mo., resident David Allen, who operates a towboat repair business in Whitewater, Mo., was one of the plaintiffs.

Allen said he and a few other plaintiffs had paid the legal bills in the case. Allen said they would have been saddled with as much as $7,500 in added legal costs from all the paperwork.

"It is just costing us too much," said Doug Flannery, who headed up the opposition to county planning and zoning. "I'm ready for it to be over."

The lawsuit was filed Oct. 31, a few days before voters rejected the November ballot measure that sought to implement planning and zoning restrictions in the county's unincorporated areas.

The lawsuit charges the county commission violated a state law governing first-class counties when it paid more than $29,000 to the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Development Commission to draft planning and zoning regulations prior to the election.

Citing statutes

State law Section 64.211 allows money to be spent to develop a plan only after voters have approved county planning, the lawsuit said.

The county commission cited a different statute, 64.275, that allows a temporary planning commission to spend money to develop a plan. The county commission created the planning board shortly before Cape Girardeau County moved from second-class to first-class status.

County commissioners have argued for months that the lawsuit was an election ploy. They wondered why the plaintiffs didn't drop the lawsuit after voters rejected the planning and zoning measure.

"They have already won," said Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones. "How can you win again?"

Jones said the county commission acted legally in setting up the planning board and developing proposed planning and zoning regulations.

"We weren't about to admit fault when we did not feel there was any fault on our part," he said.

But Jones said he's grateful that the plaintiffs will dismiss the suit "That is fine for them and fine for the county."