QUALITIES OF LIFE, CAPE GIRARDEAU; SPECIAL REPORT: GOV'T & POLITICS; LEADERSHIP TRENDS

No women serve on the Cape Girardeau City Council or the Board of Education, but the council and school board each have a black member. Both Councilman J.J. Williamson and school board member William Bird are the first blacks elected in the city -- both elected in the last three years.

The Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce's Quality of Life Committee has focused on the racial and gender makeup of local government, along with voter turnout, voter registration and community development grants in forming a statistical picture of government and politics in Southeast Missouri's largest city.

The council and school board haven't always looked like exclusive men's clubs. In the early 1990s, women could be found on both of the city's elected boards.

At one time in the early 1980s, women held two of the seven council seats.

Women like state Rep. Mary Kasten have made elective office a career.

The Cape Girardeau Republican served on the Board of Education for two decades before being elected to the Missouri House in 1982.

She has served continuously in the House since that time.

Diversity, however, is just one factor in the chamber's statical assessment.

The committee also took stock of the rising number of registered voters in the city and the solid turnout of voters in November elections in the 1990s.

Cape Girardeau has more than 22,000 registered voters, an increase of nearly 7,000 over the past six years, voter records show.

Voter turnout in November elections has hovered around 70 percent in the past two November elections.

Quality of Life Committee's Keith Russell sees the turnout figures as a plus for Cape Girardeau.

Russell said another plus is the millions of dollars in block grants that Cape Girardeau has received in recent years to make physical improvements to the city.

From 1991 through 1995, the city received some $4 million in community development grant money from federal and state agencies. The money was spent to fix up houses and rental units, raise roads out of flood's way, demolish flood-damaged houses, extend utilities to commercial sites, relocate a business because of a highway project and build a recreation trail.

Russell, who co-chairs the Quality of Life Committee, said the grant-funded projects represent a significant investment in community betterment.