ROAD LEVY PLAN TABLED; COUNCIL SETS HEARING ON NEW ASSESSMENT POLICY

The Cape Girardeau City Council tabled action on a controversial road assessment policy to gather more public input.

The council voted Monday night to hold a public hearing March 16 to give residents a chance to comment on the proposed policy. It outlines how much property owners would be assessed for new roads or widening of residential, commercial and residential-commercial streets designated under the Transportation Trust Fund.

The Hopper Road extension project was the center of discussion at Monday night's meeting. Property owners or their attorneys attended to protest their assessments.

Bob Dodson, who lives on Kage Road, said it is unfair to make property owners pay for the Hopper Road extension from Mount Auburn to Kage when the entire city will benefit from the new road.

Dodson estimated his assessment will be at least $56,000, based on the $42-per-frontage-foot assessment proposed, and that figure doesn't include land acquisition costs.

He said the city has offered him $23,000 for one and two-thirds acres needed for the road project.

"That doesn't mean that I can deduct the $23,000 from the $56,000 it's going to cost me," Dodson said, pointing out the land acquisition costs will be figured into his assessment.

Jay Hunze, whose mother, Bernice, is being assessed for 2,200 frontage feet for the Hopper Road extension, questioned why the policy allows some property owners to avoid being assessed at all if they donate right-of-way.

The proposed policy on widening commercial-residential streets such as Broadway would assess property owners $46 per frontage foot plus the cost of land acquisition.

But if the property is donated the property owners will not be assessed, he said.

Hunze's mother will be assessed at least $175,000 for her share of the property needed for the project, said Hunze. He said the city offered her less than 25 percent of that amount for her property.

He said his mother doesn't want to see the road built and doesn't feel it will benefit her or her property.

John Oliver, an attorney representing Walter Joe Ford, one of the property owners who will be assessed for the project, said the proposed policy represented a "gross inequity in asking these landowners to buy and pay for a citywide project."

Councilman Richard Eggimann said he also felt it was unfair to assess property owners such a large portion of the cost of the road, which will serve as an arterial route to move traffic from one end of the city to another.

Eggimann also said he felt taxpayers, including himself, believed the transportation sales tax approved in 1995 would pick up a larger portion of road construction costs.

Mayor Al Spradling III said the sales tax was geared more toward improving existing infrastructure such as the Perryville, Bloomfield and Broadway improvements slated under the Transportation Trust Fund, and there was never any intention to "give away free streets."

He pointed out property owners have always been assessed for the construction of new streets, and it would be unfair to change that now.

Councilmen agreed to table two proposed policies, one outlining the actual maximum assessment charges property owners would pay per frontage foot and a second setting guidelines on how special assessments will be imposed.

Spradling said he is worried the decision to table the policies will impede progress on the city's major road projects.

The issues raised Monday night aren't new, he said, and delaying action will mean delaying progress.

Improvements to Broadway, Bloomfield and Perryville were delayed because the city didn't have the money to fund the improvements.

"Now we've got the money to do some of the work, and we're postponing again so we can come up with the policies to do the work," Spradling said. "I'm really feeling our actions tonight are not reflective of what the people want."

If the voters hadn't approved the transportation sales tax, Hopper Road would have been funded entirely through special assessments, Spradling said.

City engineer Mark Lester estimated the actual cost of construction at $175 per frontage foot.