Steering Cape's five-year plan

Ken Eftink stayed at city hall well after Wednesday's planning and zoning meeting ended.

He was busy answering questions from county residents angry over a news story that Cape Girardeau city officials are considering the possibility of regulating unincorporated county land along municipal boundaries.

Eftink, 51, is the city's director of development services. He doesn't mind seeing people show up at meetings, even if they are unhappy.

A soft-spoken man, he listened to Rick Vines explain the importance of his home and land on County Road 640. At the end of the conversation, the men shook hands. Afterward, Vines said that while he was still unhappy about the plans, Eftink made the process clear.

A good discussion is healthy, Eftink said. He has learned, in 18 years as a planner and seven years as a city administrator, that the key to any successful project or process is finding the right answer from the most people.

"There's not a 'right' or 'wrong' answer. It was best, for the greater good of the largest amount of the community, at that point in time," Eftink said.

In many ways, municipal planning is the art of getting a city's infrastructure -- roads, water system, parks, lights and services -- to meet the social needs of residents. In Cape Girardeau, the city has kept a rolling five-year plan since 1983. On Monday, Eftink will review the 2008-2013 plan with the Cape Girardeau City Council. The list of projects will cost an estimated $165 million. Council members are responsible for setting priorities and holding a public hearing before approving the plan. The city charter requires a new capital improvement plan by April 1 of each year.

Eftink said the three biggest categories of work this year are environmental, transportation and parks and recreation.

Some projects, such as repairing the floodwall, are automatic top priorities. The $9 million project is required by FEMA and will be paid for by federal grants and loans.

Voters will decide the fate of the proposed half-cent sales tax for parks improvements and storm-water abatement April 8. In the event it passes, the city needs to be ready to implement those plans. While the parks and recreation advisory board has suggested priorities, the city council can determine in what order to pursue the proposals, which include a family aquatic center, riverfront park expansion and a South Cape community center.

Eftink cites Capaha Park, the Shawnee Sports Complex and Osage Community Centre as three past major improvements.

"If not part of a plan 20 years ago, where would these be?" he said.

The three phases of Lewis and Clark Parkway construction will cost an estimated $7 million. But the parkway is a critical connector between Kingshighway and the East Main Street/LaSalle Avenue interchange, Eftink said. It isn't covered by the Transportation Trust Fund, now in its third phase. Every five years, voters have decided to fund projects from a half-cent sales tax. The sales tax has been approved three times, but Lewis and Clark Parkway wasn't planned until after the TTF 3 was approved in 2005; voters will see TTF 4 in 2010.

Monday's work session will also include aligning priorities with the city's new comprehensive plan. That plan indicates, for example, landscaping along Interstate 55 and other key spots as essential for creating green spaces throughout the city.

The overriding priority, Eftink said, is choosing projects that benefit most people in the community.

Eftink won't know until Monday what city council members will put on this year's priority list. It could be the $2.6 million existing street paving program, the $15 million wastewater treatment plant upgrade. And he can't say what will change after the to-be-scheduled public hearing. But he does expect a healthy discussion about the possibilities.

The city council's study session on the 2008-2013 capital improvement plan proposal is at 5:30 p.m. Monday at city hall, 401 Independence St.

Eftink has been the city's director of development services since September but has a long history with Cape Girardeau. For more than a decade, he was the city's development and planning coordinator. After the 1995 flood, it became apparent the homeowners in the Red Star area, north of downtown, and Smelterville, south of downtown, needed to be permanently moved or would face future flood disasters.

"When we have a major flood event, it affects 2 percent of the people but it takes 90 percent of our time," he said.

Eftink was responsible for bringing together $3 million in local, state, federal and not-for-profit agency grants. The money, used to relocate homeowners, funded the city's largest-ever flood buyout.

pmcnichol@semissouiran.com

335-6611, extension 127