Supreme Court assigns judge to River Campus case

Circuit Judge William Seay of Dent County is scheduled to hold a telephone conference call with lawyers in the River Campus lawsuit case today, one week after he was assigned the case.

The conference call will deal with procedural issues, court officials said.

The Missouri Supreme Court assigned the case to Seay after local circuit judges recused themselves from the case brought by Cape Girardeau businessman Jim Drury.

Drury filed his latest lawsuit against the city of Cape Girardeau on March 4, his third such effort since April 1999 to block the city from helping to fund Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus arts school development.

Despite the lawsuit, Southeast plans to break ground on May 27 for the $35.6 million project on the site of a former Catholic seminary overlooking the Mississippi River.

In his latest suit, Drury contends the city council illegally has committed to paying off River Campus bonds with motel and restaurant tax dollars even though voters never approved a bond issue.

The suit also alleges that the city under state law can't fund the Convention and Visitors Bureau with motel and restaurant tax money because a ballot measure approved by voters in 1998 didn't specify that any of the money would go to the CVB.

City seeks to dismissal

The city on April 10 filed a motion seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed. City officials argued that the lawsuit is "a frivolous effort to protest a tax that was authorized by the voters."

Voters approved spending motel and restaurant tax money on the project, but a companion bond issue didn't receive the necessary super majority needed to pass.

Southeast officials have said they plan to proceed with the project and ask the Missouri Development Finance Board to issue bonds to help finance the work. The city would use motel and restaurant tax money to retire its $8.9 million share of the project cost.

State funding and private dollars raised by the university would pay the rest of the construction costs. The project also has received $7.5 million in federal money to pay for trails, museum planning and other expenses that don't involve construction of buildings.