LET VOTERS HEAR RIVER CAMPUS DETAILS

Southeast Missouri State University wants to turn the former St. Vincent's Seminary into its River Campus housing a School for the Visual and Performing Arts.

To accomplish this, it needs the community's help. The university has proposed increasing and extending the city's hotel and motel tax to fund the project. The plan would also extend, but not increase, the current 1 percent restaurant tax until 2024.

On Monday, the Cape Girardeau City Council will consider putting the tax proposal on the November ballot. Should the River Campus be paid for in part by local tax dollars?

The answer doesn't rest with the council or city staff. Such a weighty decision must be made by the voters themselves. It would be in the public's best interest for the council to place the matter on the ballot. Then the public discourse could begin in earnest.

The notion is certainly intriguing. The community has long debated how to save the picturesque seminary property, which overlooks the Mississippi River.

In the coming months, the university must make its case that such a center can draw additional students and tourists. It is important that taxpayers pay close attention to the facts rather than rumors and innuendo.

The university proposes to combine its existing departments of art and music, its faculties of dance and theater and the University Museum into the new school. The proposal includes a 1,000-seat performing arts theater, which the university hopes would draw several Broadway shows a year along with other cultural events.

The university must convince voters that there will be enough new events -- not just relocated activities -- to truly impact tourism. The challenge to the university will be to bring in quality performances at prices local residents can afford.

The total project cost is $35.6 million. Perhaps the university's strongest selling point is its No. 1 salesman: President Dale Nitzschke. He certainly has fervor for the project. He also exhibits a solid understanding of the proposal's implications for economic development and student enrollment.

On the other hand, the university must enlist broad-based community support to win in November. And that means other business and community groups must help champion the cause.

Selling this proposal will be an educational challenge for the university. But education, after all, is the university's basic mission. The community will also have plenty of time to hear from any opponents and their reasoning.

But none of this much-needed public debate can begin without council action on Monday. Hopefully, councilmen will move the project to the public arena by placing it on the November ballot.