Council Supports Plan
To Extend City Limits
Chain Smoking Chicken’s Feathers Ruffled
The City Council voted to place nine areas for annexation on a future ballot. In each case these areas are immediately adjacent and, in some cases, surrounded by the present City limits. Anyone who has looked at a map of the City of St. Charles couldn’t help but notice the gaps around the edges.
So why is this important to anyone other than map makers or maybe the person who has to move the City limits signs? There’s the obvious fact that these commercial and industrial properties will add to the tax base of the City. Of greater importance, will be having a say in what develops adjacent to our city limits in the future. It will allow us to try to improve areas showing signs of neglect and perhaps avoid the mistakes of some communities in St. Louis County.
St. Louis County and some of its older municipalities are in trouble. Last year assessed value in St. Louis County fell. When you look at a map of St. Louis County, it is easy to see that dozens of small “landlocked” municipalities simply don’t have room to grow. Many are bedroom communities with little or no commercial, office or industrial base to sustain vital services. Most don’t have a good mix of housing stock with people of all ages. As their residents age, the community loses the population base that sustains commercial activity. This, in turn, reduces city services and infrastructure and housing stock declines. It’s a vicious circle.
There are some notable exceptions to the general state of decline. Florissant has attracted new retail by being more business friendly and aggressive in marketing their community. They have also been successful in annexing several areas around them and are known for keeping up their older neighborhoods. St. Charles can benefit from not repeating the mistakes of some St. Louis County municipalities and borrow a page from Florissant’s playbook. We can avoid becoming landlocked, add to our mix of commercial and industrial uses and gain the elbowroom we need for future growth and development. We can also control our own destiny, by controlling what develops on our borders. Do we really want to see any more used car lots, scrap metal businesses or junkyards?
This is why these areas will be placed on a future ballot for your consideration. We won’t know exactly when, because now the issue goes before a Circuit Court Judge to decide if the issues can go before voters. The special City Counselor handling the issue thinks it could be November. For the record, no other municipality, in any other county of the State, has to go before a judge to get permission to hold an annexation election. That’s an extra hoop we can thank prior members of the General Assembly for adding to State Law. Lawmakers in Missouri are fond of writing laws that only affect one area so they don’t have to work as hard writing good legislation that can garner support from lawmakers across the State.
Annexation law in Missouri, at least the portion they wrote that only effects us, has made it almost impossible to seek so called “involuntary” annexation of existing residential areas. That’s because those in the area to be annexed had an equal vote and thus veto power over any question of annexation. If you were trying to annex one home into the City, 20,000 St. Charles City voters could unanimously say yes, but if only one no vote were cast in the area to be annexed, the entire issue failed.
Based on discussions between myself and Councilman Joe Koester, the issue of what property surrounding St. Charles didn’t have residential development was studied. It turned out dozens of commercial and industrial tracts, both developed and undeveloped, were contiguous to our City limits. A prime example would be St. Andrews Plaza. I would venture to say most City residents didn’t even know this strip shopping center wasn’t in the City of St. Charles. After all, our City limits go right by it, all the way to Cave Springs.
The public hearings on these nine areas took a long time to get through. We tried to accommodate some of the concerns, dropping a duck club that was inadvertently included in one area. We have also been meeting with some of the businesses and landowners proposed to be annexed to explain what they could expect in the way of city services. In one area adjacent to my ward, it will mean streetlights and city water…services we take for granted.
Surprisingly, taxes haven’t been a big issue. When these areas are annexed the fire protection district tax they now pay comes off since they would be receiving fire protection from the City. This trade off nearly balances the property tax bill. Other commercial establishment owners have told us they don’t mind having to collect city sales taxes, so long as their competitors were also being brought within the city limits.
Unfortunately we can’t make everyone happy, which is where the chicken comes in. One of the people speaking in opposition to his annexation was the owner of a chain of stores that promotes itself as selling “cheap” liquor and cigarettes. The owner is somewhat of a local television icon, appearing in his own commercials promising that, “The more she drinks, the better you look.” Not exactly the speaker you want to invite to address Mothers Against Drunk Driving, though I am sure he’s sincere in wanting everyone to drink responsibly…and often.
His costar in the commercials is a six-foot tall dancing chicken, who obviously appreciates the subtle bouquet and thrift of stocking his cellars with some of the Third World’s finest wines. At least that’s where I think “thirty dime wine for two-ninety-nine” comes from. Perhaps it was the length of the public hearing or the lateness of the hour, but I had a vision of our annexation issues going before a judge. Staggering into the court room, setting off smoke alarms, was this multitalented mascot, who opening his beak to speak, summed up his client’s case with the immortal words, “Cheap! Cheap! Fun! Fun!” Your honor, the defense rests.
