Resident Charges Hughes & Dempsey Out To Raid City Taxpayers
By Phyllis Schaltenbrand
“Every taxpayer in this town should be outraged at this attempt by Mr. Hughes with the help of State Representative Tom Dempsey to embezzle our tax money to help Mr. Hughes get his sewer lines hooked into our City sewer system at his St Andrews development. St. Andrews is not in our city. As the Mayor and her cronies could not get the council to turn her and TR’s way quick enough, (attempts to recall Brown and Greer) he has to call our State Representative Tom Dempsey to get this under control. So TR’s project doesn’t skip a beat and cost him $$$.” Those comments were made by St. Charles resident Bob Bredensteiner Thursday during his announcement of a lawsuit filed in Federal Court.
Bredensteiner, his wife, Joyce and Phillip Dese, filed in the United States District Court For The Eastern District Of Missouri, a lawsuit requesting a Declaratory Judgment against East Central Missouri Water and Sewer Authority, Inc. (ECM). ECM owns sanitary sewer collector and trunk lines in unincorporated St. Charles County that provide sewer service to St. Andrews, a residential property development located entirely in unincorporated St. Charles County being built by T.R. Hughes and other properties located within the Sandfort Creek Drainage Area. The City of St. Charles owns and operates sanitary sewer collector, interceptor and trunk lines and a sewage treatment facilities. The City’s Facilities have been paid for by, are maintained with, and remains functioning because of tax dollars paid by residents of the City. EMC does not currently have a contractual relationship or any agreement with the City of St. Charles to establish any new connections to the City’s Facilities or to pay for existing connections. According to the suit, despite its lack of contact or agreement with the City of St. Charles, ECM has continued to make connections, caused new connections to be made, and continued existing connections without approval of the City of St. Charles and without making payment to the City.
Council members claim Hughes could have annexed his development into the City but choose not to do so because County codes, especially those applying to creek bank stabilization, are not as restrictive as the City’s.
Despite efforts by Mayor York along with Councilmen Jerry Reese and Bob Hoepfner working to allow Hughes to connect the sewers in his new development to the City sewers, the City of St. Charles attempted to keep new homes at the old St. Andrews Golf Course site being developed by Hughes from connecting to the system. In June of this year the City filed for a temporary restraining order, in St. Charles County Circuit Court, against ECM, T.R. Hughes and Summit Pointe in an effort to keep them from hooking up to the City sewer system. The Court denied that request.
Just prior to the adjournment of the Missouri Legislature, legislation, sponsored by State Representative Tom Dempsey (R) St. Charles, Majority House Leader was passed (RSMo 432.070). The legislation reads, Not with standing the foregoing, any home rule city with more than sixty thousand three hundred but fewer than sixty thousand four hundred inhabitants which after January 1, 2003, has committed or agreed in writing to provide sewer service or has in fact directly or indirectly provided such service to any homes within a subdivision shall give its customers two years prior written notice of its intent to discontinue service and during such two-year period shall continue to connect and provide sanitary sewer service to all homes constructed in such subdivision. In no event shall any sewer service connected prior to the expiration of such two-year period be discontinued.
This legislation passed at the request of State Representative Dempsey. only applies to the City of St. Charles. At the time, several City Council members remarked it was special interest legislation passed only for the benefit of millionaire developer T.R. Hughes and only against the residents of St. Charles. It does not apply to any other City in Missouri. They further remarked the residents of St. Charles City were being forced to bear the cost of sewer service for Hughes’s development while Hughes gets a free ride.
The lawsuit against ECM says the amendment to RSMo 432.070 (Dempsey’s special legislation to benefit T.R. Hughes) acts to deny citizens of the City of St. Charles equal protection of the laws, as it facially discriminates against the City of St. Charles taxpayers by requiring them to subsidize sewer connection for Hughes’s development and others outside of the City of St. Charles. It also says that it is unconstitutional under the Missouri Constitution and the U.S. Constitution because it deprives citizens of the City of St. Charles of property without due process of the law. The suit asks that EMC be permanently enjoined from establishing any more connections to the water treatment and sewage facilities of the City of St. Charles. It asks the Court to grant to the plaintiffs the costs and expenses of litigation, including reasonable expenses; and grant any such other and further relief the Court may deem appropriate and proper.
The First Capitol News contacted ECM. Kim Cantrell, the office manager, advised us ECM was unaware of the suit and she could not comment. She told us we would have to contact Mike Dougherty, the regional manager or Tim Geraghty, the local manager. They were both out of the office and we were unable to contact them prior to press time.
ECM serves 2,700 homes in unincorporated St. Charles County and has been connected to the City sewer system for a number of years. It was discovered that the flow meter used to measure the amount of sewage from ECM customers into the City system had been broken for about 10 years. The rate the City charges ECM has never been increased during that period even though more homes had been added. A new flow meter was recently installed which resulted in a dispute between ECM and the City about its accuracy. We were unable to learn if that dispute had been settled but it appears that it has not.
In the last City Council election Hughes, a former St. Charles police officer, actively campaigned against and provided funds for the opposition to City Councilmen John Gieseke, Rory Riddler, and Bob Hoepfner and Council candidates Dottie Greer, Joe Koester, and Mark Brown who subsequently won their elections. He has also been in the forefront in forming a legal defense fund for Mayor York. York felt she needed legal representation to defend her for signing a contract with Express Scripts without Council approval in apparent violation of the City Charter and ordinances.
Hughes is also a major contributor to Citizens for Responsible Community; an organization headed by county residents Carl Maus and Raymond Stone who have actively attempted to defeat St. Charles Councilmen and who are supporters of Mayor York. Hughes is also a major contributor to Citizens Empowerment Committee headed by Linda Meyer, the wife of a St. Charles police officer who is past president of the police association. Citizens empowerment Committee is attempting to recall Councilman Mark Brown and Councilwoman Dottie Greer.
Others involved in raising funds for the recall effort of Citizens Empowerment Committee are former Councilmen Ken Kielty and Richard Baum, Kevin Kast former head of SSM St. Joseph Health Center and Mike Sellenschuetter, a local developer who is in a dispute with Council members over a development he is building just outside the City limits. Sellenschuetter wants to hook up his development to the City sewer system. Councilman Bob Hoepfner has been fighting hard on the side of Sellenschuetter, while Councilman Mark Brown, whose ward is closest to the development, is fighting against allowing the hookup. Brown claims that Sellenschuetter’s development, off of Arena Drive, is built to County codes which are not as restrictive as City codes which he believes will result in future costs to City taxpayers. Brown also claims that Sellenschuetter has placed his units too close to a creek which will result in future expenditures of hundreds of thousand of dollars of taxpayer money.
Records on file with the Missouri secretary of state indicate that the president of ECM is Catherine “Katy” Cobb of Lake St. Louis, vice president is Dale Franklin of St. Charles and secretary treasurer is Gail Wilson of Defiance.
