2 days Ago By Dan Schunks
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above. ← Back The Bonne Terre Board of Alderpersons met Monday evening, February 10, in its monthly meeting at City Hall.
Among topics acted upon during the light agenda was the sale of the St. Peter’s Episcopal Church to the non-profit organization, W-3 Property Group, LLC. The church, built in 1910 on Southwest Main St.
, will be renovated for historical exhibits. If the venture is unable to sustain viability, ownership will revert to the city. The meeting with a moment of silence in memory of Jim Eaton, a fixture in Bonne Terre for nearly 60 years.
Eaton was the first city manager of Bonne Terre from 1966-1970 and, after a career in banking, became the first city administrator for the city. In the public comment portion of the meeting, Chris Sisk, from CS Design, a company that was approved to build the city’s website in December only to have that approval revoked in January, addressed the board seeking answers about the board’s reversal. “As a local business, we’re super invested in local and want to continue the conversation with you guys.
” He gave handouts to the board and continued, “What I’ve done here is show some of the investment we’ve already made. We started a conversation back in September. We went through the process with the city, thought we had everything nailed down, and then we realized there’s some missing gaps here.
Just want to figure out where the missing gaps are and get some additional information.” City administrator, Shawn Kay responded, “Chris, I’m currently in the process of working with some other city administrators to see what their RFPs look like, and then we’re going to tailor it to fit what we are hoping to get. I’ll get additional feedback from the council and the mayor in order to do that.
As far as where it will be posted, we will probably put it in the paper again, but I have your email address. I will make sure that you are emailed that RFP.” When Sisk asked if a full description of everything that was to be accomplished with the website would be included, he was told it would.
Rhonda Hubbard addressed the board with a request to “shut down Main St. between Iron Knot Skillet and the library on May 1 st , from 5-9 p.m.
“for a farm-to-table dinner. The dinner experience would actually start at 7 o’clock, and I would like to involve all the local schools. I have aeroponic gardens in all the schools, so the kids are growing their own food and they’re growing their produce, so they would contribute to this.
Of course, we’d have the National Entrepreneurship Society coming over, and the 4-H kids and really getting the community involved.” Mayor Schonhardt asked, “Is this going to be a tent event since they are outside eating?” Hubbard replied that the food would be under a tent, but the dinner would not be under a tent. “We would have outdoor tables in the street.
” Hubbard said she expected to seat 100. Ticket sales would be through the Downtown Association. In the mayor’s report, Mayor Schonhardt complimented the work of the city employees during the recent inclement weather, “Our city looked fantastic!” He acknowledged Jim Eaton’s contributions to the city of Bonne Terre.
In the city administrator’s report, Shawn Kay stated, “I don’t have much to update from the last meeting as far as projects go. I’m sure, as you are aware, our president has been working rather diligently to look through everything in the government. We’ve got several projects that are in some sort of approval at Jefferson City.
And I think they are looking for guidance from the federal government as well because many of these are tied to federal funds.” Continuing, he said, “So, the downtown project, the engineering, is completed on that. We have submitted it to MoDOT for their approval.
Once we have the approval, we will have to do a flurry of activity because we are going to be up against the deadline in our area.” He added that the TAP project for the sidewalks is not being held up. “This is on South Division.
That project is going to continue to move forward with the engineering portion. We are currently working on that.” Kay continued, “We also have a service line inventory grant.
We submitted a change order on that to have the contractor that was doing the initial phase do the excavation as well. MoDOT has agreed, it’s going to cut the cost.” He concluded, “The EPA, still have had no word from them on the soccer field.
I’m not even sure that that department still exists in the months to come. We’ll have to wait and see.” There were no questions for the administrator.
It was announced that Unitech Career Center would be doing some renovations in Heritage Hall. Administrator Kay told the board, “It’s upstairs to the left of the ballroom. Right now, it acts as storage but, hopefully, to make it functional for baby showers, birthday parties, stuff of that nature.
” Bill #22502 was read and approved. It is an ordinance amending the municipal code for the city allowing the same regulations for a business selling recreational marijuana as it does medical. The ordinance does not change any of the zoning issues, hours of operation, or placement of the facilities but it does extend them to now cover recreational marijuana sales.
The bill received its second reading and was approved. Bill #22502 was read twice and approved. This ordinance allows City Administrator Shawn Kay, to execute a service contract with Lexipol, LLC.
This will allow the purchase of operations software for the police department. Bill #22503 allowed for the purchase of the St. Peter’s Episcopal Church to the non-profit organization W-3 Property Group, LLC.
It was approved. The request by Rhonda Hubbard for closure of SW Main Street, on May 1, from 5-9 for a farm to table dinner was approved. A proposal for adopting an ordinance dealing with handsfree cellphone use was discussed and tabled.
City attorney Seth Pegram shared the current gray area of cities writing ordinances that mirror state statutes. Further discussion will be taken up next month. The next Bonne Terre Board of Alderpersons meeting will be on March 10, at 6 p.
m., in City Hall. The meeting is open to the public.
Dan Schunks is a staff writer for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at [email protected] .
.
