February 21, 2012 Board of Aldermen Highlights from Alderman John Pellerito

At the 5:30 pm work session, the Board discussed minor changes to our mid-year budget.

I have to commend our staff on remaing conservative on budget issues and not recommending reckless spending. For example, there were no expenditure allowances, just minor revisions to an increase in revenues. Although we are experiencing some sales tax growth, we are not budgeting for that to see how the rest of the year goes.

We also discussed a voluntary annexation of some property to possibly allow a big box retailer to move into the area. Some concessions have to be made before it happens, but it would be a great opportunity for the city. More on that as we proceed.

The Mayor is in discussions with other cities to attempt to persuade the county to allow using County Road Board sales tax money for street maintenance. All cities in this county are facing major street maintenance and the cities would like to use that money for these improvements, not just for new streets. For example, Lake St. Louis is facing maintenance of our streets in the future to be about $1.5 million per year with a budget of $500,000 per year.

Lastly, Chief Force presented an ordinance to the Board prohibiting adults from giving alcohol to non-family member minors. 

At the business meeting at 7:00pm, the Board passed an ordinance adopting a budget revision, passed an ordinance amending business licenses to allow special event permitting, passed a resolution stating our opposition to the (everything) fair tax which would be devastating to residents, businesses and our city, and passed a resolution authorizing city officials to submit a grant application requesting street funds from East-West Gateway.

Bill #3217, which would have allowed the Park Board to meet quarterly instead of monthly did not pass. We have a small park board and we have very few agenda items because of the economy and a reduction of funds and this would have taken the administartive burden of monthly meetings away from that board. It was a political decision made by 3 of the Aldermen and their reasoning did not make much sense. We try to make decisions that are best for the city, not for the individual aldermen, but politics sometimes gets in the way.