Meeting Highlights: Council Talks Taxes, Redistricting, Dale Avenue

The Richmond Heights City Council met Tuesday night at to discuss a variety of issues, .

The following are highlights from the discussion as it happened. A work session happened at 6:30 p.m., followed by a regular meeting at 7:30 p.m.

REGULAR MEETING

9:19 P.M.: The council is preparing to vote to go into closed session.

9:16 P.M.: The council has approved a bill removing sections of city code as it relates to the height of guard rails. It also approved legislation accepting a piece of land in connection with the Hanley Road Jughandle project.

It is now hearing the first reading of bills related to the city's tax rates, which were discussed at the earlier work session.

9:15 P.M.: The council has approved an ordinance authorizing the city to vacate a tract of land on Woodland Avenue. It also approved a piece of legislation authorizing changes to city code as it relates to loft dwellings, exterior lighting and transitional yards. The legislation is aimed at facilitating development along Big Bend Boulevard.

9:12 P.M.: The council has approved two pieces of legislation authorizing the reduction of the Hadley Township redevelopment area.

9:11 P.M.: The council unanimously has approved the appointment of Nancy Zander to the library's board of trustees.

9:09 P.M.: City Attorney Kenneth Heinz said he has a "brief but necessary" litigation report to discuss with the council in closed session after its regular meeting.

9:07 P.M.: The city is considering an ordinance that keeps the electric utility gross receipts tax rate at its present level.

9:04 P.M.: Reary said he thinks residents who live on Dale will be pleased with the work. "The whole goal was to make Dale a place that everyone enjoyed being," he said.

8:56 P.M.: Some residents' yards along Dale contain city right-of-way and will be reduced as part of the upgrades to make way for sidewalk.

8:54 P.M.: Work to upgrade a section of Dale Avenue is underway, Reary said. Surveying is taking place, and engineer is preparing a plan to be presented at a later date. More public participation will be solicited before a final plan is approved.

8:48 P.M.: Lore said he finds flashing signs to be somewhat annoying.

Beck said he agrees and doesn't want anything with a ticker tape.

On the high end of the price range Reary researched, the sign could cost $10,000.

8:45 P.M.: David Reary, who is serving as city manager while Amy Hamilton is on vacation, is discussing possibilities for updating the sign that lies on Big Bend Boulevard outside City Hall.

Beck said he is in favor of having an illuminated sign that can be controlled via a computer with current messages.

8:42 P.M.: The council has voted to move forward with a Planning and Zoning Commission recommendation to approve landscaping changes planned at the .

8:41 P.M.: Robinson said it will be up to the council to act on her recommendations. The idea would be that the city would conduct a second inventory in 2014 to evaluate its progress. She said she will make simple recommendations, such as insulating the ceiling at City Hall.

8:39 P.M.: Robinson said the next step in the process will be for her to make recommendations to the council about short-, medium- and long-term goals.

8:37 P.M.: A software projection indicates that emissions will rise in Richmond Heights between 2008 and 2013. "It's a modest rise, but it's still a rise," she said.

8:33 P.M.: Jones said that in the past, the city has had a difficult time trying to determine the total number of street lights in the city from Ameren. Robinson said the city's energy bill lists the number of each type of light in the city.

8:30 P.M.: "We've got a lot of low-hanging fruit to work with," said Robinson, referring to various aspects of city energy usage that could be adjusted to reduce emissions.

8:27 P.M.: Vehicle fleet emissions were significant but lower than expected, Robinson said. She said the city's record-keeping could be improved to track fuel efficiency.

8:26 P.M.: Transportation is the biggest contributor of emissions in Richmond Heights, followed by commercial property. On a government level, the most emissions come from employee commutes (31 percent), street lighting (23 percent) and buildings (21 percent).

She said the city doesn't have a lot of control over its lights because Ameren owns them. The Friends of Richmond Heights has interest in working with Ameren to have more efficient lights installed.

8:21 P.M.: Among the benefits of having an inventory: "This makes you a community leader," she said.

8:20 P.M.: Robinson said she conducted the inventory in 13 weeks and will have a climate action plan finished in December as part of her studies at Washington University.

8:17 P.M.: Teresa Robinson is presenting a report on her findings during a recent emissions study conducted in the city. "Climate change is expected to affect every sector of society," she said.

She looked at refrigerant losses, employee commuting and other factors. The survey did not take into effect water pumping, the MetroLink, residential lawnmowing and residential refrigerant loss. It did look at electricity and natural gas usage at residential, commercial and industrial locations.

8:14 P.M.: Greenwald said she and others are looking at ways the city can expand its services to residents 65 and older. It will be looking at a couple of models and will look at partnerships with the and the city's parks department.

Jones reminded residents that Celebrate Richmond Heights and the city's National Night Out are coming up this month.

8:11 P.M.: Jones encouraged people to fly the American flag on Sept. 11.

8:10 P.M.: Beck also encouraged people to do something charitable on Sept. 11.

Thomson responded to the MAP scores by students in the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District and local schools: "Our kids are very well served by our public schools in Richmond Heights."

8:09 P.M.: The proclamation states that members of the council "do hereby salute the heroism" of public safety officials, volunteers and others who responded to the attacks.

8:06 P.M.: Beck is reading a proclamation in conjunction with the upcoming 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. He encouraged all Richmond Heights residents to participate in a national moment of silence beginning at noon Sunday.

PUBLIC HEARING AND DISCUSSION OF TAX RATES

8:03 P.M.: "I question the theory that as the net worth of our residents (goes) down, we must maintain the net worth of all these city funds," Lore said.

Fox responded that overall under the proposed rates, residents will be paying lower taxes this year than last year.

Beck said future councils should look for ways to reduce taxes for residents, and he said Notter and Thomson have advocated for such reductions.

8 P.M.: The city is holding off on filling one police officer position and two firefighter positions until it can see what the economy will do, Fox said. She said that while reducing the tax rate as Thomson suggested may seem like a fairly small amount, the revenue that would be lost could help pay for one of those empty positions.

7:59 P.M.: Lore is asking why the proposed tax for the Police and Fire Pension Fund would go up for residential property but down for commercial property.

"That's because the commercial assessments went up and the residential assessments went down," Beck said.

7:53 P.M.: Beck said the city purposefully built up its reserves in light of the extensive work on Highway 40, construction and so forth. He said he doesn't think the current economic climate is conducive to digging into the reserves.

 "I don't think we're anywhere near out of this economy," Beck said.

7:51 P.M.: Fox said these are pre-Board of Equalization numbers, meaning it's possible that lower assessed values will be realized in the next several weeks. Actual numbers are expected to be available after Sept. 15.

Jones said people should realize that a is reflected in the numbers. "That abatement is reflected in what our residents are paying," Jones said. "We gave commercial entities money from our residents."

7:46 P.M.: Mitten said she thinks Thomson has a good point that maybe the city's rainy day fund doesn't need to be so big. But she said that in this economy, the fact that homeowners' property taxes will go down is probably a good thing. "I know that myself and other members have looked at those reserves and said, 'Thank heaven we have them,'" she said.

7:41 P.M.: Thomson said he is recommending reducing the proposed residential tax rate for the general fund from 0.29 to 0.27 or 0.26. It would tell the residents that this time, the city is looking out for them, he said.

7:36 P.M.: A public hearing is underway regarding this year's tax rates. Finance director Sara Fox is making the presentation. For example, person who owns a $100,000 home in the city would pay $5.32 less this year than in the previous year, she said.

7:32 P.M.: The regular meeting is beginning. City Clerk Pat Villmer has provided us with a copy of Plan A. We'll provide the image and details about the streets that would be affected later this week.

WORK SESSION ON REDISTRICTING

7:31 P.M.: The city will draft an ordinance that would implement Plan A because the majority of council members are in favor of that plan. It will be read for the first time Sept. 19 and considered for approval at the council's Oct. 3 meeting. We'll try to obtain a copy of that plan so you can compare it to the current boundaries.

7:28 P.M.: District 2 Councilman Mike Jones: "I don't have a dog in the fight … but I do like clean lines." He referred to the boundaries dividing one district from another. Several of the council members have expressed support for lines that keep the districts more or less together as geographical units.

7:24 P.M.: Greenwald said she would prefer Plan A from an objective point of view.

She spoke after Beck said he wants to see the rest of the council "get involved in this conversation."

District 2 Councilman Jim Thomson said he came to the meeting wanting to hear from the council members whose districts would be most affected by redistricting.

Lore declined to give an opinion on which plan he would prefer. He said he would defer to Casey. "It's going to be his ballgame, so to speak," said Lore, whose term expires next April.

7:18 P.M.: District 3 Councilman Edward Notter said he is still in favor of Plan C and said he doesn't think redrawing the district lines will make neighborhoods less tight-knit.

Casey said if he had to choose, he would opt for Plan A because it would move fewer people between districts.

He spoke after Mitten said she wanted to hear what District 1 representatives think about the plans because they would be affected by the changes.

7:14 P.M.: District 1 Councilman Matt Casey said he's fairly indifferent about which plan to choose. "I'm having a tough time having strong feelings one way or the other," Casey said.

7:12 P.M.: "I'm looking at it perhaps more from a psychological perspective," Mitten said. She said she is concerned about disrupting tight-knit neighborhoods.

7:07 P.M.: Mitten said she would prefer Plan A because it would move some boundary lines four blocks over, as opposed to Plan C, which would affect three different parts of the city.

The issue appears to be the number of people living in District 1 who will, in the future, be included as part of District 4.

7:06 P.M.: The council has honed its options for redistricting from three plans to two. The proposals now being considered are Plan A and Plan C.

6:54 P.M.: District 1 Councilman Paul Lore: "I just think it's rather odd to split a street" between two districts.

District 3 Councilwoman Gina Mitten said several streets in the city are split, including Del Norte Avenue and Arlington Drive.

6:50 P.M.: The council is reviewing a series of options for how to redraw district boundary lines.

6:44 P.M.: Before Richmond Heights became a charter city in 1988, Beck said, the city had just three districts. It now has four. (A district map may be downloaded from the city's website.)

District 4 Councilwoman Camille Greenwald asked whether the city could go back to three districts. Beck said he wouldn't be opposed to discussing the idea.

District 2 Councilman Jim Thomson said he doesn't like the idea of reducing the number of districts in the city.

6:39 P.M.: The meeting has begun. Mayor James Beck said the redistricting discussion was scheduled to be ahead of the April 2012 election. "We would give up four years of our census by not doing it" until after the election, he said. District 2 and District 3 are almost not touched following the 2010 census. The majority of work needs to be done in District 4, he said.

6:24 P.M.: The meeting is set to begin in a few minutes.