June 2016 Message from the Mayor
June 2016 Edition
Many changes have taken place and are still in process within our community. It is hard to imagine that within the immediate past six months, we have experienced the retirement of our City Administrator of almost 28 years, the election of half of our City Council, and appointment of a new Interim City Attorney. We are fortunate that we have such experienced and professional employees that are a stabilizing force as we navigate through so many changes at once.
The names of all our City Council members appear immediately to the left of this column, and we congratulate and welcome Chris Graville as our newly appointed Interim City Attorney. Additionally, on May 2 City Council approved contracts naming Director of Public Services, Mike Geisel, and Police Chief, Ray Johnson, as co-interim City Administrators for a period up to 16 weeks. At this time, it appears that a strength assessment of an internal candidate and/or a full national search will be conducted for a new permanent city administrator.
I recently attended a town hall meeting sponsored by St. Louis County and the Parkway School District and was surprised and shocked to learn that the two prevalent zip codes within our city unfortunately have a very high incidence per population of youth death due to overdose of either pain killer medication or heroin. It seems that the relative ease of access to pain medication leads to abuse of these medications and/or use of heroin. I only mention this as an awareness item to encourage education and prevention of tragic outcomes. Sources of additional information are Alliance for Healthy Communities, ahc-Stl.org and monetwork.org.
I’m very happy to report that Senate Bill 867 passed the Missouri Legislature on May 12 which allows Chesterfield and other sales tax “pool cities” to retain 50% of their sales tax earnings. For perspective, when looking at last year’s sales tax numbers, that would have meant an additional $236,666 the City would have retained. It also ensures that cities on the receiving end of the pooled sales taxes are kept whole by retaining at least the amount of what they received in 2014. The Bill now awaits Governor Nixon’s signature and, if signed, would go into effect on January 1, 2017.
Many of you know that I and previous Mayors have spent countless hours working on this important change to distribute the sales taxes more fairly that we and other pool cities with a strong retail base generate, to the benefit of the entire region. I would like extend my appreciation to Representative Mike Leara and Representative Sue Allen who sponsored and championed the House Bill 1561 for this legislation. Also, I would like to express specific appreciation to Senator Dave Schatz and Senator Eric
Schmitt who provided us with a fair and thorough opportunity to present our case to his Senate Committee and helped support advancement of our very important issue to the Senate floor debate.
There really is a lot of new development going on within Chesterfield. We have a few new subdivisions, expansion of existing and development of new assisted living facilities, luxury multi family living complexes, corporate headquarters, St. Luke’s Hospital expansion, Monsanto’s Research & Development facility expansion, and plans for three new hotels in the Valley, as well as other projects. However, I believe the pride and joy and real value of our city is in its neighborhoods and residential property.
As a reminder, there are two free concert series this summer at the Chesterfield Amphitheater. On Thursday nights at 6:30 p.m., there will be five Art & Orchestra concerts and on Saturday nights at 7:30 p.m., there will be six Sounds of Summer Concerts. I hope to see you out and about in or on one of our many parks and trails.
Many changes have taken place and are still in process within our community. It is hard to imagine that within the immediate past six months, we have experienced the retirement of our City Administrator of almost 28 years, the election of half of our City Council, and appointment of a new Interim City Attorney. We are fortunate that we have such experienced and professional employees that are a stabilizing force as we navigate through so many changes at once.
The names of all our City Council members appear immediately to the left of this column, and we congratulate and welcome Chris Graville as our newly appointed Interim City Attorney. Additionally, on May 2 City Council approved contracts naming Director of Public Services, Mike Geisel, and Police Chief, Ray Johnson, as co-interim City Administrators for a period up to 16 weeks. At this time, it appears that a strength assessment of an internal candidate and/or a full national search will be conducted for a new permanent city administrator.
I recently attended a town hall meeting sponsored by St. Louis County and the Parkway School District and was surprised and shocked to learn that the two prevalent zip codes within our city unfortunately have a very high incidence per population of youth death due to overdose of either pain killer medication or heroin. It seems that the relative ease of access to pain medication leads to abuse of these medications and/or use of heroin. I only mention this as an awareness item to encourage education and prevention of tragic outcomes. Sources of additional information are Alliance for Healthy Communities, ahc-Stl.org and monetwork.org.
I’m very happy to report that Senate Bill 867 passed the Missouri Legislature on May 12 which allows Chesterfield and other sales tax “pool cities” to retain 50% of their sales tax earnings. For perspective, when looking at last year’s sales tax numbers, that would have meant an additional $236,666 the City would have retained. It also ensures that cities on the receiving end of the pooled sales taxes are kept whole by retaining at least the amount of what they received in 2014. The Bill now awaits Governor Nixon’s signature and, if signed, would go into effect on January 1, 2017.
Many of you know that I and previous Mayors have spent countless hours working on this important change to distribute the sales taxes more fairly that we and other pool cities with a strong retail base generate, to the benefit of the entire region. I would like extend my appreciation to Representative Mike Leara and Representative Sue Allen who sponsored and championed the House Bill 1561 for this legislation. Also, I would like to express specific appreciation to Senator Dave Schatz and Senator Eric
Schmitt who provided us with a fair and thorough opportunity to present our case to his Senate Committee and helped support advancement of our very important issue to the Senate floor debate.
There really is a lot of new development going on within Chesterfield. We have a few new subdivisions, expansion of existing and development of new assisted living facilities, luxury multi family living complexes, corporate headquarters, St. Luke’s Hospital expansion, Monsanto’s Research & Development facility expansion, and plans for three new hotels in the Valley, as well as other projects. However, I believe the pride and joy and real value of our city is in its neighborhoods and residential property.
As a reminder, there are two free concert series this summer at the Chesterfield Amphitheater. On Thursday nights at 6:30 p.m., there will be five Art & Orchestra concerts and on Saturday nights at 7:30 p.m., there will be six Sounds of Summer Concerts. I hope to see you out and about in or on one of our many parks and trails.
Sincerely,
Mayor Bob Nation