2007-11-05 Regular - Laserfiche WebLink

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the job they are supposed to do. Since University City was paying dues to this league, she didn’t feel the city should pay extra. Ms. Borg raised questions concerning who agreed to it, when was there public discussion, under whose auspices did this happen and why was U.City paying more than Ladue. She mentioned University City’s 2008 budget deficit, which caused services and employment to be cut. Ms. Borg urged the Council to reconsider and separate the two issues into separate bills. Judy Baernstein, 793 Yale Ms. Baernstein presented a petition from the Women in the Neighborhood asking the Council to reconsider the payment of $20,000 from the Verizon settlement to the Municipal League for the same reasons given by Ms. Borg. Ms. Brot gave a brief history of the years of litigation that had taken place prior to this settlement. She felt it could not have happened without the lobbying and assistance of the St. Louis County Municipal League. She stated that the Missouri Legislators have passed many laws that have taken away the cities abilities to provide services. Ms. Brot then asked the City Clerk to record the list of legislative events that have taken place or are needed which require more intelligent legislative lobbying of the state legislators: taking away the cities’ cell phone tax; taking away the control of cable in each community; limiting the number of public programs on cable; telling cities they have to pay overtime to police and fire employees; having a requirement that St. Louis County tells U City what kind of TIF they can offer; replacing property tax assessment every two years is a concern; looking at the effects of the increase in property tax on senior citizens; closing loop holes and changing the shift in tax burden from residential to commercial; protecting the tools used for economic development, as eminent domain as a last resort; correcting the 2007 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that all public employees have the authority to bargain collectively with municipal employers with no statute guidelines for the process, which made it confusing for the cities; looking into establishment of health insurance pools; repealing the law of carrying concealed weapons; and the list goes on and on. Ms. Brot stated that this 5 percent is much less than the money the municipalities have been losing but thanks to the St. Louis County Municipal League and the City Attorney John Mulligan who obtained this settlement for University City and other cities, reinforcing the importance and need for the Municipal League to obtain more qualified lobbyists. Ms. Brot asked the Council not to pass another cell phone tax settlement allocation to the League until St. Louis County Municipal League can present a defined plan for the usage of this allocation. She asked that the Mayor, who has a high official position in the St. Louis County Municipal League, see to it that an oversight commission be formed by the St. Louis County Municipal League and that it would consist of one or two University City Councilmembers. Mayor Adams said the current state legislature has been passing a series of hostile legislation against the city as limiting control of our right-of-ways and soon the cities will have very little control over anything. He briefly spoke of how the lobbyists have changed the way legislators vote. Mr. Price asked Mayor Adams and University City’s attorney John Mulligan to verify that University City will have representation on the oversight committee to be formed by St. Louis County Municipal League. Mayor Adams agreed that St. Louis County Municipal League would form an oversight committee whose members will be voted on by the league’s membership, which includes every University City Councilmember. Mr. Price