Cape council approves measures to improve transportation, agrees to accept black-soldier sculpture

The Cape Girardeau City Council voted Tuesday for two measures to improve transportation.

Council members, without comment, also approved a resolution to accept a bronze sculpture of a black, Civil War-era Union soldier upon its purchase and installation in Ivers Square.

The council gave final approval to a measure allowing the city government to receive an $80,000 state block grant to promote air passenger service and help boost boardings at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport for the fiscal year that began July 1.

With the city�s match included, total funding will be $88,889, according to airport manager Bruce Loy.

Loy said in advance of the meeting the money will be used to pay for advertising and marketing of United Express flights out of the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport as well as pay for a consultant to research the air passenger industry and look at ways to boost boardings.

As for the other transportation issue, the council approved a resolution informing city voters of a proposed fuel tax increase that will be on the statewide ballot in November. The resolution urges voters to become informed on the issue.

If passed by voters, Proposition D would increase the fuel tax by 2.5 cents a gallon each year for the next four years. At the end of that time, the per-gallon tax would have risen from 17 cents to 27 cents.

Missouri�s gas tax was last raised in 1996.

Among other things, Prop D would provide a dedicated funding source for the Missouri State Highway Patrol. At the same time, it would free up existing gas tax money, which now goes to the patrol, to be used for more state road and bridge construction work, according to proponents.

Prop D is expected to bring in $412 million annually in new money. The state would receive 70 percent of that money.

But it�s the added tax dollars � estimated at $124 million a year when fully implemented � that would flow to city and county governments that has local officials touting the ballot measure.

Scott Charton, a spokesman for www.SaferMO.com, the group working to pass the ballot issue, told the council Tuesday the City of Cape Girardeau stands to receive almost $600,000 a year in additional fuel tax revenue if the measure passes.

�That is a sizable economic infusion in your community,� he said.

According to city officials, any fuel tax money received by Cape Girardeau must be used for local road and bridge projects.

Council members, without comment, approved the resolution touting the issue as part of a lengthy list of agenda items adopted with a single vote.

That list included the sculpture resolution.

The statue, which would be funded with private donations, could be erected by June in Cape Girardeau�s Ivers Square, project proponents told the city council last month.

The council last year renamed Common Pleas Courthouse Park in honor of former Cape Girardeau slave James Ivers and his wife, Harriet.

James Ivers enlisted in the Union Army on June 18, 1863, in Cape Girardeau at the courthouse. He fell ill and died Oct. 1, 1863, while in the army, stationed in Arkansas.

Harriet Ivers ended up purchasing a house in Cape Girardeau in 1876 from James McClean, the son of a slaveholder who once owned her.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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