Thursday, August 11, 2011
Council members also talk about refinancing bonds, charter review during Monday's work session.
- GOVERNMENT
- Joe Scott
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Thursday, August 11, 2011
Florissant City Council members received good financial news and discussed reducing one a tax as a result. During a Monday work session, Finance Director Randy McDaniel told the council that projected for the rest of the year, Florissant would come about $760,000 ahead of its budgeted utility tax receipts. While putting together the 2011 budget, McDaniel projected the city would receive $5.7 million from the revenue. On Monday, he said Florissant likely would wind up with $6.4 million from utility taxes. Through July, tax collection is $600,000 ahead of projections due to utility rate hikes and higher bills, he said. The city raised the utility tax from 5 percent to 7 percent last year as the council struggled to balance its budget. “I …
Friday, July 22, 2011
In his first action of veto, Mayor Schneider challenges Florissant City Council members to review the charter as a part of their duties.
History continues to repeat itself regarding the Florissant City Charter. Like his predecessor Mayor Robert Lowery, Mayor Tom Schneider vetoed the council’s ordinance to create a charter commission, according to an email to media received this morning. “I find it necessary for the benefit of the people of Florissant to veto Bill number 8737, Ordinance number 7813,” Mayor Schneider wrote in his statement. “The sponsors of this bill offered this divisive issue for public debate in the infancy of a new administration with an incomplete and interim council body. These five sponsors, one of which is temporary, created an avoidable distraction and impediment to good governance at a time when our city and all cities are facing more urgent …
Thursday, July 21, 2011
“Florissant Patch” asked Ward 3 and Ward 6 council candidates questions on residents’ behalf, and here’s what they had to say.
A few weeks ago, we asked for residents to submit burning questions they had for council candidates, and you responded. We asked the candidates more than 20 questions regarding handling residents' calls, budget, charter review and more. Although we have a single question listed here, there are several more to come in our series. We’ll continue to run candidates’ responses leading up to the Aug. 2 election. For the first question, and the most popular question, you asked: Are you in favor of a charter review? Mark Behlmann, Ward 3 Candidate: Yes, absolutely. I made a presentation at the city council meeting Monday, July 11 publicly announcing my thoughts, procedures, and listing my many reasons. In order to be fully transparent, there is …
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Despite its passage, the ordinance could face the same fate of its predecessor--a veto from the mayor.
Monday night, the Florissant City Council passed its second attempt at a charter review commission after a 40-minute debate. However, it appeared that similar concerns and questions surrounding its predecessor haunted the new bill. The council faced the same situation in 2010. At that time, it passed a bill to form a charter review commission with a vote of 5-4, but Mayor Robert Lowery vetoed the bill, and the attempt to override the bill failed. During that time, according to reports in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Mayor Lowery and other speculated that the bill was an attempt to change the strong-mayor form of government to one where a city manager would be used. Following the failure of the override, council members agreed to form a …
RM
6:18 pm on Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Perhaps instead of "robbing peter to pay paul" so to speak, we should look back to the audit that was done on Florissant that listed many things that were being done that were not in the best interest of the citizens of Florissant but were technically not illegal because of the "strong mayor" form of government that we current have. Perhaps the city should ALWAYS operate in the best interest of … more ›