Sidewalk Cafes

Sidewalk Cafes

From a Southeast Missourian article by Erin Ragan
http://www.semissourian.com/story/2006070.html

The Cape Girardeau City Council is considering allowing sidewalk cafes "on Broadway between Water and Pacific streets, on Water Street between Broadway and Independence Street, and on Main and Spanish streets between Broadway and Merriwether Street,"  according to the Missourian article.  

Pro:  Good for business owners and people who enjoy sidewalk dining.

Con:  Bad for people whose use of public sidewalks will be choked by tables and chairs.  Too cozy a relationship between city and certain businesses whose dining areas are built and maintained by the city.  Unfair for the people on the south side of Broadway who got much less sidewalk space in the redevelopment project.  Unfair to every other business in Cape which isn't allowed use of the city sidewalks to conduct business. 

Quid pro quo:  How about this?  Allow all businesses the right to expand their trade onto the  sidewalks.  Allow street vendors the right to use parking spaces and public parking lots to ply their trades.  

Cape County Commissioners Raise Tax Rate--Sep. 2013

by Greg Tlapek

From the 9/17/2013 Southeast Missourian article by Erin Ragan

Cape County Commissioners, Clint Tracy, Paul Koeper and Charles Herbst, raised the property tax levy from $0.038 per $100 assessed valuation to $0.0447 per $100 assessed valuation.  That will amount to an increase in revenue for the county of 0.67 cents per $100 assessed valuation on a total assessment of $1,165,240,779 in the county.  Hmmm...get out my pencil...that amounts to $78,071 in additional revenue for the county.

According to her article, only one person attended the public meeting held by the Commission before their vote on the tax increase.  It's difficult to get people to turn out in opposition to something that is perceived to cost them very little.  In this case, it appears there was no group or individual who perceived it to be in their interest to have the tax increased, either.  As a matter of principle, I am against tax increases.

I was confused by the quote attributed to Clint Tracy, that raising the tax levy from $0.038 to $0.0447 could be "looked at as a 28-cent reduction."  According to the article, the state has set a cap of $0.337 per $100 assessed valuation, which means our new rate of 4.47 cents is 29.13 cents below what the state allows.