Mayor’s Weekly Update
October 15, 2010
Our FY11 Budget process continues to move forward. The Council was presented the re-worked
draft of the FY11 Budget that incorporates those changes directed by Council from the Council’s
budget work session held Tuesday of last week. If the Council has no further changes from this
point, the FY11 Budget will be prepared for formal presentation at the October 25th Council
session.
The Lebanon Police Department’s Senior Academy will be starting on October 21st at the
Hughes Center. Applications may be picked up at the Hughes Center, LPD lobby, or from most
local area churches. This is a good program for our senior citizens and addresses many areas of
interest for their personal safety. I urge all seniors to participate. This is an excellent community
police program that aims to help ours seniors protect themselves. The LPD is reporting that over
30 seniors have signed up. See you there. In other news from the LPD, the Department now has
a page on Facebook.
Halloween is not too far off. This year the Lebanon Parks Department, the Cowan Civic Center,
and the Lebanon Tourism and Marketing Department will be sponsoring an old fashion driven in
movie on the south side of the Civic Center on Saturday the 30th of October. Please join us for
Trunk or Treat. The movie is “Monsters, Inc.”. Come out and let the kids treat or treat and
watch a great family movie.
GCI, Inc. has completed filming of a new streaming video portion for our official website.
Businesses may purchase streaming videos for inclusion on our website. This is a great way to
get your business name out there to visitors to our community as well as to local patrons. Please
contact Mrs. Gail Bryant of the Tourism and Marketing Department for more information.
There has been some discussion in the media concerning the implementation of a storm water
utility by the City. To help dispel some rumors on this subject, I would like to give you the facts
as we currently know them. The first is that yes we are planning to create a storm water utility.
Here is why the City has to add this new department. The US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) have created some new and
stiffer rules governing the issue of storm water runoff. These new rules require some extensive
monitoring, reporting, testing, planning, and new construction efforts; all of which takes man
hours (labor), materials, and of course money. Up to this point the City has utilized the efforts
and resources of a variety of our departments to full fill the requirements. This has included the
street department for construction, the waste water department for monitoring, testing, and
reporting, and the services of the technical support department and the community development
department for planning and oversight of projects. This has drained our resources to support
other projects. An example of which is street construction and repairs. All of the storm water
items associated with the Elm Street project have been paid for from that project’s funds. The
same is true for other street projects. In short, the storm water issues are being paid for from
street construction projects which reduce the available funding from the street fund to support
road construction and repairs. People do not like bad roads but we still have to address the storm
water runoff rules and new mandates.
At this point, the staff has initiated a series of studies to determine the exact requirements of
these new rules, the potential impact of these rules on the City with regards to compliance, the
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Mayor’s Weekly Update
October 15, 2010
estimated compliance costs, and possible funding sources to address the cost issues. We have
then looked at a variety of similar programs across the State to see if there are suitable solutions
in other cities that we might adopt. From there the staff was able to design a department that met
the needs and determine the funding requirements. The staff was able to develop a draft budget
(which is in front of Council for review at the present as part of the FY 11 Budget). The staff has
also developed a fee structure and submitted this for independent review and validation, which
we are currently awaiting results on. When all of the preliminary work is completed, it will be
presented to Council for review, discussion, and consideration. Until approved by Council, this
will not be implemented. The bottom line is that the City does NOT have a choice about
compliance. The only choice we have is how to fund this compliance and that is a complicated
issue of tradeoffs and balances.
The next City Council meeting is October 25th at 7PM Council Chambers, City Hall. Please join
us.
If you wish to make a comment, ask a question, express a concern, or make an appointment to
speak with me; please feel free to e-mail me at mayor@lebanonmo.org or call City Hall 417532-2156 for an appointment.
Respectfully,
CP Craig
Mayor
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