Blase to ask for $1.8 million

Neosho City Manager Jan Blase is expected to ask for $1.8 million in special bonds to alleviate the city’s cash flow crisis and to provide for engineering services for the city’s upcoming water improvement project.

This comes on the heels of an announcement last week that Blase was going to ask for $1 million in a tax anticipation loan to alleviate the city’s financial woes through the spring. Blase told the Daily News last week the loan would be repaid through a variety of funds, including $505,000 in money realized from the closing of railroad crossings, more than $107,000 from a mobile telephone franchise settlement, and the remainder from sales tax receipts.

The new request will be made during open session of the Neosho City Council, set for 7 p.m. tonight in council chambers, located at Neosho City Hall, 203 E. Main St. It includes engineering work for water infrastructure projects voters approved in August, as well as about $1 million for upfront payments to contractors for transportation projects, including a railroad quiet zone measure passed by the council earlier this year, work on La-Z-Boy Drive and Missouri Highway 59.

“This is not a long-term solution,” Blase said. “It is something that will occur as long as the city of Neosho is based on sales tax.”

Blase said a number of factors came into play for the city’s current economic woes, from a $250,000 loss in recovery measures from the January 2007 ice storm to skyrocketing oil costs which resulted in cost overruns on a number of city projects as asphalt, rubber and fuel costs increased, to the stock market crash last year, to even an increase in the number of cell phone users. This last one, Blase said, resulted in an increase in the amount the city pays the county for 911 dispatching services, as well as a loss in sales tax revenues as people disconnected land lines, relying on cell phones for their home telephone.

“After we prepared the 2009 budget, where tax revenue was up, down, up, down, in January, it went down,” Blase said. “The budget reflects we had more in expenses than in revenue. The new budget, the one that began on Oct. 1, has less expenses than anticipated revenue. By the end of the year, because of the cuts we made, because good people were laid off, we should have cash flow out to pay back this loan as well as the STAR loan program. We have a plan and will present it — not tonight, but after the first of the year.”

Meanwhile, council member Heather Bowers has told the Daily she would oppose the loan request if it did not include a request for a city audit. She has obtained petition paperwork from the state, and said the audit could cost the city $35,000 to $50,000, but may prevent costly mistakes in the future. If the council does not approve of an audit, she said she’s prepared to gather signatures on a petition requesting one.

Bowers has made motions to fire Blase during both closed and open council sessions, but her motions have died for lack of a second each time.

A portion of tonight’s meeting will be closed to the public to discuss personnel issues and the findings of an investigation by Mayor Jeff Werneke and Mayor Pro Tem Richard Davidson into the city’s financial condition and how it relates to personnel issues.

On Nov. 21, the city council met in an emergency closed session to discuss a personnel issue at the request of Davidson and Bowers. At issue is whether City Manager Jan Blase should have used nearly $900,000 in state revolving loan funds garnered through the Missouri Department of Transportation and earmarked to construct new hangars at the Hugh Robinson Memorial Airport to pay bills and make city payroll. The loan funds were not put into a separate account, but placed into the general revenue funds.

The council has authority to discipline three city officeholders: The city clerk, the city attorney and the city manager.

 “I did what I had to do to make our commitments,” Blase said this morning. “If Neosho is going to be a great All-American City, we have to pull together during difficult times.”

Several pages of documents will be presented to the council as a personnel file, thus making the presentation a personnel issue and subject to a closed meeting.

In other action, the council will:

•  Again discuss waiving fees for council member records requests;
•  Consider a contract with Swift Construction for the paving of La-Z-Boy Drive;
•  Hear an annexation petition request from Stan Marion;
•  Consider on second and third readings a measure which would change how property is annexed into the city. Currently, all property approved for annexation is taken into the city under R-1, single family dwelling, then rezoned according to its appropriate use. The measure would change that to zoning the property properly when it’s first annexed into Neosho.