St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 97

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH WEST POST MONDAY, MAY 19, 2003 W2 STLtoday.com Ellisville II. City considers a wide range of fee hikes said fee income covered less than half of the $400,000 expense for housing inspections; taxes pay for merest. "These are our costs," he said at a budget meeting last week. "The public shouldn't be asked to cover inspection fees." Ollendorff also proposed boosting fees for recreational soccer and golf, charging for basketball at the Fitness Center and increasing rates and enforcement at parking meters.

"If we just spend a little more time on enforcement, we'd not just get money from the tickets, but people will know we mean business and put money in the, meters," he said. He also suggested boosting City widening gap between the cost of services and the money raised through user fees will prompt City Manager Frank Ollendorff to ask the City Council to consider a wide range of fee hikes in coming months. Ollendorff said he would ask the council to boost the charge for building permits and inspections and double or triple the $10 occupancy permit cost. Building permit rates are based on the amount of work being done; for example, $25,000 in construction costs $225. Inspections are $65 a unit for a single-or two-family home.

Ollendorff said these rates hadn't changed in years, and the cost of inspections had grown. He Marcella Howard, whose hus- band, Don, has Alzheimer's dis-' ease, explained anxiously: "Don loves to garden. He can still re- member how to garden. If we move to a condominium, he wont have that anymore." To her, too, Flower responded -that the church did not want the- residents to move and had no in- tention of blacktopping the whole place for a parking lot It only wanted a sliver of the western edge of the subdivision for its purposes, he said. Orpha Reagan snapped at Flower, "The church has always known how we feel.

You went and made your plans anyway and bulldozed ahead as if we didn't i exist The only way you can do what you do is spend money we i don't have and override our wishes." Two men accused Flower, a de- veloper, of having a personal in- terest in turning out the residents by wanting to make a profit for himself in the real-estate transac- tions. He denied any personal in- terest Just when it seemed that the meeting might get really ugly, a woman in the back raised her hand and was recognized. "I'm just worried about the way people are driving so fast in the subdivision," she said. "You know, we've got two signs posted "a with 20 mph speed limits, but people are just tearing through." It was such a routine concern normal subdivision business. The trustees looked at each other, -emerging from their opposing corners to address a shared con- cern.

"I can call the city tor about it," Reagan said. "Or Don, you could do it?" "I can do that," Flower said. Reporter Florence Shinkle: E-mail: Phone: 314-729-7904 Church-subdivision battle opens new front Continued from page 1 sued in court to have removed. The trustees filed a counter-suit; a trial is expected in the fall. This complex and anguishing situation leaves little room for diplomatic overtures, but Flower can be expected to try to persuade his co-trustees to approve an amendment to the indentures to allow the church a one-time encroachment within the subdivision's boundaries.

If he can get the proposal for an amendment before the property owners, he and the church have the votes to carry the majority necessary to approve the amendment But first he has to forge an uneasy alliance with his co-trustees not an easy undertaking in view of the anger and distrust that greeted Flower at the annual meeting at the Daniel Boone Library in Ellisville. Speaking in a soft voice, he fielded furious and poignant salvos from owners who accused the church of sins ranging from destabilizing a once-close neighborhood to not cutting the grass in front of one of its properties. (The property turned out to be owned by a bank, not the church.) "The church's buying the lots has put me in a very uncomfortable position," said Vicky Hook-land, whose child, Joshua, died of leukemia a year ago. "Before he died, that little boy told me not to sell. He loved that back yard.

I'm not ready to leave that back yard." Flower responded: "I dont want you to leave. I don't want you to sell." HOW TO I j.iijii ill i uiiuli.ii.1.1 m.iMiki'..Ll j'U "'iV 1' V'l" 1. TPS! I I It-! 1 Court costs and fines, if possible, and increasing the ambulance fee. The council must approve nearly all fee hikes; two exceptions are court costs, which the state specifies, and fines, which are set by the municipal judge. Income from court fines, investments and sales taxes, the largest revenue source, were below expectations this year, according to budget figures.

Ollendorff said officials were rninimizing new spending. A 2 percent cost-of-living hike for employees and a 23.5 percent jump in health-insurance costs are among the few increases in next year's budget. The council will take public comments and vote on the budget tonight. Maryland Heights hires consultants By Glen Sparks Special to the Post-Dispatch The Maryland Heights City Council has decided to hire consultants for several improvement projects. Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas Inc.

was hired for $294,785 on a project proposed on Weldon Parkway from Dorsett Road to Westiine Industrial Drive. Officials want to widen the road to 39 feet from 26 feet, add a center turning lane and improve the pavement Maryland Heights will pay $165,496 in consulting fees to George Butler Associates, Inc. for a project to reconstruct and improve the alignment of McKelvey Road from Bennington Place to Ameling Road. Horner and Shifrin Inc. will get $26,829 to consult on a project to reconstruct Bennington Place from Creve Coeur Mill Road to Glenpark Drive.

The project also calls for putting in ADA-compat-ible sidewalks on both sides of Bennington and the possible addition of traffic lights. Maryland Heights, will pay $26,440 in consulting fees to Doering Engineering for storm-water projects at 11913 Glenridge Drive and 3088 and 3092 Postport Lane. During bad storms, water runs onto the rear of these properties and forms pools, says Bryan Pearl, director of public works for Maryland Heights. No other flow paths can handle the water. late the master plan, which doesn't allow subdivisions that dense west of 109.

The Wildwood Planning and Zoning Commission also would have to evaluate the proposal for the subdivision be fore the council could vote on it 3F" REACH US Sutin REPORTERS Florence Shinkle phone: 314-729-7904; fax: 314-842-7483; mailing address: 9966 Lin Ferry Drive, St. Louis, MO 63123; e-mail: LARRY WILLIAMS POST-DISPATCH Opera singers Thomas Barrett and Angela Horn at home in Chesterfield with Watson, their Welsh corgi. Costs for permits, inspections, more are to be proposed By Tim Logan Special to the Post-Dispatch University City residents soon may be paying higher fees for everything from building permits to basketball to balance the municipality's $26.3 million budget. Lower sales-tax revenue and a Family Opera singers find area hits all the right notes Continued from page 1 Giovanni." Horn recalled that the audience was unaware of the drama within the drama. "He whispered to me secretly and slipped the ring on my finger," Horn said.

"It was very romantic and so much more memorable than over a dinner table." Barrett and Horn have won several awards and scholarships. Barrett was the recipient of the $30,000 Richard Gaddes Award from Opera Theatre of St Louis. The New York City Opera named Horn outstanding artist of the 1997-98 season. Barrett and Horn lived in New York for six years. Barrett made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2001 in the production of "The Merry Widow." Horn performed in 13 productions in one year for the New York City Opera.

She won recognition for her interpretation of Carmen in the opera of the same name. "I love opera but I also enjoy doing recitals and concert work with symphonies," she said. "I feel so fortunate when I'm able to work with Tom, as we will in the Crescendo series this month." The two singers are in rehearsal for this season's American premiere of "Flight," an Opera Theatre of St Louis production. Horn noted that the performance would mark the 10th anniversary of Barrett's marriage proposal. Horn described the couple as a great team when it comes to juggling career and parenting.

Both singers teach private voice lessons and take lessons from a teacher in New York. She said challenges included getting Trail Wildwood will buy land to save trees Continued from page 1 option. The option would have expired in June. The vote last week came after a discussion that included pleas from the owners of eight of the 11 properties directly affected, a debate about whether the purchase was an illegal use of public money for private purposes and whether the water company had the right to tear down the trees when that would violate a Wild-wood ordinance requiring buffers of trees around subdivisions. Lafayette Trails resident Patty Stelleum told the council she felt betrayed when she heard it had voted against exercising the option.

"You need to see where it's going to go; if right in our back yards," she said. "We have trees that are 150 years old, and they're going to bulldoze them." Jim Antonacci, 6th Ward, was among those voting no. The smiling faces at Delmar Gardens-on-the-Green reflect the kind of care bur residents from the heart. Highly qualified health-care and rehabilitative services are offered in a warm, Margaret Gillerman phone: 314-725-6758; IrWBWHHitSMfti Shinkle llHJlWMM'I mailing address: 200 South Bemiston Avenue, Room 101, Clayton, MO 63105; Phil Sutin St. Louis County government news phone: 314-863-2812; fax: 314-862-0005; mailing address: 200 South Bemiston Avenue, Room 101, Clayton, MO 63105; e-mail: Gillerman CIRCULATION To subscribe to the Post-Dispatch or to report a delivery problem, call 340-8888 or (800) 365-0820 extension 8888.

enough sleep as well as making sure the children were well taken care of while their work was not neglected. They take turns working and caring for the babies. "We traveled to Charlotte recently where my husband performed, and I took care of the children," she said. "We try to take jobs only when the other isn't working." "We'd be buying a property that would benefit 11 people and not benefit the whole community," he said. "The City Council is setting a precedent of buying property with no public purpose." Barbara Foy, a former council-woman, said buying the land would assure residents that the municipality would preserve the buffer requirements in the subdivision code, a provision that, Foy said, was as important to Wild-wood as its tree protection and natural-resource-protection ordinances.

'This is one of the extra measures that Wildwood takes to protect its citizens and to protect its environment," she said. "I would like to think that this does not ap ADVERTISING Donna Hesser-Bischoff phone: 314-340-8529; fax: 314-340-3140; mailing address: 900 North Tucker Boulevard, St. Louis, 63101-1099; e-mail: Hesser-Bischoff Barrett said he often was asked why two international opera singers would choose to return to St Louis when they could live in any city in the world with an airport "We tell them that living here is the best way for us to perform in a culturally vibrant area, to be close to our musical family and at the same time provide a wonderful quality of life for our children," Barrett said. ply to just Lafayette Trails." Missouri-American's plan could change because the developer, McBride and Son, hopes to put a subdivision in the land immediately west of Lafayette Trails. Plans on file with Wild-wood show the water main going down one of the subdivision's streets along with 28 acres of parkland, including a nine-acre pond.

The 84-lot, 65-acre subdivision would need a zoning change from the council to go forward, says Ryan Thomas, Wildwood's public-works director. According to the city charter, the change would need a two-thirds majority from the council for approval because it would vio -i Delmar Gardens Enterprise lzzier Stared In Horror As My Doctor Said. "I've Done All I Can Do. Just Wear This Wrist Splint Whenever You Feel Pain" St Louis, MO A free report has just been released which reveals the hidden dangers of using prescription drugs, wrist splints, and even surgery to treat carpal tunnel symptoms. Did you know that splints may cause scar tissue to form in your wrist? For a free report that unleashes the shocking truth about carpal tunnel symptom treatment, call toll-free 1-800-584-9209.

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