Mid Rivers Newsmagazine News

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St. Peters mayor explains new-found support for Premier 370

By Jeannie Seibert

In a series of emails from Great Rivers Habitat Alliance (GRHA) public relations firm, The Lafayette Partners, the firm’s principal, Glenn Jamboretz expressed disgruntlement with St. Peters Mayor Len Pagano’s performance in office.

Jamboretz wrote that through his and GRHA’s efforts, Pagano won the April 2007 special election called to determine who would fill out the remaining year of former-mayor Shawn Brown’s term.

After a year with Pagano in the office, the April 2008 election ballot saw only one name for the full four-year term – Len Pagano.

Now that Pagano is firmly ensconced at City Hall, Jambortez maintains Pagano has flip-flopped.

Jamboretz forwarded numerous documents to Mid Rivers Newsmagazine illustrating Pagano’s stance against the Lakeside 370 project in the months prior to the 2007 election.

By reversing his prior lack of commitment to Lakeside 370 when he was an alderman, Pagano’s efforts as mayor to advance that development show that he has abandoned the interests of those responsible for getting him into the office in the first place, Jamboretz claims.

GRHA was essentially formed to fight Lakeside 370 – most particularly the levee built to protect the property from flooding – back when long-time mayor Tom Brown was in office.

Shawn Brown upset Tom Brown in the 2004 election, largely thanks to GRHA and its affiliates, according to Shawn Brown while he was still in office.

Now with a second GRHA-backed mayor in place, Jamboretz appears to be doubly disappointed as Pagano has worked tirelessly to advance the project which has now been split into two developments: one, a city park; and, the other Premier 370 Business Park, owned by Duke Realty and Gundaker Commercial Group.

Pagano doesn’t deny that he’s changed his opinion. Even after 20-plus years as an alderman, Pagano said he just didn’t have the same perspective toward the project that one year as mayor has given him.

Pagano said that after he took office in 2007, he quickly became convinced that a successful Lakeside/Premier 370 would serve more St. Peters residents better than if its scrapped altogether – a questionable course since Premier 370 is now owned by other parties.

The timing of the 2007 election made all the difference.

At about that point, construction projects throughout the county were beginning to show signs of a slow-down. Now, a year later, construction jobs – especially in the residential building realm – are the number one casualty in an economic downturn.

“As mayor of the city of St. Peters, I have a strong obligation to the citizens of the community, who expressed a 67 percent vote for this,” Pagano said. “The levee has already been built. It would be wrong – against my oath – to destroy a project that will have rewards to the community and the county.”

Pagano said literally thousands of man hours of high paying union jobs would be required to complete the Lakeside/Premier 370 projects. After that, thousands of permanent jobs would be on the line as well.

A particularly poignant point as this came in the same week that the state’s unemployment figures were released showing for March 2008 a rate of 5.7 percent unemployed in both St. Charles and St. Louis counties.

In April, while some improvement was recorded, it was only minimal. Five percent unemployment in St. Charles County compared to 4.8 percent in St. Louis County.

Pagano pointed out during the June 12 Board of Aldermen meeting that TruFitness in O’Fallon had just announced plans to move the bulk of its operation outside the U.S.

Pagano said it is incumbent on elected officials to do all they can to preserve jobs locally, holding up the Lakeside/Premier 370 as a sorely needed answer in times of questions about workers’ job security.

But GRHA isn’t backing down. Its ongoing lawsuit against St. Peters, in which St. Charles County is also a party against the city, is preparing to go to circuit court for a full trial.

Pagano regrets the city’s additional legal expenses and is convinced that this matter is best played out in the state legislature – not in the courts.

“I truly believe in my heart if this goes to trial, then the appeals court and the Supreme Court, it will just be dismissed,” Pagano said. “Or, they’ll say send it back to the legislature.”

Pagano said the key sticking point in the legal dispute is the definition of blight which is a first step a municipality can take toward establishing an area for redevelopment – a matter for the Missouri General Assembly as it was the legislative body that created the redevelopment statutes in the first place.

“I don’t know what the purpose of this lawsuit is,” Pagano said. “The Supreme Court already rejected it once. I feel they’ll reject it again.”

Pagano said he started working with GRHA and County Executive Steve Ehlmann to find a compromise the first week in office. The more he tried to orchestrate a deal that all sides could live with, the more he became convinced that St. Peters acted within the law throughout the process and the people the city represents stood to lose more by abandoning Lakeside 370 than doing everything possible to see the project through.

During the June 12 meeting Pagano and Board President Jerry Hollingsworth joined together to express appreciation to City Administrator Bill Charnisky for carrying on with the Lakeside 370 development through the ups and downs of three mayors, an interim board president and an onslaught of legal challenges in which the city consistently prevailed.

Pagano believes in giving credit where it’s due.

“And I do have a good relationship with Steve (Ehlmann) – we’re hitting on all eight cylinders,” Pagano said, explaining that the county and the city are working jointly on a number of projects.

“But we’ve spent a ton of money and I’d like to see the county, Great Rivers and St. Peters work out a peace treaty,” Pagano said. “Let’s accept it and move on for the betterment of the community.”

At press time, a crest of the Mississippi River was expected within days. It remains to be seen if the Lakeside 370 levee will worsen flooding upstream or fail, as GRHA has long predicted. That may determine whether or not the dispute will even continue.