A group of residents decided to end its effort to recall all the elected Arnold city officials, two days after the city held a public meeting to explain the controversial transportation development district that was going to fund a proposed road project that was abandoned after it sparked public outrage.
The Citizens Against the Construction of Arnold Parkway announced on Sept. 28 it would no longer collect signatures to recall Arnold Mayor Ron Counts, City Treasurer Dan Kroupa and councilmen EJ Fleischmann, Jason Fulbright, Brian McArthur, Bill Moritz, Mark Hood, Rodney Mullins, Butch Cooley and Gary Plunk.
“We expect the city leaders to fulfill their stated promises to rebuild trust and believe stopping the recall effort will allow for a better working relationship going forward,” said Sarah Lurkins, who helped form the group, which as of Monday, had 3,064 members for its Facebook page.
The group formed shortly after city officials announced on Aug. 8 in the Arnold-Imperial Leader their plans to build a 2-mile, two-lane road, to be called Arnold Parkway, which would connect Hwy. 141 and Richardson Road. The plan included acquiring 38 homes, multiple businesses and a portion of the Water Tower Place Shopping Center.
Arnold officials announced on Aug. 26 that they had dropped the road project.
In a letter signed by the No Arnold Parkway Team of Lurkins, Jessica Bess, Dan DeGuire, Michael Eads and John “Jake” Singer, the group said the recall election effort that started on Aug. 15 ended on Sept. 27. The group had until Oct. 15 to collect enough signatures to force a recall election. The recall election petition required signatures from 25 percent of registered voters in the city for the mayor and treasurer and 25 percent of registered voters from the ward each of the councilman represents to have a recall election held.
Lurkins said she did not know how many signatures had been collected, adding that the group had not counted all the signatures it had collected when the decision was made to end the recall effort.
She said the signed recall petitions will be properly destroyed and disposed of.
The group also said in its letter that it will continue its efforts to ensure city leaders fulfill their stated and written promise; to encourage the community to get involved in local government and participate in public hearings; and to share resources regarding committees, council information, local ordinances and more.
“It is not over,” Lurkins said. “We have just begun really. This is just a way for us to focus our efforts for the greater good. We want to focus our energy on longer-term things.”
The meeting
About 60 people attended the city’s Sept. 25 public meeting to explain the Arnold Retail Corridor Transportation Development District (ARC TDD), which would have funded the road project that has since been scrapped.
The ARC TDD collects a 1 percent sales tax from businesses in the Arnold Commons and Arnold Crossroad shopping complexes and some of the businesses in the Water Tower Place Shopping Center retail complex.
City Administrator Bryan Richison provided a handout at the meeting and discussed what TDDs are, why TDDs exist and how TDDs are used. He also presented details about the ARC TDD specifically.
The presentation included information about what the funds from the 1 percent sales tax charged in the ARC TDD could be used for, what projects it was created to pay for and what projects it was created to finance that had not been started.
He also reiterated that the Arnold Parkway road project has been terminated.
Along with working to get stop the road project force recall elections, the Citizens Against the Construction of the Arnold Parkway also have pushed for the ARC TDD to be dissolved and for the 1 percent sales tax to stop being collected.
Richison said the ARC TDD can’t be dissolved because of a lawsuit filed by the owners of the Water Tower Shopping plaza, adding that the sales tax generated by the ARC TDD provides $200,000 annually to pay off tax increment finance (TIF) bonds connected to the Arnold Commons and Arnold Triangle.
Richison said the TIF bonds are expected to be paid off on Sept. 14, 2028.
The Water Tower plaza owners filed a lawsuit on Aug. 12 in Jefferson County Circuit Court to stop Arnold from building the road, and the ARC TDD is named in the lawsuit.
As of Monday, the Water Tower owners had not withdrawn the lawsuit, which was put on hold on Aug. 14, and none of the defendants, including the city of Arnold, have been served.
On Sept. 23, the lawyer representing the Water Tower plaza owners changed.
According to court documents, Joseph Vincent Keady Jr. of the Stinson law firm of St. Louis will represent the owners.
Caroline L. Hermeling of Husch Blackwell had filed the lawsuit for the Water Tower plaza owners, but Stephen Rovak of the Dentons law firm of St. Louis, which is representing the ARC TDD, sent a letter on Sept. 6 that said the Husch Blackwell law firm should not be representing the Water Tower plaza owners because it had represented the Triangle TDD, which is a defendant in the lawsuit filed in August.
Along with the active lawsuit and outstanding financial obligations, Richison said the ARC TDD has outstanding projects that include a road connecting Hwy. 141 to Michigan Avenue, which was part of the Arnold Parkway project. Another outstanding project tied to the ARC TDD includes improvements to Jeffco Boulevard, Hwy. 141 and other publicly accessible roadways, parking facilities and transportation-related improvements benefiting the district.
“I think there were some things cleared up,” Arnold resident Joe Crouch said of the meeting. “I think they gave us the information they wanted to give us, specifically why the TDD cannot be dissolved.”
Counts also said Arnold will begin posting meetings of the ARC TDD Board of Directors on the city’s website so people may attend them.
“I do feel more comfortable with the ARC TDD remaining through 2048, granted that they provide the transparency we asked for,” Lurkins said.
State Rep. Phil Amato, who represents District 113 that includes Arnold, said in his legislative report last week, that he met with a representative from the Missouri Attorney General’s Office to discuss his request for an investigation into a potential Sunshine Law violation while the city planned the abandoned road project.
He said his questions were under discussion in the Attorney’s General Office.
Amato also said he reached out to the Missouri State Auditor’s Office to inquire about the procedure required to ask for an audit of the ARC TDD.
“Our answer to the special audit was basically a polite no, that a state representative asking for one is not the procedure dealing with the Auditors Office,” he wrote.
Counts said he felt the Sept. 25 meeting was productive.
He also said the pushback from the road project has motivated him to be even more transparent with residents.
“I think it has been an eye-opening experience for a lot of folks,” Counts said, adding that he has not decided if he will seek reelection in April. “I will be honest with you, I thought I was pretty transparent. Evidentially, I wasn’t transparent enough. Years ago, when I first ran for mayor, I ran my first campaign on that (being transparent). I will do better.
“I think we will get through this thing. I feel better about it all now from what I felt a week ago.”
More decisions coming
At the Arnold City Council meeting scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 3, councilmen will be asked to vote on three resolutions related to issues connected to the abandoned Arnold Parkway project. The meeting is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 2101 Jeffco Blvd.
The councilmen will be asked to vote on a resolution affirming the termination of the Arnold Parkway project.
They also will be asked to vote on a resolution calling for the dissolution of the ARC TDD and a resolution asking the ARC TDD board to purchase properties in the Christy Drive area from those interested in selling and to allow the city administrator to help the ARC TDD to facilitate those purchases.
On Sept. 26, Richison said ARC TDD funds had been used to purchase nine homes and a business in that area. He said a total of $2,321,000 had spent on those purchases.
The most recent purchases were completed on Sept. 23, with the ARC TDD paying $310,000 for a home at 2159 Christy Drive and $295,000 for a home at 2163 Christy Drive. When homeowners received letters about the ARC TDD possibly purchasing their homes, they were offered $170,000 for them and a $55,000 relocation fee for a total of $225,000.
Richison said 14 additional homeowners have expressed interest in selling their houses and estimated that it would cost $3,413,000 to buy them.
As long as the ARC TDD remains in place and continues to collect its 1 percent sales tax, those homes could be purchased by May 2025, Richison said.
Read previous coverage on the Arnold Parkway project:
