The city of De Soto will receive $500,000 from the county to build a rail passenger platform.
Jefferson County Council members voted 6-0 on Monday to award the funds to De Soto, which will use them to design and construct an Amtrak station near the De Soto Public Library. Councilman Dan Stallman (District 6, De Soto) was absent from the meeting.
The county has received up to $43,719,346 in ARPA funds, and the $500,000 will come from those funds, according to the bill the County Council passed on Monday.
Before the council vote, State Rep. Cyndi Buchheit-Courtway (R-Festus), who represents District 115, told council members that having an Amtrak stop in De Soto will have a positive impact on the whole county, drawing people from all over the state, adding that it would be safer and more convenient to board an Amtrak train in De Soto than in St. Louis.
Buchheit-Courtway said the first step for the project, which businessman Jim Thomas spearheaded, was getting the go-ahead from Amtrak last August. Both Buchheit-Courtway and District 3 state Sen. Elaine Gannon (R-De Soto) focused on securing state funding for the project.
“We were able to get $1 million put into the (2024-2025) state budget for this project,” Buchheit-Courtway said.
However, the state required a 50-50 match, so the city had to come up with $1 million. The city had committed to putting $500,000 into the project and asked the county to help.
“If we don’t have $1 million of our own, then we can’t pool all $1 million,” Buchheit-Courtway told the County Council prior to its vote on the allocation. “I think this would be a great, interesting opportunity, not only for De Soto, but our county and also our state because people will come through here, people will see Jefferson County for what Jefferson County is.”
De Soto City Councilman Todd Mahn also attended the County Council meeting and thanked the councilmembers for considering the bill.
County Executive Dennis Gannon said he doesn’t normally congratulate anyone after a bill is passed, but he congratulated those involved with the Amtrak project. “I do think it is a pretty big deal,” he said.
De Soto City Manager Todd Melkus said on Tuesday that he and the City Council were grateful to the Jefferson County Council and County Executive Dennis Gannon for allocating ARPA funding for the station.
“I also want to thank Kristy Apprill, the county auditor, and her staff for their work on this, as well as David Courtway, the director of administration,” he said. “This has been an extensive group effort from all levels, and it is great to see all of this come to fruition. This will allow us to utilize the entire $1 million allocation from the state of Missouri that state Rep. Cyndi Buchheit-Courtway and state Sen. Elaine Gannon were instrumental in helping us receive. “
Melkus said the De Soto City Council voted unanimously on Sept. 6 to enter into a contract with the Illinois-based Crawford, Murphy & Tilly Inc firm to assist in the design, development and engineering aspects of this project. TranSystems of Sunset Hills and Wilson & Company of Kansas also submitted letters of interest.
He said the city is currently negotiating the contract, including the costs, with Crawford, Murphy & Tilly.
“If for some reason we are unable to come to an understanding, we can decide to change and go with one of the other firms, but I don’t see that happening,” he said. “We are currently working to finalize the details of that contract with CMT and are also awaiting our preliminary engineering agreement from Union Pacific as well.”
Melkus said the firm will work with the city, Amtrak, Union Pacific and MoDOT during every aspect of the project, from surveying, engineering, legalities, real estate, design, and creating construction documents.