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Name this tune and wina free classified ad. Details

in this week’s classified section.

Read more on Page 2A about the Mehlville Opti-mist Club’s Students of the Month.

Grantwood Village’s finances for fiscal 2013 were “in good order,” according to John Nanos of Boyd, Franz & Stephans LLP. Nanos recently presented a review on the financial state-ments to the Board of Trustees. Read this web-exclusive story and a host of others by visiting www.callnewspapers.com.

Web exclusive

Spreading some holiday cheerCambelle Gartland, a kindergarten student at Hagemann

Elementary School, assembles a rainbow-loom, rubber-band bracelet for patients at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center. Hagemann third-graders and their kindergarten buddies recently got together to make the bracelets. Read more on Page 3A.

Volume 17, Number 1 1 Section, 16 Pages Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014 callnewspapers.com9977 Lin Ferry DriveSt. Louis, MO 63123

Concerns about costraised by officials onComplete Streets billBy GLORIA LLOYDStaff Reporter

Legislation that could change the face of county roads by add-ing bike lanes was placed on hold by the County Council after county officials raised concerns about the cost.

The proposed Complete Streets ordinance is similar to mea-sures that have passed across the country and calls for the county to add bike lanes, traffic signals and wheelchair-accessible curbs, among other improvements, whenever it makes changes to a county road.

Heavily supported by the nonprofit organization Trailnet, the bill is co-sponsored by 6th District Councilman Steve Stenger, D-Affton, 5th District Councilman Pat Dolan, D-Richmond Heights, and 1st District Councilwoman Hazel Erby, D-University City.

(See COST, Page 11A)

Planning panel weighs enacting restrictions on tattoo parlorsBy GLORIA LLOYDStaff Reporter

Just as it regulates liquor stores and payday loan providers, the county Planning Commission is considering enacting special re-strictions on tattoo parlors.

The effort is prompted by the proposed move of a success-ful south county tattoo and body-piercing studio, Steel and Ink Studio, from its current location in the Ritz Center strip mall across from South County Center to a larger nearby location also across

from the mall, off South Lindbergh Boulevard next to the Home Depot. The move spurs questions by members of the Planning Commission as to how many tattoo parlors they want in the county and where.

“Is south county OK with just having a tattoo parlor on every corner, if you’re going to let her move right next door?” asked Planning Commission member Keith Taylor of Ballwin at the panel’s December meeting.

(See PARLORS, Page 6A)

Records requests increaseCrestwood’s ’13 legal feesBy KARI WILLIAMSStaff Reporter

Attorney fees of more than $5,000 in a three-month period for reviewing records requested under state law sparked debate at the last Crestwood Board of Aldermen meeting.

City Administrator Mark Sime told aldermen the city had “an extraordinary amount of legal bills” for 2013, including $5,600 to $5,700 to review documents requested under the Missouri Open Meetings and Records Act, also called the Sunshine Law.

The city incurred those legal costs due to Sunshine Law requests in August, September and October, according to Sime.

“... The city needs to go through all of those and when that happens(See FEES, Page 10A)

Board votes to placesolar panels on roofsof three more schoolsBy GLORIA LLOYDStaff Reporter

After their first year of operation, the Mehlville School District’s solar panels are on pace to save the district money on utilities just as predicted by officials, who will add more panels this year.

The Board of Education voted 6-1, with Secretary Rich Franz opposed, at its December meeting to expand the district’s solar energy program to the roofs of three more schools.

Franz voted for the first set of solar panels last year and said he supports solar energy, but he wants more time to gauge the success of the current panels before adding more.

Under solar-panel leasing arrangements that are popular with schools and fire dis-tricts, districts can lease solar panels with no up-front cost and save money on utility

(See PANELS, Page 3A)

Our town ..................... Page 2AMehlville news ........... Page 3AOpinions ..................... Page 4ACalendar...................... Page 5AObituaries ................... Page 7AGreen Park news ........ Page 8ASchool news ............... Page 9ACrestwood news ......... Page 10AClassifieds ................... Page 12ACrossword puzzle ....... Page 13A

Inside the Call

Green Park aldermen OK2014 budget with 6-0 voteBy MIKE ANTHONYExecutive Editor

The Green Park Board of Aldermen re-cently voted unanimously to adopt a 2014 budget that projects a surplus of more than $50,000 in the general fund.

The 2014 budget projects general fund revenues totaling $1,080,340 with antici-pated expenditures of $1,029,624 — a sur-plus of $50,716.

City officials project an ending balance of $3,204,955 in the general fund on Dec. 31, 2014. Of that amount, $2,764,955 is un-reserved.

For the capital improvements fund, the approved budget anticipates revenues of $410,000 with expenditures of $400,000 — a surplus of $10,000. For 2014, city offi-cials project an ending balance of $39,573 in the capital improvements fund.

(See BUDGET, Page 8A)

• CostCommittee meeting requested by Erbyto learn more on Complete Streets bill(Continued from Page 1A)

In light of questions about how much it will cost, Dolan held the bill again at last week’s council meeting. For the fourth straight week, a line of county residents fi led in to speak for and against the bill.

Under Complete Streets policies, planners elevate the interests of pedestrians, bicyclists and mass transit riders to the same consideration as drivers when building streets.

Opposition to the Complete Streets legislation mostly centers on potential cost, although some county cyclists said they prefer bikes to be part of routine traffi c lanes.

Residents who support the bill point to the health ben-efi ts that could be gained if more people are able to bike or walk alongside county roads.

Jennifer Chan said she just moved from New York City with her three children last summer and wants St. Louis to emulate her former city and get more kids biking and walking to school.

“Our Mayor (Mike) Bloomberg did a fabulous job in creating more bike lanes for a healthier New York,” she said. “I guess we want to make a healthier St. Louis.”

As proposed, the bill would require that the county “equally promote access, mobility and health for all users ... including pedestrians, bicyclists, users of mass transit, people of all ages and abilities, motorists, emergency responders, freight providers and adjacent land users.”

In general, that will mean more bike lanes and sidewalks on county roads, but how many and for how much is up for debate, County Executive Charlie Dooley said.

The actual cost to implement the measure hinges on what exactly the bill requires the county to do, but county offi cials and Complete Streets advocates dispute the other side’s interpretation of the bill’s requirements.

To clear things up, bill co-sponsor Erby requested a Com-mittee of the Whole meeting be held in January to learn

more about the bill, clear up the competing claims and hear from all those involved.

Dolan plans to meet with some of the groups opposed after the holidays to address the cost and safety concerns that are holding up the bill.

The county already embraces some aspects of the Complete Streets philosophy and adds sidewalks and access for the disabled whenever it can in new projects, said David Wrone, spokesman for the county Department of Highways and Traffi c. But county offi cials are worried about being locked into building bike lanes on all 3,100 miles of county roads, at a cost of more than $1 billion, he added.

The city of St. Louis adopted the policy in 2009, and some roads have been narrowed from two lanes each way to one to make room for bike lanes.

The bill states the county “shall implement and create a system” connecting county roads with Great Rivers Green-way trails, transit stations, learning institutions, civic cen-ters “and other high visitation facilities.”

Department of Highways and Traffi c offi cials interpret those clauses to mean that every county road would have to be retrofi tted with bike lanes, with few exceptions — and disregarding the costs involved.

Using the same techniques they regularly use to project the costs of road projects, county highway engineers esti-mate it would cost more than $300 million to retrofi t just 15 percent of county roads with bike lanes.

“Our perception of the bill is that it would in fact require substantial fi nancial outlays,” Wrone said. “And those outlays are, as we’ve said, very concerning ... We are concerned about the fi nancial unknowns of the bill, which is why we communicated them publicly.”

Dolan and Trailnet, however, dispute the engineers’ fi gure, saying the bill would only require that the county adapt roads as money allows, during existing construction or improvement projects.

The bill calls for implementing bike lanes on a “street-by-street, case-by-case basis, wherever it makes sense,”

Dolan said, noting that if the county did not have the money to build a bike lane or add a sidewalk during a road project, it would not have to.

“We can’t spend money we don’t have,” he said. “Ulti-mately, if (the county) doesn’t want to OK the money spent on the roadway, they have the right to turn that down.”

The bill is not a mandate for the county to spend hun-dreds of millions of dollars, Dolan added.

“The numbers out there are totally false,” he said. “Mil-lions and billions of dollars, that’s never been the inten-tion. Everybody knows that.”

The city of St. Louis has seen no added costs from Complete Streets, and due to the recession, road budgets have actually declined in the years since the city began implementing the incremental improvements, 24th Ward Alderman Scott Ogilvie said.

“These things don’t automatically increase costs to road departments,” Ogilvie said. “If there are increased costs, we strongly feel they are more than offset by increased safety and quality of life.”

Under the bill, exceptions to Complete Streets would have to be documented with data and “may be considered for approval when ... the cost is excessively disproportion-ate to the need or future use,” or “Other available means or factors indicate an absence of need, including future need.”

The data-based evidence requirement for exceptions does not add much to the county’s costs, since county engineers would be doing the work of planning the road project anyway, Dolan said.

Although Dolan said he had met with the highway department about the bill “numerous times,” Wrone said Dolan had not met with the department since it developed its cost estimates.

“There’s not been a dialogue,” Wrone said. “I’m won-dering how many staff highway engineers he has devel-oping fi gures. I would say the answer to that would be none. Trailnet’s got a dietitian — maybe that’s where his expertise comes from.”

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