St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 79

I I Late or MeetinS: Tw0 burglars break Church Events: Advent and Christmas Vikings Lose: Francis Howell over- ItSH IMS I IM I C. jnto Alcoholics Anonymous 3 activities at churches 3 matched against DeSmet 5 JMJ I ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH TO! arte sc SECTION FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1990 ST. CHARLES COUNTY oiiffloiniuSDuD St. Peters Wins Approval For Rezoning Of Limestone Quarry For Landfill A 1 flli sJ By Ralph Dummit Of the St.

Charles Post Climaxing a nearly two-year battle, St. Peters got approval Thursday from the St. Charles County Commission to rezone a limestone quarry for use as a sanitary landfill. But a rocky road lies ahead for St. Peters before the municipality is able to put the 27.5-acre site into operation as a landfill.

The quarry is just south of the St. Charles city limits near the Missouri River. St. Peters bought the site early last year. Opponents of the landfill mostly homeowners who live in the vicinity of the quarry jammed the commission chamber and spilled into the hallway outside as the commission voted 2-to-l to approve the rezoning.

Presiding Commissioner Gerald E. Ohlms and Western District Commissioner Robert A. Perkins voted to approve the rezoning. Eastern District Commissioner Nancy C. Becker voted to deny the request.

But the commission's approval of the rezoning was accompanied by a list of 30 conditions that must be met before the land can be used as a landfill. The first condition is that St. Peters must comply with all requirements of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources for the operation of the landfill. St.

Peters Mayor Thomas Brown said the Board of Aldermen will meet Dec. 13 to approve the conditions for getting a conditional-use permit from the county. The next step, then, will be for St. Peters to file its formal application to the Department of Natural Resources for a permit. While conceding that hurdles remain, Brown speculated that approval could be granted by the department within two years.

"We always anticipate problems along the way," he said. "The DNR will test and determine if it is a Becker said Thursday morning's vote should not have occurred, that the decision on the landfill rezoning should have been referred to the three new members of the commission who will take office Jan. 1. They should study the issue and make the decision, Becker said. But Paul O.

Schnare, one of the three who will serve on the new commission, said that the other two commissioners who will serve with him had said they wanted no part in deciding the issue. In a meeting in Ohlms' office, Schnare said, "Mr. Ohlms asked us, 'You don't want to deal with this, do And both William J. Luet-kenhaus and Eugene Schwendemann said no. As far as I was concerned that closed it." Schnare will represent the Eastern District.

Luetkenhaus will be the Western District Commissioner. Schwendemann was elected as presiding commissioner. Asked if he had been willing to deal with the landfill issue, Schnare said yes. "I would have gone through all the materials. The commission needs to see the evidence before they make a decision and not make the decision on public pressure or an emotional basis." Becker said after the meeting that the rezoning that had been authorized by the vote of the other two commissioners "allows only a landfill." She asserted that a materials-recovery facility or recycling center that St.

Peters had proposed for the site would violate the county's existing zoning order. "We would have to change our entire zoning order to allow such a facility," she said. "But St. Peters comes along and just sticks it in there. It's amazing." Becker predicted that the county would be slapped with a class-action suit by homeowners in the area.

"The county is broke as it is. I don't know how we'll make it," she said. safe landfill site," the mayor said. "St. Peters won't act until it is 100 percent safe environmentally.

We're probably three or four years away from a working, active landfill." Brown acknowledged, "We're taking a lot of heat." But, he said, if St. Peters did not pursue the landfill proposal and people in the county would be paying $45 a month to have their garbage hauled away in four or five years, "people would be asking why somebody hadn't taken any action." Further, he said, the landfill would provide a waste-disposal site for the entire county for 10 to 15 years. Referring to the quarry, Brown said, "That hole, that liability that otherwise would remain there forever, could someday become an asset to the county it could become a park" as part of the land reclamation requirement. Meanwhile, opponents of the landfill have vowed to continue their fight to block the use of the quarry as a landfill. Penny Bennett, co-chairwoman of the Stop the Dump committee, said after the vote by the commission that she and her group would go to court.

"We're definitely not giving up," she said. Reading a prepared statement before the commission voted, Bennett said she represented more than 1,000 owners of homes and businesses "who are outraged at the thought of siting a sanitary landfill in a leaky pit in the corner of an active quarry, next to the Missouri River and in the midst of an established residential area." She pointed out that the county had hired a hydrogeologist to study the site and that he had recommended in "a resounding no" that the site not be used for a landfill. Bennett said that St. Peters' engineering company "naturally feels that this site is ideal they have at stake their contract to install and monitor the site for the next 30-plus years. It's money in their bank account." She reminded the commission that the county Planning and Zoning Commission had recommended denial of the rezoning request.

Another opponent of the landfill Lester Kern, who owns a home near the quarry angrily told Perkins after the meeting, "There's going to be a class-action suit." Asserting that he represented about 75 other people in his neighborhood whose property values would suffer because of a nearby landfill, Kern said to Perkins, "You know who is going to pay? You're going to be named in that suit if this thing goes through. You and the rest of them. We're fighting for our lives." Kern, 72, said he is retired and living on a limited income. He accused Perkins of "bowing to the money people." Perkins said he had bowed to no one. Kern reminded Perkins that the commissioner had switched his position on the landfill issue.

Perkins said he had changed his mind based on an accumulation of studies and reports that had been made about the proposal. Ohlms, who had made the motion to approve the rezoning, told the audience that the commission had reviewed "46 exhibits from proponents and 38 from the opponents All have been reviewed and studied to the extent of our capabilities." Becker, after voting against the rezoning, made a statement explaining her position. She asserted that the landfill would create "a threat to the health, safety and welfare of the county and to land values of citizens in the county." She said a landfill at the site posed the threat of contaminating the Missouri River and water wells in the area. She said no provision had been made to compensate homeowners for any loss of property values that a landfill might spawn. She pointed out that the landfill would be next to the Katy trail and result in "a threat to recreation and tourism and produce an economic loss to the county." Penny Bennett, a leader of opposition to the proposed landfill.

lou know who is going to pay? You're going to be named in that suit if this thing goes through. You and the rest of them. We're fighting for our lives, LESTER KERN, landfill opponent. ST. CHARLES COUNTY Pair To Face Trial In Killing Of 2 Men On Deserted Road I aSC By Marianna Riley Of the St.

Charles Post Two men from St. Charles County will go to trial for killing two other men on a deserted road last April. After a preliminary hearing Thursday, St. Charles County Associate Circuit Judge Lucy D. Rauch ruled that probable cause existed that the two committed the murders.

She ordered the pair to stand trial on two charges each of first-degree murder and armed criminal action and one tampering charge. They are Robert Shafer, 20, of the 800 block of Marina Drive, and David Steinmeyer, 17, of St. Charles County. Steinmeyer was 16 at the time the crime was committed but has been certified by the juvenile court to be tried as an adult. They are accused of killing Ford Jerry Parker, 49, of the 400 block of San Juan in St.

Charles, and Keith D. Young, 38, of De Soto. The victims' bodies were found in a ditch south of Silvers Road, about a mile and a half west of Highway north of St. Peters. The men both died of gunshot wounds to their heads, said Dr.

Mary Case, St. Charles County's medical examiner, in court testimony. The most dramatic testimony came near the end of the hearing and was provided by Christie Adams, a classmate of Steinmeyer. Adams said she had overheard Steinmeyer tell somebody else that he had shot someone and that his victim had begged for his life. She said Steinmeyer had said, "I had to shoot him again because he'd seen my face." "He said he'd never seen so much blood in his life," Adams said.

Although neither defendant testified Thursday, both are expected to enter a self-defense plea. Butch Ifland, a detective with the St. Charles County Sheriff's Department, testified that Shafer had told him that "in my mind it wasn't murder." Ifland gave this account of Shafer's story: Shafer and Steinmeyer were hitchhiking along Missouri Highway 94 North when Parker and Young stopped. Shafer and Steinmeyer offered the men money to take them to a girlfriend's house in St. Peters.

But instead, when they got to the St. Peters area, the driver, Young, headed north to Silvers Road in northern St. Charles County. Shafer told Hand that after scuffling with Parker and Young the shootings occurred. Shafer and Steinmeyer then took the Missouri Highway 115 bridge across the river, and Steinmeyer threw the gun into the river.

They returned to St. Charles County and left the car on the parking lot of the IGA Store on North 94. Ifland also testified that Shafer had told him he had gone to a priest to confess and had told his mother but was still not relieved. Shafer has since told the St. Charles Post that he was pressured and coerced into making a confession and was not allowed to talk to a lawyer, even though he asked for one.

I L.T. SpenceSt. Charles Post St Peters City Administrator Bob Irvin, state Sen. Fred Dyer, R-St. Charles, and St.

Peters Mayor Thomas Brown talking at the meeting of the St. Charles County Commission, which approved St. Peters' use of an old quarry as a landfill Brown said the Board of Aldermen would meet Dec. 13 to approve the conditions for getting a conditional-use permit from the county. The next step will be for St.

Peters to file its formal application to the Department of Natural Resources for a permit. ST. CHARLES COUNTY ST. CHARLES COUNTY Off The Blocks Dames To Seek Legal Opinion On Proposal For Commission St. Peters Gets A Jump In Race To Build Olympic Pool Ihe bill would create a nine-member county commission with power to enact ordinances.

scales up to but no higher than that figure. Dames' proposal would enable voters in the county to elect a representative from each of eight districts to sit on a county commission to replace the current three-member commission. Voters would elect at-large an additional member who would serve as presiding commissioner. He has repeatedly said his push is not aimed at undermining efforts to win a home-rule charter for St. Charles County.

Dames says that effort is stalled. Instead, Dames says his proposal would give the county greater autonomy. Penny Henke, co-chairwoman of the county home rule committee, indicated that she believes Dames' proposal needs more study to insure that it is workable. But Henke did not say she was against Dames' alternate form of government. By Robert Manor Of the St.

Charles Post State Rep. George Dames, D-O'Fallon, plans to ask Missouri's Attorney General's Office for an opinion on the constitutionality of his plan to give St. Charles County a larger commission with greater power. Dames met with other officials and the public Wednesday night to discuss legislation he plans to introduce next year. The bill would create a nine-member county commission with the power to enact ordinances something now reserved by the state.

Dames said some observers questioned whether such a form of government would be constitutional. They especially questioned whether the county could enact ordinances. He said he had checked with legislative researchers and they assured him that under his bill the county legally could adopt By Robert Manor Of the St. Charles Post St. Peters appears to be in first place in the race to build an indoor Olympic pool and diving center.

St. Charles, meanwhile, seems to have belly-flopped. A councilman who wanted the competitive center for the city says its chances now are slim. Attorney Gary Heifetz has been working with the Regional Commerce and Growth Association to attract the U.S. Olympic Festival to the St.

Louis area for the games of 1994 or 1995. Olympic officials recently narrowed the list of potential host cities to five. St. Louis made the cut. The largest facility needed for the games is a 50-meter pool and diving center able to seat several thousand spectators.

No such pool exists in Missouri, and several St. Louis area communities are interested in building one. "The city of St. Peters is moving along very quickly and very respon-sively," Heifetz said. He said that St.

Peters, which is offering a number of incentives to the committee, probably has the best chance of having the diving competition. "We are committed to it," said St. Peters Mayor Thomas Brown. "Everybody is excited about it." Brown said the city was willing to donate land near its city hall for the pool and was also willing to put up $1 million for construction. The city had already set aside money to build a smaller, outdoor pool for that amount, so it does not add a burden to the city budget.

Brown said that the pool and diving center probably would be equipped with a sliding glass wall. In the winter, the wall would enclose the pool. In the summer, the wall would be retracted and the pool would be outdoors. Preliminary estimates show the center would cost between $4 million and $6.5 million to build. "We haven't worked all the numbers out yet," Brown said.

But one number 26 'i is pushing St. Peters into the water, Brown said. Recent census data shows that the average St. Peters resident is just 26 12 I years old, Brown said. He said the large number of relatively young people are likely to use the pool and also are likely to have children who also will be interested in swimming.

The city of St. Charles, which was one of the first communities in the region to discuss building the pool, is apparently out of the running. Councilman Ken Kielty of Ward 5 has pushed for the city to get into the pool with almost no success. Mayor Grace Nichols and other council members have not endorsed the idea because they say the city cannot afford it. "I can't get anybody in the city to move," Kielty said.

"There is no enthusiasm, which is incredible because it would be such a people-attracter." "If I sound bitter, I am," Kielty said. Officials with the local Olympic committee say that a year-round Olympic quality pool would attract meets from throughout Missouri and probably from adjacent states as well. It also could be used by local school districts as well as the public, i ordinances. But he said he would ask the Attorney General's Office for a legal opinion on the matter. "It is breaking new ground and we have got to make sure what we are doing is right before we proceed," Dames said.

He said he would ask for the opinion next week but could not predict when it would be issued. Dames said one question still to be answered was how the commission could set salaries. He said the state could set a cap on salaries, then allow the county to set pay.