Tower council sets special meeting on town home project

TOWER— The Tower City Council will hold a special meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 19, to take up the town home development agreement for the city’s harbor. The developers did not sign the revised development agreement as of the city’s imposed deadline of Dec. 14, at least in part because the agreement provided to them by City Clerk-Treasurer Linda Keith the day before had erroneously listed Tower Vision 2025 as the developer’s signatory.

For weeks, the developers have made it clear that the agreement for the town home project was to be between the city and Tower Harbor Shores LLC, but Keith failed to make those changes to the agreement.

Keith provided the erroneous agreement to the developers around mid-afternoon on Dec. 13, giving the developers just over 24 hours to review and sign the document.

In the revised agreement, the city of Tower reneges on the council’s commitment, made on Nov. 13, to provide 75-percent city tax abatement and seek 100 percent abatement from St. Louis County. The new agreement provides 62.5 percent abatement from the city and will seek 75 percent abatement from St. Louis County.

On Nov. 26, the council rejected an attempt by Keith and Mayor Josh Carlson to scuttle the Nov. 13 agreement. At that meeting, Keith falsely informed the council that the city’s attorney, Chris Virta, had told her that the tax abatement scheme was illegal because the interest rate on the funds used for public infrastructure exceeded statutory limits. No such statutory limit exists and Virta, in subsequent conversation with the developers’ legal counsel, denied he had raised an issue with Keith regarding interest rates.

Town home project general manager Jeremy Schoenfelder had challenged Keith at the Nov. 26 meeting, but on Dec. 10, city officials refused to allow Schoenfelder to talk to the council via speakerphone, as they had in the past, and Keith was able to convince the council to approve the reduced abatement plan. The revised abatement plan may incorporate some funding from the Local Road Improvement Program, but it’s unclear how that might affect the private funding needs for the harbor-related infrastructure.

The Wednesday council meeting is also scheduled to include a report on the ambulance department’s fund balances.