Truesdale aldermen voted to postpone a vote on the creation of the Neighborhood Improvement District for the Elkhorn Ridge subdivision after a long back-and-forth between city officials and representatives from T.R. Hughes, the subdivision developer.

The discussion came after a required public hearing July 12.

Only one resident spoke during the hearing, and he was more concerned about how the development would affect traffic in Heritage Hills.

The city had further questions during the regularly-scheduled board of aldermen meeting that followed.

“We really believe that the city of Truesdale needs to be more protected than what we had been led to believe recently,” Mayor Jerry Cannon said.

That spurred a long discussion between the city and developers.

“Before the city is going to be at risk, you’re going to have to have homeowners say ‘well, I really want to lose my home and I’m not making this assessment payment,” a representative for the developer said. “I don’t think that scenario is realistic. It certainly has not happened with any of the NIDs that I’ve been involved in.”

Missouri adopted neighborhood improvement districts in 1990 for the purpose of “stimulating development of public improvements that in turn will stimulate private development.” The act allows political subdivisions of the state to issue general obligation bonds within the district that would be benefited by public improvements and are specially assessed to reimburse the political subdivision for its cost.

The Elkhorn Ridge neighborhood improvement district would be the first in Truesdale.

“For us, it’s a big deal,” City Clerk Elsa Smith-Fernandez previously said. “We don’t really take any decision like this lightly.”

After the long back-and-forth discussion, city officials said they were much more comfortable with the idea, though they did vote to table the vote on the ordinance officially creating the neighborhood improvement district until the Aug. 9 meeting. 

“We may have to have further discussion,” Alderman Mike Thomas said. But he also said the representatives “cleared up a lot” of the questions city officials had.

Earlier in the meeting, aldermen voted to cancel the regularly-scheduled July 26 meeting because a quorum would not be present.

About the author: Jason Koch is the editor of The Warren County Record, and covers local news and government for the newspaper. He has won multiple awards from both the Indiana and Illinois APME and from the Illinois Press Association. He can be reached at 636-456-6397 or at jason@warrencountyrecord.com