Bass Pro Shops owner Johnny Morris and his team received the green light from Springfield City Council Oct. 12 to proceed with a new hotel across the street from the Springfield-based retailer's flagship store.
By a 6-2 vote, council approved a rezoning request for highway commercial use of more than seven acres on South Campbell Avenue, across from Bass Pro's Outdoor World. Bass Pro officials have said they want to build a hotel and retail development on the site, which was zoned as single-family and light industrial.
The rezoning request - filed by Morris' American Sportsman Holdings Co. - nearly was held up by the delays in remodeling the nearby Wonders of Wildlife museum and talk of wasted funding.
Councilwoman Cindy Rushefsky made a motion to table the rezoning request until council received more information from WOW leaders about the use of nearly $500,000 of city hotel-motel tax money the museum has received since it closed for renovations in December 2007.
Rushefsky said that while the museum and Bass Pro are technically two legal entities, she is concerned about apparent overlaps in leadership and operations. Since planning began in 1999, Morris has donated more than $20 million to the museum as well as the land where it was constructed, according to past Springfield Business Journal coverage. Additionally, the Bass Pro and WOW properties are in the same state museum taxing district and receive a -cent sales tax on purchases.
"A lot of what we are being presented with in this proposal depends on the good faith of the people entering these agreements," Rushefsky said at the meeting. "At the moment, I don't know how to evaluate that good faith."
Her motion failed; several council members said it was not fair to hold up one project because of another.
"I understand that there is concern about what is going on with WOW, and (concern) that tax dollars are not being used properly," Councilman Nick Ibarra said. "But there has to be the ability to separate issues. We are on track to hold WOW accountable, and if there is misspending going on, we should deal with it. But this has nothing to do with WOW or the hotel-motel tax."
Councilman Dan Chiles added that council should do whatever it can to move forward with an economic development project amid a tough economy.
"People need jobs," Chiles said. "We have to push forward sometimes with things that develop the economy, and there's definitely urgency to this project."
Rushefsky and Doug Burlison voted against the rezoning.
Pension board plans
Council considered reducing the number of Police and Fire Pension Board members.
The proposal - put together by council's Plans and Policies Committee and based on recommendations from the Police and Fire Pension Task Force - would shrink the board to seven voting members from 11.
Councilman Burlison, chairman of the Plans and Policies Committee, said the proposal was a hybrid of the two recommendations offered by the task force.
"We've taken some different approaches in regards to avoiding conflict of interest in the future by adding more citizens to the board," Burlison said at the meeting. "I myself am not entirely certain that we've come up with the perfect product yet, but we're on the way there."
The proposal faced some opposition.
Fred Ellison, who served as an alternate on the task force, suggested a nine-person board: three each from the pool of active employees, city staff or council, and the general public.
Shawn Martin, president of Fire Fighters Local Union No. 152, said the proposal - which would cut the number of Police and Fire representatives in half to two - would unfairly cut those departments' representation in the decision-making process and put too much power in the hands of citizens who may not be directly impacted by the pension system.
Martin also worried that the process of changing the board was moving too fast.
"(Moving quickly) was a promise you made, but I hope you're not moving too quickly," Martin said.
"I would rather have it done right than done today," he added.
Council plans to discuss the plan further before Oct. 26 meeting, when it could vote on the proposal.
