Brookline, Republic favor consolidation

Ruth Sawyer hopes she loses her job in June.
The part-time city clerk for the Village of Brookline, after 30 years of service, hopes at least 51 percent of both Brookline and Republic voters approve consolidation of the two towns on the April 5 ballot.
“This will eliminate my job, but that’s all right,” she said.
If consolidation passes, Sawyer, one of two Brookline employees, will retire, and Republic’s staff of more than 100 will serve Brookline. “I really hope it passes. I think it will be a blessing for us if it does,” Sawyer said.
She’s not alone in her thinking. A survey conducted by Opinion Research Specialists LLC of Springfield shows that a majority of Brookline and Republic residents surveyed – 47 percent and 58 percent, respectively – favor consolidation. The telephone survey, conducted Feb. 1-12, questioned 401 registered voters in Republic and 126 adult Brookline residents.
Mark Ellickson of Opinion Research Specialists said conducting the survey this way reached Brookline residents who are not registered voters but plan to register. “Sometimes it’s the type of issue that might motivate people to get registered to vote,” Ellickson said.
If approved, the consolidation of four-square-mile Brookline and five-square-mile Republic would take place in June, said Chris Coulter, Republic’s assistant city administrator. The two towns would become one municipality; however, Brookline would still be known as Brookline.
“We’re going to do everything we can to protect the name of Brookline. That’s a historical name,” Coulter said. “Really all that’s going to happen is the village, if it were to be approved, would lose its sovereignty, but it would not lose its identity. The post office assured us they have no intentions of changing anything. Peoples’ addresses would still be Brookline. None of that’s going to change.”

Change is in the air
Most Brookline survey respondents favor the consolidation because of the water and sewer system upgrades that would result. However, Brookline residents would incur a tax increase of 3 cents to 5 cents per $100 of the property’s assessed value, according to Coulter.
Coulter estimates the entire project’s price tag at $5 million. Republic already has $1.5 million for the well and water tower, and the remaining $3.5 million would be funded by new customer user fees and additional sales and property tax received from commercial business in the Brookline area.
If consolidation passes, steps will be taken immediately to begin the process, which Coulter said could take up to five years to complete.
Dennis Robbins, chairman of Brookline’s board of trustees and a landowner for 15 years, said that in addition to water and sewer from Republic, Brookline also would be under Republic’s police protection.
“We’re going to get all of Republic’s services and that’s going to be a tremendous help,” he said. “It’s such a great opportunity for us. We’re going to have (Republic’s staff) – planning and zoning, all their committees – so we can be represented and grow together.”
Plans for growth include creating an industrial park to bring more businesses, jobs and revenues to Republic.
“We have some (interested) businesses that have to remain unnamed,” Republic Mayor Jim Collins said. “This is going to be a boom. Businesses are going to line up to get in.”
More businesses, Collins said, would generate more revenue to benefit Republic schools, which already educate children from Brookline.
A 5th Ward for Republic would be created to represent Brookline for one to two years, Collins said, and two Brookline residents would be added to Republic’s Board of Aldermen, bringing its total to 10. “We’ll also have someone from Brookline serving on all of our committees,” he said, adding that each Republic committee would add one Brookline representative.
A majority of Brookline residents surveyed, 43 percent, were concerned that their utility payments would increase if consolidation passed, but officials insist that’s not the case.
Portions of Brookline are served by two companies – Ozark Electric Co-Op and City Utilities. Both Ern DeCamp, spokesman for City Utilities, and Pat Prewitt, assistant manager for Ozark Electric Co-Op, said that Brookline customers would not experience a change in their utilities.

Impact fees
Also on the April 5 ballot, separate from the consolidation issue, is the issue of water impact fees. If approved, a fee of $340 would be added to the building permit of each single-family home. “The developers are required to help pay for the recovery of our sewer expansion that we did several years ago,” Coulter said.
While impact fees are controversial in the Ozarks (see related story on page 23), 51 percent of respondents favored the water impact fees, with a majority – 88 percent – stating that the impact fee was fair and that current residents should not have to foot the bill to add future residents to the system.
Robbins said that another public meeting will be held March 21 at Brookline Baptist Church to address the public’s concerns about the consolidation.
If the consolidation is voted down, Robbins said the Village of Brookline would start at square one.
“If this doesn’t pass, we’re going to have a long process of trying to figure out how we can get water and sewer out there. I guess the hardest thing about that is the cost. It’s very, very expensive to do,” he said. “If we don’t have sewer and water, I don’t think we’ll be able to attract the more desirable businesses into Brookline.”
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