City Council Approves Two Ordinances in Special Session Tuesday

In a special session on Tuesday, the City Council unanimously approved two ordinances involving access to .

• Bill 9121 authorizes the grant, sale and conveyance of an easement in Flynn Park to Union Electric Company doing business as Ameren Missouri; containing an emergency clause.

• Bill 9122 authorizes the grant, sale and conveyance of an easement in Flynn Park to the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District; containing an emergency clause.

The meeting, which got under way at 5 p.m., lasted 7 minutes.

The Ameren easement concerns two utility poles in Flynn Park.

"They never had an easement for them, and now they have to run a new wire on those poles," said Ewald Winker, interim director of Parks, Recreation and Forestry told University City Patch. "It means they have the right to come on and work there," Winker said. "They don't have to knock on your door and say 'Hey, we're going to be in your backyard."'

The MSD easement involves bioretention or a rain garden to catch storm water for both the new school addition at Flynn Park School and the nearby city playground renovation. The easement will allow MSD to hook up sewer pipes, Winker said.

The easement requests were held over from the last council meeting, where Councilmember Lynn Ricci said she wanted to make sure that the city attorney (John Mulligan Jr.) had properly reviewed the requests from Ameren and MSD. 

"Mr. Mulligan had looked at them but he decided we should put them in ordinance form," University City Mayor Shelley Welsch told University City Patch.

Welsch said the two items could not wait until the next council meeting on Monday for a vote.

"The school district is on a very tight construction schedule because weather has been so bad. They felt that even this extra week, between now and Monday would help them keep to their schedule." 

"They (ordinances) are passed so they can get the easements and they can move forward with their construction," Welsch said.