Discussions over a controversial topic began again Tuesday night at the Jefferson City Council meeting regarding development along Highway 30.

Wild Rose Chief Operating Officer Tom Timmons gave a presentation to the Council about building a frontage road west of their property, north of Highway 30 to North Grimmel Road. Timmons said they had reserved a couple buildable lots when they purchased the 40-acre property from Kim Reuter for possible future development.

Wild Rose sold one of those three-acre lots to Vaughn Bauer and Robert Drees in 2015 to build a convenience store. However, Bauer and Drees developed the idea into a truck stop, which then required a bigger space to allow trucks to turn around in, which Timmons noted to the Council is the reason for needing a frontage road. He also told the Council that if a frontage road is put in, Bauer and Drees would then purchase the next 2.10-acre lot west of the immediate lot for their development. Timmons believes this development could spur even more development in the future.

However, the price tag to build the frontage road is $1.4 million. Timmons thinks the City should be involved in paying for and installing the road.

“But this should be a city street and they maintain it, just like every other street, do the curb and gutter. And then as more things start to get developed the City is the one that benefits. They’re going to get all of the property tax values from those developments.”

Jefferson City Administrator Mike Palmer says there is a state law that requires all cities to only go up to five-percent of their overall assessed valuation for debt spending. He talks about where the City Council has set their self-imposed limit of debt capacity.

“We’re comfortable with going up to 60-percent of what we’re allowed to for debt. The City is sitting at about 60-percent right now. Some of that debt will drop off. We have like an amortization schedule of when it drops off so we know when we can take on a little bit more. We have projects lined up and we can say, ‘Okay now we can take on a street project.’ Through our financial advisors and just City Council, we just decided that that was just a good percentage that we felt comfortable with.”

Timmons asked for authority from the Council to direct City staff to work with him to discuss the project and the Council didn’t make any decision following the presentation. Palmer noted that the Council may discuss the topic again and give direction to City staff on what to do in a future meeting.