Ellisville Mayoral Candidates Differ on Great Streets, Tax Sharing

Voters had the opportunity Tuesday to hear directly from Ellisville City Council members Dawn Anglin and Michelle Murray as well as challengers Adam Paul and Robert Srote, all of whom are seeking to lead the city as mayor as municipal elections approach next week.

Among the issues distinguishing the candidates Tuesday was a statewide proposal changing how sales taxes are shared in St. Louis County. Currently, St. Louis County’s “point-of-sale” cities such as Ellisville, also called “A” cities, which usually have large commercial bases, are allowed to keep most of their generated sales tax revenue but required to contribute a portion of their 1-cent countywide sales tax revenue with both the “pool” cities and the county on a per-capita basis. For “pool” or “B” cities, meanwhile, the majority of their applied sales tax revenue is put directly into the shared fund.

A revised version of the this month would phase out point-of-sale cities' contributions to the shared pool over a 10 year period.

Michelle Murray, a current city council member and marketing technologist at AllCom Global Services, a telecommunications firm, said she firmly opposed any efforts to convert Ellisville from its current "A" status into a "pool" city.

Dawn Anglin, a purchasing agent with St. Louis' Shillington Box Company, reiterated Murray's comments citing projected revenue losses were Ellisville to become a "B" sales tax municipality.

"We would lose $1.1 million if we were to join the pool, and I think that's a number that everyone needs to realize," Anglin said. "That, then, is not the way we need to go."

Robert Srote, an architect and project manager with Dick Busch Architects, meanwhile, said he supported sharing sales tax revenue throughout the county.

In a separate discussion about Ellisville's assets, Srote praised the push for the city has hosted to date, and said the city should further community engagement by expanding its website.

"Because obviously our most important asset in this community is each of you," Srote said. "We've got over 9,000 people in this community who have some great ideas and if they should make their way to , I believe all of those ideas could help improve our city."

Srote also said he would like to create an economic development council, which would "allow the small businesses to thrive rather than to deal with the bureaucracy and red tape they currently face," he said.

Candidates also were asked Tuesday to address the area's , a roughly 25-year plan meant to rehab the downtown areas of Ellisville, Ballwin and three other neighboring cities.

Adam Paul, an account executive with Apex Solutions, an information technologies staffing firm, said the proposal was convoluted and runs contrary to the Ellisville's current business pursuits.

"And we're trying to ? We're supposed to have walkable, mixed retail, small businesses—a type of community that we're completely going against with our current situation we're in right now," Paul said.

"We can't even sign an assumption agreement so everyone can abide by the same rules," Paul said. "It sounds better than it really is."

Murray said the long-term initiative could help the city shape an entertainment center comparable to the City of Kirkwood, however, which she said residents have expressed interest in.

"This is a 15 to 20 year initiative," Murray said. "This is not going to happen overnight, and so certainly you have to have a long term vision for the city in order to champion something like this."

Check back soon for Ballwin-Ellisville Patch's Ellisville mayoral candidate profiles.