Sunday, September 23, 2012
Mayor Ron Counts announced at a recent city council work session that it was time for Arnold to find a permanent city administrator.
Robert Shockey has been working as interim city administrator since June 28, following the abrupt resignation of Matt Unrein. But since Shockey also works as the city's police chief, his appointment to interim city administrator must be a temporary one, said Mayor Ron Counts during a city council work session on Sept. 13. “The fact is, Mr. Shockey can’t be eligible for that position. He can’t hold both police chief and administrator, not as a class three municipality,” Counts said. Shockey, who was in charge of a committee that hired the last city administrator four years ago, will perform the same duty during a new search process. He asked for volunteers to form a subcommittee of council members and department heads to sort through …
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Thursday, February 23, 2012
Administrator Matt Unrein said the St. Louis law is isolated.
Arnold City Administrator Matt Unrein said today that red-light camera laws in St. Louis City are not relevant to Arnold. St. Louis City will continue to use its red-light cameras, despite Circuit Court Judge Mark Neill’s ruling, on Feb. 17, that upheld a partial judgment he made last May, that found the city improperly enacted its red-light camera ordinance. As reported in STLtoday, the judge said the law is unconstitutional because it offers little way for someone to contest the violation. Unrein said the St. Louis law has no relevance to the Arnold ordinance. “From my understanding of the case, all it did was throw out that individual’s ticket that was issued,” Unrein said. “It didn’t do anything as far as what effect it is has on …
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
The process was used four years ago, and was put into writing in January. Now the procedure has helped to bring an $80 million investment into Arnold.
Arnold Mayor Ron Counts held a press conference at Arnold City Hall on Monday to announce what he said is the largest corporate investment in the city’s history. Thanks to a resolution that City Council authored in January to entice Anheuser-Busch InBev to invest in Arnold, the company will make an $80 million, 100,000-square-foot expansion to an already existing Arnold facility, Metal Container Corporation. By comparison, Arnold Commons was a $70 million project. The news was first announced Monday morning. A fast-tracking procedure was one element that convinced the company to invest here. The city worked with AB InBev and the Jefferson County Economic Development Corporation to structure the deal. “This fast-tracking bill allows the …
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The proposed ADA doors, however, comply with older regulations, says the city's director of administration.
The City of Arnold hopes to begin work within the next few months to make more of the municipal-owned buildings compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. City Administrator Matt Unrein said the changes are in Arnold’s proposed fiscal budget. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get this (repair) in before the six-month budget review,” Unrein said. If the new doors are not installed prior the review, the city may lack the funds needed to pay for buying and installing ADA-compliant system for City Hall. Unrein spoke during the budget negotiations during the city council work session at City Hall Aug. 11. The plan is to change the doors at City Hall, at 2101 Jeffco Blvd., so people with disabilities can enter and exit the building more …
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Changes recommended by website visitors include aesthetics and navigation improvements.
Arnold City Administrator Matt Unrein said the city has revamped its website to make it more user-friendly. “The website was getting kind of cluttered,” Unrein said. “We had buttons and documents and quick links and hot links all over the place. We really needed to clean it up.” Unrein said the new website is clean and professional looking, making it easier for residents and visitors to the city to find what they are looking for. Deion Christopher, the city’s information technology manager, said most of the changes were based on visitors’ suggestions and are designed to make the website more aesthetically appealing and easier to navigate. Christopher said part of the redesign involved reordering the navigation pane on the left side of the …
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Matt Unrein prefers jobs that help other people enjoy their lives.
Name: Matt Unrein Job: Arnold City Administrator How did you get this job? I competed against the other 80 to 100 applications and was lucky enough to get the offer. I was an assistant in Maryville, MO, for five years preceding my appointment here. What do you like best about your job? Helping people. I think it’s very fulfilling to see a development or see something come together, or even help a neighborhood with stormwater development. It’s nice to be able to step away and get that sense of accomplishment. What do you like least? A lot of meetings, a lot of memos and a lot of telephone calls. As necessary as they all are, they sometimes seem to interrupt what really feels like getting things done.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Model project could be the first step in revitalizing northern Jeffco Boulevard, City Administrator said.
The northern entrance to Arnold on Jeffco Boulevard will soon be getting a facelift. The Arnold City Council has approved a $14,911 contract with Planning Design Studio, a planning, urban design and landscape architecture firm in downtown St. Louis, for streetscape design services to enhance the city's entrance on Jeffco Boulevard near the Meramec River. “It’s in the general vicinity of north Jeffco near the bridge,” Arnold Community Development Engineer Christie Hull Bettale said. “It will be in combination or on one side or the other on the side where the park is located or near the athletic fields.” The city has a $75,000 grant from the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to pay for the project. The money, designated for…
Friday, June 3, 2011
City officials say council members and the public have a right to speak out, but should do so respectfully.
Arnold City Administrator Matt Unrein places a premium on civility. That’s why he invited Kirkwood's city clerk to speak to city council members about security and constituent interaction at a recent work session. Kirkwood was the scene of a shooting rampage that left six people, including the gunman, dead on Feb. 7, 2008. Two police officers, two city council members and the city public works director were killed. Kirkwood Mayor Mike Swoboda was critically injured and died seven months later of complications from his injuries. Authorities said the gunman, Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton, apparently targeted public officials he had sparred with in the past. In Arnold, the city has posted on its website a white paper from the Institute for …
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The safety requirement can become a political issue, a St. Louis County contractor said.
City Council members may consider requiring all contractors working in the city of Arnold to have a mechanical engineers license issued by St. Louis County. St. Louis County has the highest standards for earning a license, said St. Louis County contractor Robert Hoffman during an Arnold Council Planning Session, at 2101 Jeffco Blvd., on May 12. The higher requirements eliminate unskilled workers and their errors. “But it’s a political football,” Hoffman said Contractors can regard the licensing standard as a way to eliminate their livelihood. Engineers worry about cities mandating their own licenses. There would be about 175 different licenses between the various counties and cities, Hoffman said. “And it would be hard to keep up with all…
Monday, May 16, 2011
Ward 1 Councilman Borgelt wants changes to ensure cameras are aimed at safety.
The Arnold City Council should take a close look at the use of red-light traffic cameras in the city, Ward I City Councilman Doris Borgelt says. The council is expected to vote on renewing the city’s contract with American Traffic Solutions (ATS), the company that installs and maintains red-light cameras in the city, at 7 p.m. May 19. A critic of the red-light cameras, Borgelt believes the cameras have been aimed more at generating revenue than at increasing public safety. Red-light camera systems netted about $1.3 million for the City of Arnold between the years of 2006 to 2010, according to city records. Borgelt cites a recent decrease in violations since the timing on yellow lights at the intersections was extended in March. “Since the …
Doris Borgelt
10:33 pm on Friday, February 24, 2012
The red light camera violations in Arnold doubled from 2006 through 2010. In January and April of 2011, MoDOT lengthened the yellow light times and the all red period at each camera'd intesection. There were 1092 violations in the month of December 2010, in December of 2011 there were only 91 violations. The extended yellows and all red have reduced the number of red light violations by over 90% … more ›