Politics & Government

Incumbent Lauter Sees Hope in Walmart Plan

The Ward 2 incumbent candidate says the Kenrick redevelopment is a way to save city services from cuts. The election is Tuesday.

Greg Lauter, wearing his spring break shorts as he sat in the café, said he wants to talk about the Walmart issue.

“People say, ‘No one wants that down there.’ I have to disagree. Drive down the streets and see my yard signs,” Lauter said.

Lauter is the incumbent alderman for Shrewsbury’s Ward 2, and this election season the race for his seat has become a proxy for the debate over the planned redevelopment of the blighted Kenrick Plaza, which includes the construction of a new Walmart.

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Appointed to the Shrewsbury Board of Aldermen last spring to fill the spot left open when Felicity Buckley was elected mayor, Lauter has never run for election before. Now he is being challenged by two candidates who both oppose the Walmart plan: and . The other two aldermen up for re-election, Elmer Kauffmann from Ward 1 and Mike Travaglini from Ward 3, are both running unopposed.

Lauter teaches fourth grade in St. Charles, a career he calls his passion, particularly outdoor education. A lifetime resident of Shrewsbury, Lauter lives with his family in the house his grandparents lived in. Both sets of his grandparents lived in Shrewsbury, and his paternal grandfather also served on the board of aldermen.

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“My wife and I are raising the next generation of Lauters in Shrewsbury,” he said. “To be able to follow in his footsteps makes me feel proud.”

The Kenrick Plaza just off Watson Road is what Lauter calls “the poster child of a blight.” The shopping strip has struggled since even before the economic downturn in 2008, as Ronnie’s 20 on Lindbergh competed with the now-closed movie theater there and newer malls to the south and west drew business away from the inner-ring municipalities.

The blight at Kenrick now contributes to the budget problems that have struck Shrewsbury since the downturn. , drawing from the City’s reserves for the second year in a row despite trimming expenditures and a few employees.

“The parks department, the fire and police departments—they mean so much to me,” Lauter said. He said that the police and fire departments, which take up half the city’s budget, have a three-minute response time to any part of the small community. “It scares me to think that those guys might not be around.”

Lauter said that Shrewsbury firefighters already receive a lower salary than most of their peers, and that the turnover rate at the fire department is high.

“We’ve done a lot of cost cutting,” Lauter said. “It would be nice, somewhere in the future, to pay these guys more.”

The redevelopment featuring a smaller-than-usual Walmart Supercenter as its ‘anchor store’ is expected to bring in significant revenue to the city through sales taxes.

“That’s why I got behind redevelopment,” Lauter said. “It’s not our knight in shining armor come to save Shrewsbury, but it is sure going to help down the road.”

Lauter said that redeveloping the spot is a complicated proposition. The Kenrick Plaza sits on complex, hilly terrain and is backed by a residential area. The road that connects the Kenrick area to Watson Road curves oddly. The cables anchoring the nearby radio tower must be built around.

“There are so many cogs in the wheel at that property that a lot of developers don’t want to take that risk. We have one that wants to take the risk,” Lauter said.

However, since the plans for redevelopment began last summer and as GJ Grewe was chosen as the preferred developer in November, the board of aldermen has been criticized for not being more transparent about the planning process and for not giving residents more input into the project.

“We’ve heard as a board that the citizens don’t feel they are being heard, and we are making every effort to fix that,” Lauter said. “It’s kind of like buying a house. The house will sit there with a 'For Sale' sign for a while, while a lot of negotiations go on. There’s a lot to it.”

Lauter said that some of the communications problems were because a third party failed to update the city’s website in a timely manner. He also said, however, that the board did not want to go to people with site plans that would be quickly changed, for fear of causing confusion among residents.

“The site plan has changed a half dozen times or more, and probably will change another half dozen times,” Lauter said. “We’re getting as much advice as we can…If you let a few thousand people have their hands in the project, it gets confusing.”

The inclusion of Walmart, in 2010 the world’s largest corporation, has itself also come under fire. Walmart has been criticized for its treatment of workers, the quality of its goods and the effect its stores have on smaller retailers nearby.

“I understand ‘Walmart’ is a polarizing word, and I respect that,” Lauter said. “When you look at bringing a store in, they all have their problems. Bottom line, there is a lot at stake here.”

When asked why Shrewsbury can’t do more to dictate which stores will be built in the redevelopment, Lauter said, “It’s just not part of the process.”

Another criticism raised against the redevelopment is that the tax incriment financing (TIF) planned for the developer, GJ Grewe, has been designed to freeze property values at the plaza until it is paid off, which Lauter estimates is likely to take 10 to 13 years. The will have to collect property taxes based on the pre-redevelopment property values. Since the redevelopment will presumably increase the worth of the property, the school district will collect less tax revenue from the shopping plaza than they would had the TIF been designed differently and the property values not been frozen.

According to Lauter, the redevelopment will benefit the school district. By freezing property values, the TIF prevents the district from continuing to lose tax revenue as the blighted property becomes less valuable.

The City of Shrewsbury will get increased revenue while the TIF is in place from sales tax collected at the plaza.

Lauter said that the planned TIF is necessary to the project, because without it Shrewsbury would have no influence over the aesthetics and details of the project, no leverage to negotiate for adjustments to minimize the effects of sound and light pollution on nearby residents.

Lauter said he recognizes that the redevelopment is one of the biggest, most contentious issues Shrewsbury has seen in a long time. Despite the concerns, however, Lauter said he believes the board’s plan is the best solution to Shrewsbury’s long term budget issues.

“What’s their plan, that we haven’t heard yet?” he said. “I respect that you don’t want Walmart, but what other option do you have for Shrewsbury?”

While he has no plans in politics beyond Shrewsbury, Lauter said he is glad to be a part of the board of aldermen during this contentious period, to help make the redevelopment a reality.

“I think I was meant to be there, to do this,” Lauter said.


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