KINLOCH — Officials overseeing development at an industrial center near Kinloch are promising to combat illegal dumping in the city, a problem that has plagued the north ºüÀêÊÓƵ County suburb for years.
The city’s trash and blight woes, the subject of a Post-Dispatch report in June, were a focus at a recent meeting of the Lambert Airport Eastern Perimeter Joint Development Commission, a ºüÀêÊÓƵ Economic Development Partnership board that oversees projects at , a 550-acre business park formed in 2005 out of land ºüÀêÊÓƵ Lambert International Airport bought from Kinloch and other neighboring municipalities decades ago.
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The Sept. 30 meeting comes weeks after local officials, including Kinloch Fire Chief Kevin Stewart and state Rep. Raychel Proudie, called for regional support to help clean up the city, pointing to the partnership’s cleanup of vacant lots it owned in Wellston, as well as the city of ºüÀêÊÓƵ’ ownership of dozens of overgrown lots in Kinloch.
Partnership CEO and President Rodney Crim told the commission, which had only met once since 2018, that he hopes it can help the partnership apply some of the lessons the agency learned in Wellston to Kinloch.
Crim said he, ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Councilwoman Rita Heard Days, Stewart and longtime Kinloch City manager Justine Blue have been meeting recently to form “a bigger team†that can bring “a comprehensive approach.â€
The first city in Missouri to be incorporated by African Americans, Kinloch once thrived with more than 10,000 residents. Lambert began buying homes in Kinloch for noise abatement in the 1980s, purchasing 1,360 properties, and the city’s population plummeted. Poverty and blight took hold.
NorthPark and ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, in exchange for being able to develop the business park, inked agreements with the city and other neighboring municipalities to help fund major public improvements. The business park is covered by a large tax increment financing district, which allows increases in property and certain other taxes to be used to subsidize construction costs.
Under the agreement, Kinloch receives an annual sum of $200,000 until 2040 — a subsidy that helps keep the financially struggling municipality afloat. But after population loss, blight and a slew of political scandals, the city has hardly managed.
Blue, the Kinloch city manager who sits on the Lambert commission, told the panel that the city had ongoing cleanup efforts “since 2000 and forever.â€
But without enough money to buy heavy equipment and the ability to close streets, put up cameras and have more police patrols, “it’s just pushing a boulder uphill.â€
Airport Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge and NorthPark Development Director Larry Chapman said the airport and business park have taken part in cleanups over the years, but that the cleanups were too costly and difficult to organize fast enough to keep up with illegal dumping.
“I’m not exactly sure I know what the answer is,†Chapman said. “But if we can help with the answer, we’re more than happy to do that.â€
Days, whose district includes Kinloch, said the commission’s dormancy was a sign “that perhaps the attention has not been given to the Kinloch area as it should.†The county and city of ºüÀêÊÓƵ also bear responsibility, she said.
“I think that that land, if I’m not mistaken, was to be developed at some particular point,†she said. “But you know, as well as I do, nobody’s going to look at land for development, if it looks like it does.â€
In recent weeks, both jurisdictions appointed a new representative to the commission: Paul Hampel, an adviser to County Executive Sam Page, and Neal Richardson, executive director of the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Development Corp., the city’s economic development arm.
Crim said the Partnership has also asked ºüÀêÊÓƵ University and Harris-Stowe State University to undertake “sustainability†and “urban renewal†studies of Kinloch to help.
Stewart, Kinloch fire chief, said the city’s next step is to purchase automatic gates to permanently secure access to the street that allowed easy access to dumping grounds.
Since June, Lambert has helped install temporary barriers to block access to those areas, and ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Police installed two surveillance cameras there in addition to stepping up patrols, Stewart said.
Stewart and Eureka Fire Chief Greg Brown have organized three successful cleanups in Kinloch with nonprofits like the American Red Cross, volunteer groups like the Believers Task Force, ºüÀêÊÓƵ County public works employees and police officers. Clayco and Missouri American Water contributed heavy equipment that allowed volunteers to remove large debris, he said.
And the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Parks Foundation has launched a campaign to raise $1 million to renovate Kinloch Park, a county park and former linchpin for the community.
“We would love for NorthPark and any other organization that is interested in helping us with this effort to come on board,†Stewart told the Lambert commission last week. “Help us to get Kinloch on its feet and to become a proud community again, not just for its residents but for the region.â€