Mueller Talks With Commission About Consistency, Precedence

At the end of the city of Ste. Genevieve Heritage Commission’s April 15 meeting, local historian Bob Mueller lectured the group on what he considered to be inconsistency on its part.

Mueller went to the podium during the public comment portion of the meeting and expressed his concerns.

“I just wanted to say, first thing, I know the work you do can sometimes be political, controversial, and I appreciate the fact that you volunteered to serve on this committee in spite of that,” he said.

He said he had “a couple of suggestions” for the commission, however.

“After listening to your last meeting on [Ste. Genevieve Community Access] TV, I think there’s a couple of questions for any time you’re asked to approve a certificate of appropriateness,” Mueller said. “The first one is, ‘Do the standards apply?’ And that should be a yes or no.

“And if the standards apply, does the proposed change that the applicant is asking for, does it meet the standard? If it doesn’t, you should say that it doesn’t meet the ordinance.”

He said the commission has been in error by taking into consideration the financial aspect, as applicants have sometimes said historically accurate materials can cost twice as much as less appropriate materials.

“In our ordinance, there’s the ability of economic hardship and people can apply for that,” he said, “but it’s a process. It’s not just standing up and saying, ‘I have two quotes, and I want to take the lower one.’”

See complete story in the April 24 edition of the Herald.