Walmart Hearing Continued Amid Administrative Questions

An effort to revoke the conditional use permit issued last fall for the construction of a Walmart store in Ellisville will have to wait until next week after city council members continued a public hearing on the subject Tuesday night. 

Walmart pulled out of plans to build a store on Manchester Road, west of Kiefer Creek Road, earlier this month. But according to city officials at the meeting, representatives of the Sansone Group, the would-be developer for the project, were present and challenged the hearing on several fronts, indicating that the firm's personal property rights were at stake.

Patch has reached out to legal counsel for Sansone and has not had messages seeking comment returned.

Council members confirmed that Sansone contested the proceeding, turning the meeting into an administrative hearing. Sansone then presented motions to disqualify Mayor Adam Paul from voting in the hearing to impartially weigh if the conditional use permit for the project was still in force. Paul campaigned for office with outspoken opposition to the Walmart project and has alleged that the effort to impeach him earlier this year was tied to that opposition.

Sansone also reportedly raised concerns that George Restovich, the city attorney, could not also function as the city's prosecuting attorney and as an impartial administrative hearing officer for the proceedings.

A special Ellisville City Council meeting could be called for Friday to hire an administrative hearing officer, according to Councilman Matt Pirrello, who said the city would have to "spend a whole bunch of money for this process." The hearing would then resume as part of the regularly scheduled city council meeting on Wednesday October 2.

It was unclear if the city would also need to hire a prosecuting attorney for the hearing.

Mayor Paul said Sansone's attempt to delay the hearing was akin to trying to "raise the Titanic." 

Residents have received phone calls, mailers and in-person questions about public opinion about Walmart in the weeks since Walmart withdrew from the project. Walmart has denied involvement in the polling, which Paul has suggested is coming from Sansone. Sansone representatives have not returned requests for comment on that subject.

"I don't understand," Paul said. "If Walmart's backed out what their point is?"

City Councilwoman Cindy Pool told Patch Wednesday that she doesn't know if a compromise could be arranged, but that she "would like to salvage this deal somehow," possibly with a smaller-scaled neighborhood Walmart market on the land Sansone has already obtained and would would not include the Clarkchester Apartments. 

"I'd hate to see it go to waste," she said, wondering aloud, "why not try to work something new out?"