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By Carol Arnett

The Florissant City Council has  passed a bill that would ban the sale of drugs marketed as bath salts in the city. The council held a first reading of this bill at a previous meeting. At that meeting, some council members expressed concern that the bill may be too vague.

Police Chief William Karabas spoke at the previous meeting. He said that the police department was in favor of the bill, saying that as other municipalities ban the items, he expected to see more in Florissant if the city did not also ban them.

The drugs are synthetic drugs that are marketed as bath salts, but are ingested. Two people in the St. Louis area have died as a result of using the drugs.

The bill passed unanimously.

Five council members introduced a bill that would create a Charter Review Commission to study the city charter. Council members Karen McKay, Tim Lee, Keith English, Ben Hernandez, and Andrew Podleski all introduced the bill.

Councilman Mark Schmidt called the timing of the bill bad. He said that it was a move by the other council members to get the bill through while the council was short a member. Mayor Tom Schneider’s former Ward 3 seat will be vacant until the August election. Also in August, the election to break the Ward 6 tie vote will result in a replacement for Podleski who keeps his seat until then.

Schmidt said that by the time the charter review commission was formed, the city council would be different because of the new members.

“There’s never a good time,” said Hernandez. He noted that the council was continually changing because of elections, but city business must go on. Hernandez also said that any recommendation the commission made would be only recommendations and would have to go through the council and put to a vote by residents before any changes could be made.

Schmidt moved to table the bill. His motion was voted down. The council will take up the bill at the next meeting.

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