Council Agenda Tonight.

The City Council is expected to approve a Council bill at this evening’s regular meeting that would allow the Mayor to enter into an agreement with Pellham, Phillips and Hagerman for architectural services for renovations to Memorial Hall. A matching grant from a state veterans organization for approximately $380,000 was obtained and other grants have been requested to assist in financing the proposed improvements. The City has budgeted approximately $400,000.

In other business the Council agenda includes Council bill 00-89 amending the budget and authorizing an expenditure of $30,000 for engineering and architectural work pertaining to the south fire substation that was proposed to be inside the south water tower base. The Council recently voted to abandon the project.

An agreement to sell property located between WalMart and Barton’s in the Myers Park Development will be in second reading. Elkhart Realty of Illinois has offered $600,000 for the approximately 9 acres.

Also scheduled is first reading of a bill authorizing a supplement to the contract with the negotiator for new airport property.

Commentary
Martin "Bubs" Hohulin
State Representative, District 126

The legacy of Mel Carnahan lives on. No, I am not talking about the fact that his name on the ballot won the recent U.S. Senate election. I am talking about the election night fiasco in St. Louis that kept polls open well past the closing time mandated by law.

St. Louis has long had a history of bungled elections. The elections in St. Louis are overseen by an elections board, whose members are appointed by the governor, in this case, Gov. Mel Carnahan. You can bet that this board isn’t going to do anything that would go against the interests of St. Louis politics. Keep in mind that when I say the words, St. Louis politics, that is the same thing as saying, democrat politics. The words, the arsonist guarding the gas tanks, comes to mind.

On election night, a judge ordered the polls in St. Louis held open until 10:00 pm, an extension of 3 hours. Their excuse was that there were too many people standing in line when the polls closed. What a bunch of bunk! State law clearly states that if you are in line at 7:00 when the polls close, you will still be allowed to vote. What they were wanting to do was use the extra 3 hours to get people from their homes that hadn’t voted and get them to the polls.

At 8:00 another set of judges over ruled the first judge and shut the polls down. However, 245 polling places were held open an extra hour. I haven’t been able to get the exact number of ballots cast in that hour yet, but you can run a lot of voters through 245 polls in an hour. Those ballots should be thrown out. If the polls close in one region of the state at 7.00, they should close everywhere at 7:00. That is in fact what state law dictates.

We probably can’t get the ballots thrown out, but we need to challenge what happened over there. If we don’t, we are sending a message that we will continue to allow the ineptness and corruption of St. Louis politics to dictate the agenda for the entire state. What a scary thought!

As usual, I can be reached at House Post Office, State Capitol, Jefferson City, MO 65101, or 1-800-878-7126, or mhohulin@services.state.mo.us for your questions, comments, or advice.

I encountered more than the usual number of sorta-stops out over the weekend. For the last several weeks it was more typical to have two of us stopped waitin’ on the other to pull out. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems with the colder weather, folks seem ta be in more of a hurry to get where they’re goin’.

The sorta-stop is accomplished by comin’ almost to a stop and then bumpin’ the brakes so that for a split second you give the impression that ya actually made the effort. ‘Course the vehicle is still movin’ after the bump, but now you’re on you’re way. Sometimes I think folks actually think they’re foolin’ someone. Can’t fool an old fooler.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

by

McCune Brooks Hospital

Health Notes

Health & Nutrition by Judith Sheldon

ANTI-TUMOR MUSHROOMS: Many cultures around the world have cultivated mushrooms and related fungi for centuries to use as medicines for various diseases. Besides their effectiveness as antibiotics, mushrooms and fungi have other properties that may provide compounds that could prevent or delay certain cancers.

For years, scientists have known of anti-cancer activity in illudin S, a substance isolated from the mushroom. However, illudin S, while it could attack cancer cells, also attacked normal cells.

But now, a team of researchers at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) led by Dr. Trevor C. McMorris, has converted illudin S to a new compound with the shortened name of HMAF. It appears to have more selectivity in attacking cancerous tumors, rather than normal cells. So far, early studies show it’s effective in shrinking human metastic lung cancer tumors, and has also been effective against solid tumors such as human breast, melanoma, and colon cancers implanted in mice.

(REMINDER: Continue to buy your mushrooms from stores who deal only with recognized mushroom growers. There are far too many poisonous species - any number of which can lurk in the baskets of most wild mushroom pickers.)