Today's Feature
Police
Department Holds The Line.
The budget for the Carthage
Police Department proposed by Chief Dennis Veach
for fiscal year 2001/2001 shows less than a one
percent increase over last year.
The document was put together
before the Finance Committee recommended the City
paying approximately $90,000 in increased health
care costs for City employees, so total costs
will push the budget up.
The budget did include a 3.8%
increase in salaries that was anticipated due to
the Citys past practice of giving a cost of
living raise to employees. According to City
Administrator Tom Short, that percentage will
likely be adjusted because of reductions made to
the national average.
In a separate document
submitted to the Public Safety Committee, Veach
outlines his recommendations for increasing the
staff levels of the Police Department. Veach
notes that in 1981 there were 20 commissioned
police officers. There are now 25. He says that
calls for service have nearly doubled since 1998
and 911 calls to the department have nearly
tripled. The need for two officers, a detective,
a school resource officer and a secretary are
anticipated by Veach.
Commentary
Martin
"Bubs" Hohulin
State Representative, District 126
I guess the days of Bob Griffin
are never going to leave these hallowed halls.
Typically, Thursday is when we head for home, so
the legislation we usually take up on Thursdays
is what we have discussed earlier in the week and
are voting on it for the final time. This is done
to try to avoid long debate and allow the members
to get left for home at a reasonable time.
That all went out the window
last week when Don Koller, a democrat from
Shannon County brought up Governor Holdens
transportation package for debate.
This was going to be one of the
most comprehensive reform packages in years and
we all assumed it would receive at least a day or
two of debate. The other thing is that our rules
stipulate that any new legislation must be
available to us at least 24 hours in advance. The
first thing he did was to move for suspending
that rule so that we could take up the
legislation right away.
This did a couple things that
were bad. First, we didnt have a chance to
preview the legislation.
Second, we were precluded from
offering some of the changes we had wanted to
offer. That was the biggest irony of all. They
were asking us to suspend a rule so that they
could take up a very complicated bill without
giving us the required minimum time to look at.
At the same time they were opposing a rule
suspension that would have allowed us to at least
make some proposed changes to the legislation. So
much for having all ideas considered.
Apparently the democrat
leadership of the House of Representatives
doesnt think anyone but them are smart
enough to have any worthwhile ideas. Either that,
or they were afraid that the changes we wanted to
make would be adopted and then they would be in
trouble with the Governor.
Either way, they muscled
through the rule change that they wanted, turned
down our rule change and got right into it.
After no time at all, they
voted to cut off debate and force a vote on what
will be the most important transportation bill
for years to come. What a shameful way to run the
peoples business. Oh well, I guess when one
party is in power for over 4 decades, they figure
they can ignore the will of the people.
As usual, I can be reached at
House Post Office, State Capitol, Jefferson City,
MO 64759, or 1-800-878-7126, or
mhohulin@services.state.mo.us for your questions,
comments, or advice.
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