Today's Feature
City
Officially Restrained.
The decision of whether the
City Council should allow restaurants to sell
liquor by the drink was pushed along by Jasper
County Circuit Judge Jon Dermott on Wednesday. He
issued a temporary restraining order to keep the
City from enforcing its no Sunday sales
ordinance. Dermott cited State statutes that
allow such operations.
The document states that it is
the court’s understanding that changes to
the ordinance are in the works that will rectify
conflicts in the State and City statutes and that
the City’s code will "pass muster under
the State law."
A permanent restraining order
was not issued but the issue could be revisited
"should the matter not resolve itself."
The restraining order was
requested by Honey’s Restaurant and Pub.
The City Council Public Safety
is scheduled to meet with a representative of the
Missouri Division of Liquor Control on Tuesday
evening to clarify the State regulations. The
Committee has discussed the issue during two
previous meetings and a recommendation for an
ordinance addressing the Sunday sales is
expected.
Additional
State Spending.
news release from Rep. Steve
Hunter
Every year, the first
appropriations bill, on which the Legislature
acts is the Governor’s supplemental
appropriations bill. This bill allocates
additional money to various State departments and
programs who are running short of funding because
a program costs more than was originally planned
for, or an unforeseen expenditure is required
which was not included in the annual State
budget.
The supplemental appropriations
bill supplements the funding authorized in the
regular budget. Because of the runaway spending
of the past few years and an explosion in new
entitlements, the supplemental bill spends an
additional $111 million for the current fiscal
year over the authorized $16.9 billion.
In 1999, the Legislature passed
a bill to provide a tax credit for prescription
drugs for low-income seniors 65 and over. The
credit is based on a sliding scale income with
the maximum credit being $200 for seniors with
incomes up to $15,000 per year. This tax credit
was projected to result in refunds from the State
totaling $20 million per year. However, because
of the way the Department of Revenue (DOR)
administered the credit it has cost over $83
million this year. The DOR simply gave the
maximum amount of refund to every senior who met
the income limits whether or not they filed for
the credit or even had any prescription drug
costs.
And, if a senior claimed a
partial amount less than the $200 maximum, the
Department still refunded them the $200. The law
says that seniors on Medicaid are not eligible
for the refund because their drugs are free to
them. However, nursing home directors have
reported to Legislators that some nursing home
residents on Medicaid have also received refund
checks. This misapplication and abuse by the
Department of Revenue is a major contributing
factor to the State budget "crisis" and
no one is being held accountable.
Another program that has
developed into a spending frenzy is the
Grandparents As Foster Parents Program. This
program was designed to help Grandparents,
serving as parents, that have custody of their
grandchildren. The original budget was 1.4
million. The first year the State went over
budget $9 million. Next year we will spend $20
million on this program that is filled with fraud
and abuse.
The Governor proposes spending
$127 million from the lawsuit against the tobacco
companies to make up the shortfall resulting from
the DOR’s actions. However, the State has
not yet actually received ANY money from the
tobacco lawsuit. Furthermore, it is uncertain
whether or not we will receive any money this
fiscal year. This recommendation is perhaps the
most controversial spending in the supplemental
bill. The purpose of suing the tobacco companies
was to cover the costs of treating people with
smoking related illnesses, not to bail the State
out of a budget shortfall largely of its own
making.
I will not support
"spending" money we do not even have
for a purpose for which it was not intended. This
is not how I would manage a business and it is
certainly not how I would manage my family
budget. Any revenue from the tobacco lawsuit
should be placed in a separate account and voters
should have an opportunity to decide how this
windfall should be spent. I welcome your
thoughts.
Scripture of the week, as it
relates to government: "For even when we
were with you, this we commanded you, that if any
would not work, neither shall he eat."
Letter to the Editor
Opinions expressed reflect
those of the writer
and not necessarily those of the Mornin' Mail.
Hello. My name
is Beth Kirkpatrick, formerly Beth Staggs. I
graduated from Carthage high in 1991, and I was
wondering if you might know when my class reunion
is? I live in Florida and have not been
contacted.
My husband also has a reunion
this summer and would like to plan it around mine
since he was class president. A friend told me
about your site and said that was how she found
out about hers. Please respond to
b.kirkpatrick@mindspring.com
Thanks, Beth
Lots of New
Faces Around Here!
by Robin Putnam, artCentral
We want everyone to be as
excited as we are !! We want to welcome Matt
Meyers !! He is now here five days a week which
has allowed us to go back to our regular schedule
!!! Again, it’s Tuesday through
Satur-day.....yay !!! As of today !!
We are very thankful to have
him helping us !! He is from Webb City and is a
free lance artist. He is very well known for his
murals. Prime in Springfield is one of his latest
local works. A lot of cruise ships now feature
his work which can be awesome in that the murals
for those can be as long as 60 feet !! He paints
them here and then sends the canvases off to
places like Singapore where they have the ship in
dry dock for a week and can install the piece !!
Again, we hope everyone will
welcome him with open arms like we did !!
Our regular Board meetings have
been changed to Wed-nesdays at noon. This
month’s meeting will be next week on the
21st. We have welcomed one new Board member,
JoAnn Evans and are very pleased and excited to
welcome another new member, Debbie Reed !!
Debbie is from Joplin, is a
longtime artCentral member and a wonderful artist
specializing in watercolor and collage. She and
her husband have three kids, two in college and
the youngest , a daughter, is quite a talented
basketball player for Mc-Cauly High School.
We appreciate these two ladies
giving of their time and energies.
According to our By-Laws we
need to let everyone know we will be having our
annual Membership Meeting in May. This will be a
regular Board meeting as well as a chance for
members to vote on Board members, offer opinions
and basically let us know how they feel about the
direction our organization is going. We will be
sure and mention this again closer to the time of
the meeting.
Again, a big thanks to our
newest helpers !!!!
More.........next week.
358-4404. 1110 E 13th & www.
ozarkartistscolony.com W-TH-F 9am - 3pm.
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