| Today's Feature Saturday Night Fights.
Police Scanner Audience
Unsure of Outcome.
Two apparently unrelated
fighting incidents last Saturday night/early
Sunday morning caused some excitement and
confusion for some regular listeners of police
scanners. The Carthage Police Department has
received several calls inquiring about the late
night activities.
The first incident occurred at
approximately midnight near 100 E. Mound. There,
two suspects, who were described as white males,
had left the scene after Calixto Camacho received
a cut under his right eye. Camacho declined
medical treatment and no one has been apprehended
in relation to that incident.
Another call came to Police
just after one o’clock on Sunday morning
that reported two men fighting at 125 N.
Garrison. The caller thought one of the
participants had a knife. An ambulance was called
from McCune Brooks Hospital but police report
that no one was stabbed.
As an officer arrived at the
disturbance, suspects began running. The officer
began pursuit and noticed that some of the crowd
gathered at the scene were following. A radio
call notifying the dispatcher of the situation
was heard by several law enforcement officers,
including Jasper County Sheriff Deputies and a
Missouri Highway Patrolman. They came to assist
if necessary, thinking an officer might be in
danger.
By the time all the patrol cars
and ambulance arrived, one witness reported that
the Garrison was completely blocked. It was
reported that up to 100 people were gathered.
The arrest of two suspects, one
for obstruction, the other for obstruction and an
unrelated warrant, brought tranquility back to
the neighborhood for the time evening.
Board Of Public Works to
Reconsider CW&EP Budget.
The Board of Public Works will
meet this Thursday, June 18 to conduct its
regular meeting. Among other items, the Board
will reconsider the CW&EP Budget for fiscal
year 1998/99. The City Council voted 8-2 to deny
the original budget proposed by the Board because
it included a reduction in the amount to be
transferred to the City by $50,000. CW&EP has
transferred $1,108,000 each year for the last
four years under an agreement with the City that
eliminated the 9% FP tax.
Commentary
Martin "Bubs" Hohulin
State Representative, District 126
Are you worried that you
aren’t spending enough of your hard-earned
tax dollars to help those that won’t help
themselves? Are you concerned that you
aren’t doing enough for those that have
gotten used to being on welfare and now have come
to expect it? Well, have no fear, the Missouri
Department of Social Services is going to make
sure we spend plenty of your tax dollars on
welfare recipients. The state Medicaid program
has just approved the new impotence drug Viagra
for coverage. With all the hoopla surrounding
Viagra, didn’t you figure you would read
about it in this column eventually?
As you probably know by now,
Medicaid is the health care arm of the welfare
system. I have written about Medicaid quite a bit
lately because of Governor Carnahan’s recent
successful proposal to provide medical welfare
benefits to families making upwards of $35,000.00
for a family of four. So I guess it should be no
surprise we are now providing Viagra to welfare
recipients. It is just one more step in the
journey to take care of everything for everybody
and have you pay for it. One of the Kansas City
legislators said last week she was thinking of
running for the Senate because she was upset that
"people were becoming more conservative
instead of more caring and compassionate."
Excuse me? Since when did spending other
people’s money give you a monopoly on
compassion? As I’ve said many times, the
easiest word in the world to say is yes,
especially if you are using someone else’s
money to say it with. Further, the person that
deserves the most compassion is the taxpayer.
Yes, I still cling to the right-wing idea that
people should be able to keep more of what they
earn!
Anyway, back to the main topic
of today’s column. These pills don’t
come cheap. Each pill costs about ten bucks and
even with the normal fifteen percent discount
states usually get in their Medicaid program,
that is still $8.50 per pill and Missouri will
cover up to ten pills per month. You do the math.
At the risk of sounding like a
cold-hearted right-wing whacko, the last people I
want to be paying for to have more sex are those
on welfare. For most of the time I have been in
office, I have heard criticisms that I am against
everything and I should be in favor of more
things, that I should be a positive voice for the
district. Well, I am very pleased to be against
bad ideas, including this one.
As usual, I can be reached at
1-800-878-7126 or the House Post Office, State
Capitol, Jefferson City, MO 65101 or
mhohulin@services.state.mo.us for your questions,
comments or advice.
Library News
The Carthage Public Library
phone and fax numbers have changed. Call the
library at 237-7040 or send fax messages to
237-7041.
Young Adults interested in a
book discussion group to meet at 3:00 p.m. on
Thursday during the month of July can contact the
Young People's Library desk for details.
Public Preschool Storytimes
will start on June 16 for the Tuesday evening and
June 17 for the Wednesday morning sessions.
Summer storytimes end July 29. Parents can call
and sign up at the Young People's Library desk.
Spraying for Mosquitoes
The City of Carthage will be
spraying for mosquitoes next week, Monday through
Friday, June 22nd through June 26th. Your area
will be sprayed in the evening of the day your
trash is picked up, between the hours of 8:00
p.m. and 11:00 p.m. You may want to turn off your
attic fans or window fans during that time.
Arthritis Association Meets
The Southwest Missouri
Arthritis Association will hold its Carthage
meeting Wednesday, June 17 at 1:00 p.m. in the
community room of the Fair Acres Family Y.
Diane Sharits, Project Director
of Main Street Carthage, will give a program on
the first ten years of Main Street Carthage and
what it has accomplished. She will show some of
the rehabilitations of the downtown buildings
that Main Street has been involved with over the
years.
The meeting is open to the
public.
Museum Seeks Volunteers
The Power Museum is seeking
data entry volunteers to assist in its collection
management project being started this summer and
continuing through the remainder of the year.
The equipment being used for
this project was purchased courtesy of a Kent and
Mary Steadley Trust grant received last year.
Special software to register the museum's unique
archival and artifact collections was tested over
the spring by museum Director/Curator Michele
Hansford who will train volunteers. Basic
keyboarding skills and the ability to read forms
are the only necessary prior skills needed for
most of the project's applications. However
anyone with knowledge of scanners and imaging
systems would be helpful for advanced
applications off the project.
Work assignments are flexible
and can be scheduled for weekends and afternoons
and possibly certain weekday evenings. For more
information or to sign up for a preliminary
session July 18 at 10:30 a.m. outlining the
project without obligation, call 358-2667 or
email pmuseum@getonthe.net.
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