| Today's Feature General Public Safety.
Fire Chief John Cooper informed
the Public Safety Committee during their Monday
evening meeting last week that all of the new
storm warning sirens are installed and working.
Five new sirens have been installed throughout
the community in the following locations: in the
area of North Garrison, near the CW & EP
plant, Fairview and Main, Hazel and Fur Road, and
in the Kimberly Lane area.
Each of the new sirens has four
times the amount of coverage area as the previous
sirens. They will sound alarms in a one mile
radius when rotated. In addition, the sirens are
also battery operated.
Cooper said that the five older
sirens are in working order, but in need of some
work to bring them up to the new alarm standards.
Currently the old sirens are on a different
frequency or channel then the new ones. In order
to blow all 10 of the sirens, the fire department
would first set off the new sirens, and then once
they are finished, switch to the other channel so
that the older set could be set off.
With some adjustment, and a new
frequency crystal, the older sirens could be
tuned into the same frequency as the newer ones.
This would allow all of the sirens to be set off
at the same time.
"It would make it a lot
quicker and less confusing (to set the sirens off
at once)," explained Cooper. "All of
the sirens overlap, so in some places it will be
really loud."
He told the Committee that it
would cost $25 per siren to replace the frequency
crystal in each siren. In addition he asked for a
$500 allocation to have Blue Valley Siren Company
in Blue Springs, Missouri come in to clean and
check the transmitters on each of these older
sirens.
He said it has been at least
eight years since the last known maintenance
check.
The Committee approved Cooper's
request to have necessary maintenance conducted
by the Blue Valley Siren Company.
In other business, Police Chief
Dennis Veach informed the Committee that under
the direction of City Administrator Tom Short, he
had taken a close look at the department's
cellular phone bills.
The Department spent $5,000
with ATT on last year's cell phone bills between
the police phones and those connected with the
city taxi service. All taxi dispatching is done
by use of cell phones.
The end result of this close
look, Veach said, is that they have decided to
switch the department from ATT to US Cellular
services.
"It will be half the cost,
and we've been able to add two more
phones...which will give us some more
flexibility," explained Veach. "With US
Cellular, the first minute is free, and virtually
every call to the taxis are under a minute. This
cut the rate drastically.
"We are light years better
off for half the price," said Veach.
Veach also informed the
committee that the Police Department had decided
to use block grant funding on new body armor.
"What we have is all
outdated, it only has a five year life
span," Veach said. "There were lots of
things that we wanted, but this was one of the
most basic things that we needed."
As a requirement of the block
grant, the City will need to match 10 percent of
the funding. Depending upon how much the grant
money the Department is awarded the City could
spend between $500 and $1,000. Once the grant is
awarded later this year, the City's cost will be
determined. Funding of the grant could replace up
to 17 units of body armor.
Veach also told the Committee
that he is proceeding with the next step in
looking for a Y2K computer consultant. He said
that it may cost between $5,000 - $10,000 to find
a consultant to look at the Police Departments
computer and software needs.
Y2K has become shorthand for
the Year 2000, the year of the possible
millennium bug. Some computers and microchips
will read 2000 as 1900, or not read it at all.
Computers might shut down or just run steadily
and give users the wrong results.
Missouri Association of
Counties and Commissioners
Western District County
Commissioner Anna Ruth Crampton reported during
last Thursday's regular commission meeting about
her trip to Jefferson City to the Missouri
Association of Counties and Commissioners.
Among the things she learned,
concerns the Missouri Department of
Transportation.
"Joe Mickes from the
Missouri Department of Transportation spoke to
the County Commissions yesterday and said that
they have a $19 billion shortfall," said
Crampton.
She said this shortfall comes
at a time when I-70 is 40 years old and in need
of upgrading to six lanes of traffic, and when
I-44 also needs to be upgraded to six lanes of
traffic.
Crampton said Mickes, who is
also a Southwest Missouri MoDot representative,
will meet with Commissioners on Friday, January
29th to discuss how this shortfall will effect
Southwest Missouri.
Another thing stressed at this
statewide meeting was the need for E-Mail for
County Government.
"We do need to have a
e-mail address," said Crampton. "They
are stressing that we do have an e-mail address
because of the increase cost of postage and
delays in receiving items (in the mail)."
Crampton also explained that
while in Jefferson City, she learned about the
National Association of Counties upcoming
national convention in St. Louis in July.
"I would hope that Jasper
County would have items to put in those packets
to promote tourism in Southwest Missouri,"
explained Crampton.
She requested the Commissioners
look into joining the organization.
"We do have the funds in
the budget to join," said Crampton.
"There are many benefits. (As a member) we
could put things in the folders at the
convention."
The Commissioners voted to join
the National Association of Counties.
Jasper County Grants
Becky Brill, Grants Coordinator
for Jasper County, informed the Commissioners
that two new grants has recently been awarded to
Jasper County.
One grant was for the placement
of trees upon County property.
"We are planting 19 trees,
two on the Court house lawn, one in Joplin, and
the rest at the Juvenile Detention Center,"
Brill said that two ash trees
were being place today next to the Court house.
An evergreen tree is being planted at the Joplin
Court house.
The other is a $5,000 grant
from the Region M Solid Waste Management for tire
recycling.
This grant will allow Jasper
County officials to hold two county resident only
events, where used tires could be collected for
disposal.
Brill said the County road
crews sometimes pick up an average of 20 tires
per day along county roads.
This tire recycling program
would allow residents to dispose of the tire
waste.
"If it's on your property,
your first inclination is to dump them,"
Brill said. "This will provide a place for
them to get rid of them."
Once collected, the tires would
be placed upon trucks and taken to recycling
facilities in Macon, Missouri, where they would
be turned into items such as garden hoses and
truck mats.
Mental Health Tax Board
In other action, Crampton asked
Jane Wynan, who was representing Spradling if the
Commissioners could take action on removing Wes
Strobe from the Mental Health Tax Board.
Crampton informed Wynan that
the Commissioners have sent registered mail to
Strobe, asking for him to confirm his address.
"We have sent letters
registered, returned requested," explained
Crampton. "He didn't sign for one, but (he
did sign) for the one we sent stating that we
understood that he had moved, he signed for
it,"
Wynan said that since the
letter from the Commissioners was signed for on
December 15, Strobe has had adequate time to
respond to the Commissioner’s request for an
address conformation.
Crampton said if this was all
right, then Commissioners would receive
nominations to fill the opening on the Tax Board.
Leadership Carthage
Swingle Neil, also representing
the Carthage Chamber of Commerce, explained to
the Commissioners about the County Day for the
new Leadership Carthage Class.
She told them she is
responsible for putting together the Jasper
County Government class for the 15 Leadership
Carthage students.
On Thursday, February 25, the
students will begin the day at the County Jail,
and then move to the Court house to observe the
weekly County Commission meeting.
"I am wanting all of the
county officials to come in at 9 a.m., to be
available for all of the students,"
explained Swingle Neil. "I would like for
each office to have something printed that they
could hand to the students, to explain what their
job function is." The morning will also
include a tour of all of the office in the Court
house, and a tour of the records annex.
Commentary
Martin
"Bubs" Hohulin
State
Representative, District 126
Wow! What a
difference a year (and a U.S. Senate race) makes.
For as long as I have been in office, we have
tried to increase the dependency exemption on
state income tax returns. For decades, working
Missourians had only been able to deduct $400.00
per dependent from their state income taxes. We
had tried for several years to raise that to
$1200. At every step of the way we had been
opposed on this by Gov. Mel Carnahan and most of
the democrats in the legislature. At one point we
were even told that it would be irresponsible to
cut taxes. We were told we couldn’t afford a
tax cut of that size. That is totally wrong.
Forget for a minute that the budget has ballooned
nearly a billion dollars a year under Gov.
Carnahan.
That would be reason enough to
say we could "afford" it. The fact is
that there is no such thing as government
"affording" a tax cut. The reason is
that the money doesn’t belong to the
government, it belongs to the citizens that earn
it. To say that the government can’t afford
a tax cut is giving validity to the notion that
money belongs to the government and if the
citizens are allowed to keep any of it, well,
then government is just being generous. We also
have been told that if we cut taxes too deeply,
it will put our children’s future in danger.
What?! If the day ever comes
that you or I can’t spend our hard-earned
money on ourselves and/or our kids better than
the government can, then we have reached a low
point of no return in our society. Let me beg one
thing of you; don’t ever get the idea that
when you wake up you immediately have to turn to
Jefferson City or Washington D.C. for your
happiness. If you live your life like that, you
will have a very unhappy existence.
Anyway, after six years of
opposing our tax cuts, suddenly this week, Gov.
Carnahan has become a tax-cutting zealot. In his
State of the State Address he is now proposing an
increase in the personal deduction on state
income tax returns as if cutting taxes is a new
idea. Actually I guess it is a new idea for him.
After all, this is the man that raised your taxes
in 1993 more than any other governor in the
history of Missouri and yet had the nerve to tell
us in his Address that "By any objective
measure, Missouri is a low tax, low spending
state". I actually find this offensive
coming from the man that inherited a state that
was ranked 49th in personal tax burden and
quickly took it to 16th. That is not the kind of
race to the top I want to win.
Now after all that he says he
wants to cut taxes. All I can say is welcome to
our side, Governor. You can count on our
continued leadership on this issue.
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.
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