| Today's Feature Reports For Fire and Police.
The Public Safety Committee met
for in it’s regular meeting Monday evening
in the Fire Station.
Police Chief Dennis Veach
reported that Carthage Ford is holding two patrol
units that were ordered earlier. With trade-in of
units 2 and 12, the total cost is $32,806.20 and
under budget.
Veach said the $82,193.71 bid
by Indico for 12 new work stations and software
was over budget by $193.71 and credited the
Computer Committee for the bid which was less
than the State bid. Veach added that this bid
included free maintenance for the first year
unlike one bid that asked for $9000 annually for
the same service. Six bids were let and Indico
came in with the ‘lowest and best’ bid.
The Committee moved to recommend both bids be
forwarded to the Full City Council for approval.
Veach also reported a patrol
unit with 13,000 logged miles was involved in an
accident during a high speed chase. He said the
only "part of the car that isn’t dented
is the trunk." He credited the steel
prisoner ‘cage’ with preventing serious
injury to the officer involved. Veach feels the
car is a total loss, but that parts such as seats
and drive train could be salvaged. The two new
units will not replace the damaged vehicle.
Committee member Lujene Clark
raised a ‘line of sight’ issue at an
alley location near the Phelps House. Attempts by
the City to convince the home owner to trim the
offending shrubbery have been ignored. Clark
asked Veach to look into the situation and take
appropriate action.
Veach said that reports of
trash and mischief were down on the square due to
the stepped up summer patrol and that the Police
Department will host another summer event at the
square for kids.
"I left it up to the night
shift, but I heard they might bring a dunking
booth," Veach said.
The City of Carthage and the
Carthage High School will host the Local
Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) training
exercise in August. The committee is comprised of
Carthage Fire Chief John Cooper, Police Chief
Dennis Veach and other officials from within the
county. Training will consist of a series of
meetings which will include films and lectures
that are designed to instruct teachers,
facilitators and police/fire/emergency personal
how to respond in an emergency situation.
When Mornin’ Mail
spoke to Cooper he stressed he did not anticipate
any emergency now or in the future. The point of
the training exercise is to teach participants
how to react and what to do in an emergency.
The Governor’s Task Force
is expected to attend the first of the meetings
that will be held in August and continue
throughout the year. Cooper mentioned that it is
possible that the LEPC plan and training exercise
could become a State model for other entities.
Chief Cooper presented a
proposal for $18,500 from Danko Emergency
Equipment for 22 sets of "bunker gear",
coats and pants worn by fire fighters, to replace
the items that are 4-5 years old.
Leather boots from Casco Fire
Equipment cost an additional $3,586. The
Committee voted to recommend acceptance of the
bids.
"The police need guns and
ammunition," said Cooper. "We need
clothing and boots. When a coat is new it will
repel water. When it gets older it doesn’t.
When that happens the coats get heavier and it
makes fire work harder. We priced leather and
rubber boots.
The leather boots are lighter.
When you’re in a fire situation you want to
be able to move as quickly as possible. These
boots let us do that."
A bid of $13,875 plus up to
$2000 allowance for insulation from Dooley
Roofing of Webb City for rubber roofing on the
east roof of the fire station was accepted by the
Committee. Cooper said that Dooley guarantees
material and labor for 12 years and will begin
the project as soon as it is approved by the Full
City Council. The bid came in at $1675 under
budget.
The issue of whether or not to
stripe the sidewalk area of Chad’s Conoco
located at Garrison and Macon was revisited.
Several Committee members said they had seen a
great deal of improvement in the area. Veach said
there were no recent complaints.
Bastin said he talked to him
earlier and Chad questioned why his business
should be singled out. Bastin replied he checked
other similar locations throughout the City and
felt that stripping the sidewalk area should be
applied equally.
He recommended that the City
should either stripe all similar locations or do
not stripe Chad’s. A motion was made and
accepted to recommend that Chad’s Conoco not
be striped as long as the improvements continue.
A request for a recommendation
to close streets for the McCune-Brooks Hospital
sponsored annual ice cream social will be held
August 26 was approved 4-0.
letters to the editor
Editor,
I was going to stay quiet and
watch the proceedings of the Chamber Audit but
now thanks to Mari An's letter in the press last
Saturday that opened the subject. I will have my
say.
I feel that the
"hounds" of the council are barking at
the wrong car. In my opinion when an entity has a
contract with the City for services their
obligation to the City is to perform that
contract. If the services are not satisfactory
then don't renew the contract..it's that simple.
The City pays a certain amount
of money for services and when the money is gone
there is no more. If the services are performed
satisfactory then the contract is complete. The
Cities job should be to make sure the contract is
performed not how the money was spent. You don't
ask all these engineering companies and
contractors what they had for lunch and how much
it cost do you?
Point 1. In the past five or so
years tourism has grown in this city. The
taxpayers voted a few years ago for a lodging
Tax. That tax was to be used to market tourism.
It was designed to be a self perpetuating fund
i.e. if you market tourism correctly the City
will get more tourist. Tourist stay at motels and
beds and breakfasts pay the lodging tax and also
tour the City. Eventually if handled correctly
the "outside agencies" as they are
called will be self supporting by use of the
lodging tax.
The result is the City does not
have to dip into general revenue funds which are
real estate taxes and sales taxes to help fund
these projects. From what I am hearing that
process is working. When the City gets more
people in the city to eat and purchase products,
sales tax revenues increase and we are better off
for it. At no time have I ever heard that tourism
has not increased.
Point 2. If it were not for
hardworking dedicated people such as our Chamber
of Commerce Director, or Main Street Director,
their staff and volunteers, who knows where
Carthage might be.
I know that several years ago
we had boarded up store fronts on the square. Now
thanks to Main Street Carthage, you can't find
one to rent and the farmers market packs people
in every weekend. Thanks to the Chamber marketing
our City, tourism has increased. People love to
come to Carthage and see the Kendrick House,
Phelps House, Civil War Museum, Powers Museum and
the list goes on. They love to attend the events
and see the beautiful homes. That all takes
marketing and marketing is not easy and it is not
inexpensive. It takes special people with special
talent to make it work. From what I see, it's
working. If the City hounds continue to nip at
the heels of these hardworking people, you will
lose quality volunteers and workers.
If the City had the same type
of dedication for economic development that we
have with tourism, we would have our shopping
centers and outlet malls by now. We wouldn't have
to watch as Webb City gets a new Wal Greens and
we can't even fill an empty grocery store, not to
mention over a hundred acres of beautiful
abandoned airport.
Donna Harlan
We Appreciate Our Members.
by Robin Putnam, artCentral
Boy..oh, boy...artCamp 99....
it's going to be a real blast!! There are only a
couple of empty spots left!! Yea!! We're so
tickled to have soooo many students....future
artists we hope!
We've had a few adults wish for
such a camp for themselves...sounds like
something we might need to work on for next
year!! Our thanks to all the parents who signed
up their precious tykes and, of course, the
precious teachers...we couldn't manage any of it
without them!!
One of the parents who signed
up her three children heard about our artCamp
over the airwaves!! She was listening to the
Kansas station KRPS!! She will be bringing her
kids to Carthage from Altamont, Ks!! What a cool
mom!! And a big thanks to KRPS for getting the
word out!!
We want to say thanks to all of
our loyal supporters.....all of you who have
renewed your membership with us over these last
few years...and those new members, too, because
without our memberships we wouldn't have much in
the way of income or a real reason to stay open.
Our hope is that our membership
is proud of our facility, the cultural aspect of
our existance and what we can and do add to the
community.
By the simple act of joining
our little organization we feel like those folks
are saying keep up the good work...you can do
it...we're behind you!! And for that we say
thanks from the bottom of our hearts.
Our Membership Show is over as
of today. We had a great turnout both in artist
participation and visitors!! We won't have
anything in the downstairs gallery until Jack and
Lee Ann Sours' show which will open on August
27th.
Jack is a potter and Lee Ann is
a goat herder...that's kind of true...Lee Ann
raises goats and sheep then harvests their fleece
to be spun and woven into beautiful and useful
works of art. There will be more info on them
later.
We always have prints in the
library that are for sale so still feel free to
come by. And you can always check out our new
perennial garden or browse through our library
books!
We've started booking the year
2000 and so far have some great artists lined up
for you!!
More.....next week.
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