| Today's Feature Wastewater Proposals.
Mike Gardner from Empire
Electric, addressed the council concerning the
Health Department’s proposed wastewater
ordinance.
During the February 11th County
Commissioner’s meeting, Bill Gory,
Environmental Public Health Specialist, and Head
of the Jasper County Health Department and John
Callison, Environmental Public Health Specialist,
approached Commissioners about making changes to
the current ordinance.
"We received a
letter," Gardner told the Commission last
Thursday, "and basically what it says is
this ordinance is not in affect yet, be we are
expecting it will be soon.
"The ordinance explains
that it prohibits installing temporary electrical
service, until some permit can be obtained from
the Health Department."
Gardner said he understands
that the Health Department wants to obtain notice
of new sewage systems being installed in the
county, but he has some concerns with requiring a
permit before electrical service is installed.
"Currently if you are out
in the county and you call up wanting temporary
service, if you call in the morning, we’re
going to try and get out there that day, or at
least the next day," explained Gardner.
"With this new approval process, I’m
not sure how fast we can get there.
"I’m just concerned
that we are using the electric to stop the
sewer."
Gardner said he Empire is
unsure if they could legally withhold service
until a permit is issued by the Health
Department.
"We are under a
mandate" said Gardner. "We have to
serve everybody who requests service, we
don’t have a choice in the matter as long as
they follow the rules and regulations."
Presiding Commissioner Danny
Hensley informed Gardner that the process of
approving the new ordinance would be slow.
"The Health Department
really kind of overstepped their bounds, as far
as I am concerned," Hensley said. "We
are taking it (the changes) under advisement, we
are going to move slow. We are not going to go
out and do anything overnight. We are all in
agreement with that. And we haven’t even met
with them.
"So unless the State
mandates something, it is the only thing that
will be in there. I think all that is is
something they might wish for. I’m not
saying that it isn’t going to happen, but I
think it will happen at a slower pace the they
expect."
Hensley said the Commissioners
want to also want to meet with land owners, the
other electric services in the County, and
contractors before making any decisions.
Western District Commissioner
Anna Ruth Crampton asked Gardner if Empire could
simply notify the Health Department of new
service requests.
"The problem that we have
been having is that electric service is the first
thing to go in and telephone is usually the last
thing to go in, " said Crampton,
"it’s been through the telephone that
maybe we’ve picked up that the house has
been built.
"We are finding that they
are moving furniture at the same time they are
putting the septic tank in."
Eastern Commissioner Ben
Johnson explained that the Health Department is
looking for a way to clarify the current
notification system.
Gardner said the Commissioners
might want to consider county-wide electrical
inspections, which could solve many of these
problems.
New Block Grant For Jasper
County
Becky Brill, Jasper County
Grants Coordinator, informed the Commissioners
about a new state-wide block grant for Juvenile
Accountability Incentives.
"This is federal money
which promotes greater accountability in the
juvenile justice system," Brill explained.
Under this $4,522,800
state-wide grant, coordinated by the State
Department of Public Safety, Jasper County was
allocated a percentage of the funds based on its
population and juvenile problems.
Jasper County has been awarded
$14,755 between the county and eleven small
towns. In addition, Joplin will receive $17,205
and Carthage will receive $7,587.
Because there is a County-wide
Juvenile justice system in Jasper County, the
grant allows for the combining of these funds.
She said the merging of the funds is currently
being discussed among the different city
officials. If combined, the County would have a
total of $39,547 at it’s disposal.
Brill said these funds could be
used to renovate the current corrections system,
hiring judges and prosecuting attorneys and
probation officers for the County’s juvenile
justice system, and new technology or equipment.
Brill explained that there are
12 possible categories which Jasper County could
use to distribute the funds. She wants to explore
these options before the funds are obtained.
Other Business
Crampton announced that the
county is proceeding with plans to place the law
library’s contents on CD-Rom. Approximately
300 books are being transferred from paper to
computer files.
The Commissioners also
discussed problems surrounding the upcoming
County Government Day. Because this was not
officially scheduled last year, many schools do
not have funds budgeted to visit the Courthouse.
"We did not make our plans
early enough, so I have drafted our plans to the
school administrators, telling them that any
school is welcome at anytime, and giving them the
dates for April 2000, so they will have (the
dates) to budget for it," said Crampton.
"So we will not have County Government Day
this year, due to the lack of funding from
schools."
.
Commentary
Martin
"Bubs" Hohulin
State
Representative, District 126
Even though
this issue hasn’t been brought to the House
floor it is time to talk about what could very
well be the most defining issue to be discussed
since I was first elected. I am talking about
HB166, collective bargaining. Collective
bargaining is the unionization of state employees
and is a bad deal for taxpayers and employees,
and yes, even a bad deal ‘for the
children’. The only party it would benefit
is the labor unions themselves because it would
mean more union dues to go to the labor bosses.
Last year the labor unions in
Missouri withdrew much of their financial support
from the democratic party in Missouri because of
their inability to pass collective bargaining.
They did give to quite a few individual democrat
candidates, but it has been estimated they
withheld about a quarter million dollars from the
democrat party itself. Now Gov. Mel Carnahan is
running for the U.S. Senate and desperately needs
the financial support of the labor unions. What
better way to get it than to attempt to shovel
taxpayer dollars to the labor unions through the
state’s employees?
During his State of the State
Address he called for a ‘bipartisan effort
to send him a collective bargaining bill’.
Of course, up here, the democrats’ version
of bipartisan is to roll us until they need
something from us and then complain we are being
partisan if we don’t go along with them.
All one has to do is look
around the nation at the states that have
unionization of state employees to see what a
mess it is. Strikes are not uncommon and schools
are in constant disarray. This is not only from
the threat of strikes, but also from the
dissension it creates between teachers that are
there to teach the kids and teachers that are
there to just draw a paycheck. One of the stories
we heard was about a teacher in another state
that had started an after school tutoring program
to help some of her kids.
She immediately started getting
heat to quit it. Apparently, one of the other
teachers asked her if she was trying to make the
others look bad.
State government has been the
fastest growing employer in the state. If the
employees are forced to join a labor union to
work for the state, the end result will be
millions of dollars flowing to the labor union
bosses.
Having served on the House
Labor Committee for four years I can assure you
there is nobody I would less rather see having
more power in this state than the labor unions.
Of course, I guess if you prefer having to pay
more money for poorer quality work, then unions
are the way to go.
We will be fighting to defeat
this measure, but it is going to be close.
It will be the most defining
issue between the two parties since I have been
here.
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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