MARIES COUNTY — The Maries County Commissioners expressed their gratitude of having the assistance and expertise of the staff at Meramec Regional Planning Commission (MRPC) to help them wade through the new and sometimes difficult waters with spending the over $1 million in federal CARES Act money Maries County received to help offset financial losses caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus.

At last Thursday’s Maries County Commission meeting, the commissioners had a pre-approved payment request from MRPC for the work it has done so far helping the county feel confident in the $250,000 already spent of the CARES Act money. Maries County is one of six counties in the Meramec Region MRPC is helping with this request/approval/spending process. MRPC requested payment of $1,743.75 for work reimbursed at an hourly rate. Presiding Commissioner Victor Stratman said the legal fees, advertising and postage were divided up among the six counties participating and Maries County’s share of those expenses is $1,466.79. Adding the two together the bill totaled $3,210.54.

Western District Commissioner Ed Fagre said, “That’s not too bad,” about the price.

Stratman said it helps “To have someone to back us up.”

MRPC requested a change to its agreement with Maries County. The change adds, “Additionally, client will be billed for actual attorney fees, advertising costs associated with the project and postage for large mailing should any need to be done.”

Stratman said they are pleased with the work MRPC is doing.

In other CARES Act funding news, an audit firm, BKD CPA’s & Advisors, Springfield, was hired by the State of Missouri to handle CARES Act money for the state. Each county and MRPC are asked to provide monthly spending information. The county has been asked to hold off with advertising for the single audit provider until it is known what this company hired by the state recommends. They will provide bid specifications and language to recoup the money fee for the audit. Maries County and others want the CARES Act money to cover the cost of the audit, which may or may not be fairly expensive. At this point they don’t know.

Maries County Rep. Candidate

Nancy Ragan, 60, of Vienna, visited the August 24 Maries County Commission meeting. She said she has been busy working and campaigning for State Representative 62nd District. She is a Democratic candidate who ran for county commission in 2018, the very first woman to try for a position on the county’s governing body. Ragan has taken a leave of absence from her job at Quaker Window Products to campaign “all of the time.”

She spoke of the many different areas of the 62nd District as it is all of Maries County, and parts of Osage, Gasconade, Cole, Miller, Phelps, and Crawford counties. If there is a doubt about their district when she’s talking to citizens, she asks them who their current representative is. If they answer Tom Hurst, she knows she’s in the right place.

She spent the entire meeting with the commissioners and those who visited the meeting, listening to the work they were doing.

Sunshine Law requests

The commissioners were talking about the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit with Sheriff Chris Heitman over a delayed response with information asked of the sheriff in a Sunshine Law request. The ACLU paid the sheriff’s office $150 for the information and filed the lawsuit when they did not receive it in a timely manner. Clerk’s Deputy Renee Kottwitz said there was a bit of work getting this information together as the people gathering the Facebook posts had to make a screen shot of the post, print it out. The printer ran out of ink but they got it going again. She said it takes a long time and required overtime hours.

County Clerk Rhonda Rodgers said her office is very familiar with Suggested headline: Elementary teacher receives $500 ag education grant

Law requests and they usually charge a nominal fee for the information they have to gather, which does not come close to covering the labor costs as some of the requests take a lot of time. Kottwitz said the $150 the sheriff’s office received “won’t cover it,” the cost of the man hours, paper and ink.

Candidate Ragan said it appears “frivolous” and “a waste of time.”

Kottwitz said the sheriff did not ignore the request. His employees said it would take a long time to do it. She offered to help them.

“It’s not like they don’t have anything else to do,” Fagre commented.

What we did was reasonable

Sheriff Chris Heitman came to the meeting later. He said all of the information requested was gathered and turned over the ACLU. Two dispatchers worked overtime to accomplish the task. “I don’t see what we did wrong,” he told the commissioners. He suspects this is a political ploy, “Planned and orchestrated to come out after the primary.” He hadn’t been served or knew about the ACLU lawsuit when news reporters from various news outlets began to call him with questions.

He cashed the $150 check the ACLU sent and he plans to send them a bill for the additional cost. He is not allowed to charge for overtime so he asked his staff to get the work done during the day. About a week ago the dispatchers told him they were not done because they had been busy in dispatch. The screen shots they took and converted to a paper printout has “a phone book size of information” that was uploaded to a CD. Heitman said he thinks a court will see “what we did was reasonable. It was all out there. We are not hiding anything.”

New Belle Deputies

That morning two new sheriff’s deputies were sworn in. Timothy Edwards and Anita Connell both will work in the Belle Division. Edwards will be the Maries R-2 Resource Officer on a five-year contract with the school. He was a bus driver and his wife is a teacher. He is a preacher at First Baptist Church in Bland. Connell is well recommended and Sheriff Heitman thinks Belle is a good start for her.

The sheriff said Maries R-2 paid the full amount last year for the resource officer, a school year unexpectedly cut short by the Covid-19 coronavirus. The school district and the sheriff’s office will split the difference with the time off with the money.

The Belle Division is out of the red now that city fine revenue is coming in.

They talked about police car dash cameras which the sheriff said become out of date quickly, lasting only about six years. They are nice to have as they provide valuable information that can be accessed later. The information gives truth to the person involved as well as the police. That information includes recorded two minutes prior to an incident, records the GPS location, vehicle speed, if the vehicle’s brakes were touched, lights activated, and it has an in-car microphone. They cost about $5,000 each. Sheriff Heitman said, “It’s an expense we have to have nowadays.”

Ragan commented the cameras do more good than harm.

Asking about permits

Fagre said the FEMA disaster assistance money, over $100,000, owed to Road One for destructive 2015 and 2017 rain events, continues to be held up in bureaucratic paperwork. FEMA is asking for permits. Fagre said Road One had Corps of Engineers and DNR approval to get gravel and the county was not required to have a permit. The workers stay out of the water and play by the rules and it doesn’t go anywhere, he said. “It’s a mess.”

Elevator Deal

The commissioners decided to go with the lowest level of maintenance contract with Schindler Elevator, St. Louis. The county already pays a $3,200 annual fee for maintenance and inspection. This new agreement will be an additional $420 a year for the company to remotely monitor the elevator. It also includes a phone inside the elevator. The commissioners said the company will monitor the elevator’s operations 24-7 and the elevator needs a phone. Fagre said it may save the county from a lawsuit.

License Office
Security

Vienna License Office Manager Jennifer Roberson said they recently had confidentiality training and received information requiring a few changes at the office in the courthouse. No one but office workers and the presiding commissioner are allowed in the work area where they can view the computer screens. Roberson said license office staff can take out the trash, clean the space and vacuum the floor so the custodian does not need to enter the secure area. A barrier of some type is needed to keep the public from the area. Fagre said nobody should be back there anyway. Stratman said they can come up with something to keep the public from walking around and behind the counter.

Also, there is an area where electronics are near the floor and can get kicked and it messes things up. The custodian said he can take care of this.

Trending Up

Even though the county’s motor fuel tax and motor V tax has been down compared to last year for the months of May through August, the trend is somewhat better. Maries County Treasurer Rhonda Slone said last month’s revenues for motor fuel tax were down 15 percent from where they were in 2019. In August, the revenue received was $26,727.99, a decrease of only seven percent. Motor fuel tax is received from the tax on gallons of gasoline sold so the increased revenue indicate more people are buying gasoline and driving. Motor V tax is from vehicle sales; it appears this is picking up as well. Revenue was down nine percent on the year but up from the same month last year at $11,765.70.

The motor V fee is up 10 percent at $4,772.45 in August, which Slone said is from the motor V fees nearly doubling.

Miscellaneous

Rodgers and Kottwitz are set to attend the Missouri Association of County Clerk’s and Election Authorities Conference in Kansas City next week from Tuesday through Friday. Most of the other conferences for the state’s county officials have been canceled. With the county election authorities approaching a presidential election during a global pandemic, they likely have a lot of information to take in before the 2020 General Election.

The commissioners signed off on a big bill ($8,004.75) from Tyler Technologies for computer software maintenance of payroll and accounting programs.

Eastern District Commissioner Doug Drewel said using concrete blocks as forms on the work Road Two did on a crossing on MCR 317 worked just fine.

Osage County bridge

Fagre said Charlie Buntsma said the national guard can put a temporary floating bridge in at a bridge site, referring to the Pentecostal Bridge in Osage County that collapsed when a semi truck got on the bridge, resulting in the entire thing falling into the Maries River. They talked about how much a new bridge at the site would cost, saying $1 million would not take care of it as the bridge is about 150 feet long.