I attended the March 3, 2022 Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.
All commissioners were present.
During the Public Comment portion, a CCSO deputy got up and asked the Commission about the status of the Premium Pay that was suggested for Camden County employees back in December of 2021.
To explain, Premium Pay is a BONUS funded from ARPA federal relief money and simply uses that money to provide a one time BONUS of between $1,000 to $2,500 to Camden County employees who worked through the COVID. Except you can’t call it a B—-. It has to be called Premium Pay.
Not a B—-.
Shhh.
Stop it.
You’re going to ruin it for everyone. The Feds might be reading.
To refresh everyone’s memory (including the Commission’s), this issue was first brought before the Commission in mid-December of last year.
Let’s all hop into my time machine and go back to that December 21, 2021 meeting and read what was said regarding Premium Pay. Let’s wake this Possum up!:
At that meeting last December, Commissioner Gohagan brought the issue up and Commissioner Hasty complained that it wasn’t on the agenda. They ended up discussing it anyway. Gohagan eventually convinced the other commissioners to support it, but Hasty wanted a legal opinion authorizing it before he voted for it. The Commission said they would get it done before the end of the week and Commissioner Williams said it would be nice to give something to the county employees before Christmas.
And now it’s March.
The Auditor piped up and said that he has everything ready for Premium Pay. He has just been waiting for an email from Hasty about that legal opinion. Shots fired!
There are a variety of options available for how the B—- would be paid out. The total cost to Camden County ranges from $800,000 to $1,200,000. The general consensus seems to be that the B—- would be $1,000 for the newest employees up to $2,500 for the more senior employees. The ARPA money can only be used for the actual B—-. Camden County still has to pony up its own money for the matching LAGERS and Benefits portions of the B—-.
Presiding Commissioner Hasty (who is 100% responsible for setting the agenda for Commission meetings) told the deputy they will put this item on the agenda. It appears that both MAC (Missouri Association of Counties) and some lawyer named Elliott that Hasty really likes said it’s legal. The Auditor mentioned that many Missouri counties are paying Premium Pay with ARPA money. Shots fired again! Hasty shot him a look. Jimmy was having a field day.
I know for a fact that Camdenton is paying Premium Pay to their employees.
So we’ll see if that actually happens. Since I write about a lot of these meetings, it’s always frustrating to see how many issues get brought up before the Commission, tabled, and then never heard about again.
Possum politics. They play dead and once they think we’re gone, they scurry off and hope we forget about it.
The first actual item on the agenda was February tax abatements. They were ratified unanimously by the Commission.
The second agenda item was E911 Road Name Change.
The same deputy who made the public comment about the Premium B—- got up and talked about this issue. This guy was the rock star of the meeting! The property owner wanted to change the name of Adams Ale Drive. He owned all of the property adjoining the road so no other signatures were needed.
Apparently, when you want to change a road name, the Camden County Sheriff’s Office has to review the name to make sure your new road name doesn’t sound too much like an existing road name. This policy is to avoid confusion when emergency responders are trying to put out their location or respond to an incident. So if there is a “Pelican Court” already, they might not let you name your street “Pelicula Court”.
This property owner was awarded his second choice for street name which was Pebble Bay Club Drive. Deep down inside, I wondered what his first choice was. I didn’t dare ask.
The deputy mentioned that their mapping system is very accurate and Google Maps is not a reliable resource for directions in this area. According to this young man, if any emergency personnel ever respond to your house and they say they were late because of Google Maps, make sure to let the Sheriff’s Office know.
And then the Commission went into secret closed session which was obviously going to be about the IT policy since they said they were going to go into closed session about it at the last meeting. And they also discussed at last week’s meeting everything they were going to talk about at the secret meeting. But it’s secret now.
And for the record, it’s not a BONUS!
And that was that.
Among the Dogwoods 