April 26, 2022 Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

I attended the April 26, 2022 Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

All three commissioners were present.

Besides the bond agents, I was the only non-Camden County employee present.

The first agenda item was for Wastewater Sewer District Bonds.

This was the culmination of a year-long effort by the Sewer Board and Camden County Waste Water to refinance and consolidate the 9 different USDA bonds which funded the three sewer districts. The representative from Waste Water stressed that their priority was to reduce the costs and pass those savings onto the sewer district customers.

It’s interesting to note that Camden County is one of only a few Missouri governmental bodies that administrates some of its own sewer districts.

The bond agent for the county, Charlie Zitnick, mentioned that the strong financial performance by the county in the past few years and the excellent results from their audits were critical in obtaining excellent interest rates for these bonds. The agent also proposed that they should go back to the rating companies and see if Camden County could obtain an AA+ bond rating. He estimated that Camden County, as far as financial health is concerned, is in the top 10% of all Missouri counties based on its balance sheet.

Zitnick gave the lion’s share of the credit for Camden County’s current solid economic position to Jimmy Laughlin, the County Auditor. Laughlin has worked hard over the past few years to reform the county’s fiscal policies, establish strict financial procedures, and under his stewardship, the county’s economic situation looks great. The bond agent stressed that Laughlin is one of the most responsive auditors he works with. Fortunately for us, Jimmy is running unopposed in this upcoming election.

Commissioner Hasty said that he is so impressed with how far the county has come and he emphasized that Jimmy Laughlin is an asset to the county. He praised the auditor and all of the elected officials for their efforts to make this happen.

What shouldn’t be forgotten in all of this back-patting is that the Sewer Board were the ones who worked to put this big refinance together.

The bond refinances were approved unanimously by the Commission.

There was then a ton of papers to be signed and voted on with a variety of regular votes and roll call votes.

Camelot Sewer District for $3,835,053.86 refunding revenue bond series 2022.

Sunny Slope Sewer District for $1,029,462.97 refunding revenue bond series 2022.

Normac Sewer District for $277,339.49 refunding revenue bond series 2022.

The next agenda item was for an Order of Judgment Road Vacation.

This item was from an earlier meeting when an older couple had applied for a road vacation in Mack’s Creek and it had had been tabled. This new order seemed to meet the requirements and the Commission approved the road vacation unanimously. Good for them. They seemed like nice folks.

The third agenda item was the Camden County Sheriff Agreement with Horseshoe Bend. These are two agreements that get renewed each year. Commissioner Gohagan stated they were between the CCSO and Village of Four Seasons POA and Four Seasons Lakesites POA? I was pretty confident the second agreement would be for the Four Seasons POA, but that’s not what they said. Maybe it has another legal name.

Or maybe Four Seasons POA just snuck out of that big annual payment? Not likely.

These were approved unanimously.

The fourth agenda item was was for the Assessor License Agreement.

Total Environmental Services Inc. wants to add a layer onto the GIS for their sewer district. This will cost them $500.

This was approved unanimously.

The final and most important agenda item was the Visitor Pass Policy. This policy has been a real struggle for the Commission and we’ve seen them put it on agendas, table it for closed sessions, and then put it back on the agenda. I know we’ve all really struggled with this.

There was a lot of back and forth which got my hopes up that I was finally going to get my coveted golden ticket, but in the end,

They tabled it.

It seems they tabled it to draft an amendment to the policy that will add a requirement that you need to perform “a repetitive service for Camden County to get a visitor pass.” I think that should mean the Gadfly is a shoe-in, right? If my service is anything at all, it has to at least be judged as repetitive.

And that was that.