September 19, 2023 Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

I attended the September 19, 2023 Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

All commissioners were present.

Commissioner Gohagan mentioned that the Sheriff met with the Enterprise Leasing folks at a Working Session on Monday and it looked like there’s a good chance that Camden County will use Enterprise to lease and manage their vehicle fleet. Enterprise is a sole source vendor approved by the State of Missouri so no bidding is required.

The first agenda item was Camden County Sewer Board Appointment – Rick Varela.

This agenda item speaks for itself and Rick was approved unanimously for the appointment.

The second agenda item was Camden County Wastewater Variance Board Reappointments – James Rericha and Lee Schuman.

The head of County Wastewater was in favor of these re-appointments. They were re-appointed unanimously.

The third agenda item was Bid Opening – Juvenile Justice Center – Installation and Removal of Hot Water Heater and Installation of New Softener System.

The Juvenile Justice Center contacted five different vendors and only received a bid from Lindyspring. The bids were $20,816 for the water softener work and $11,427 for the water heater. The Juvenile Justice Center representative recommended that the bids be accepted.

The Commission accepted the bids unanimously.

The fourth agenda item was Bid Opening – Road and Bridge – Hot Mix Asphalt Overlay.

It sounded like they were going to use this to do a hot mix overlay of Business 5. They contacted approximately ten different vendors and received two bids. The Road and Bridge Administrator asked that these bids be tabled so he could review them.

(It seems like the Commission is starting to ask more specific questions about how the bids were solicited which is a big improvement. It will also encourage departments to actually seek bids from more vendors if they suspect they’re going to questioned about the bidding process.)

The Commission tabled this item for review.

The fifth agenda item was Medical Examiner Services for Camden County – Invitation to Bid/RFQ.

Presiding Commissioner Skelton stated that the current contractor used by Camden County as its Medical Examiner (Southwest Missouri Forensics) has raised its prices significantly. As a result, the county is going to put the contract out to bid. A representative from the Camden County Sheriff’s Office reminded the Commission that any company hired to provide ME services will also need to provide their own coroner investigators.

The Commission approved putting the ME services out to bid.

As a final non-agenda item, Presiding Commissioner Skelton mentioned that BHD Realty asked to use the courthouse lawn for a pumpkin give-away. Nobody had any issues with this and the Commission gave it a thumbs up without a formal vote.

Once the agenda was finished, Presiding Commissioner Skelton asked if there was anyone else who wanted to speak to the Commission during Public Comment?

A woman from Sunrise Beach spoke to the commissioners about grading and clearing work that is occurring at Crane Cove in Sunrise Beach. She said that Gary Prewitt is the developer. The development has cleared the trees and in her opinion, ruined what was once a beautiful ravine teeming with wildlife.

Neither she nor her neighbors were ever notified about the work and she has been unable to find any evidence that permits were pulled from Planning and Zoning or DNR. Commissioner Williams said that the developer should have had to get a land disturbance permit at a minimum. (Gadfly note: As you can see from the comment below from a reader, it appears that the developer did obtain a land disturbance permit from DNR.)

She also had concerns about the damage all of the heavy vehicles were doing to the roads in the vicinity of the project. Commissioner Williams told her that once the developer starts to build structures, they will have to pay an impact fee to help mitigate road damage. He acknowledged that the impact fee wouldn’t come close to covering the damage to the road. (It’s 25 cents per square foot.)

Presiding Commissioner Skelton and the other commissioners seemed sympathetic to her plight, but Skelton admitted that the current Unified Land-Use Code doesn’t have a lot of teeth to punish developers who ignore its restrictions and regulations.

And that was that.