March 7, 2024, Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

I attended the March 7, 2024, Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

All commissioners were present.

I had previously attended the March 5 Commission meeting, but that meeting was cancelled because only Commissioner Gohagan was present. Commissioner Skelton was scheduled to be in Jeff City. Commissioner Williams had been in the office earlier, but the word was that he had to go home because his alpacas had escaped. So that meeting was cancelled thanks to loose alpacas.

Just another day in a First Class County.

The first agenda item for the March 7 meeting (Part Deaux: All Alpacas Accounted For) was Bid Opening 240307-Assessor’s Annex Roof Replacement.

There were three bids.

The bid from Wright Roofing was $22,977.

The bid from G&R Construction was $26,621 plus $1,789 for gutter replacement.

The bid from Ellerman Roofing was $22,434.

The Commission voted unanimously to table these bids for review until next Thursday’s meeting.

The second agenda item was Contract Addendums for Assessor’s GFI Contract to Include SB190 Operations.

The County Assessor needed the Hunter Group to write software so his office can track the SB190 data for property tax rebates. It will cost $4,000.

The commissioners unanimously approved this item.

The Assessor also needed two more desktop printers from GFI. The payment would come from the Assessor’s budget.

The commissioners also approved this unanimously.

The third agenda item was February 2024 tax abatements.

These were approved.

The fourth agenda item was Discuss Possibility of Leasing Vehicle for Commission with Enterprise.

Presiding Commissioner Skelton expressed that there was a need for the Commission to have an assigned county vehicle the commissioners could use when needed. They were previously using a vehicle from the Health Department. Skelton wanted to auction several older county vehicles (2 Jeep Libertys and a maintenance van) and use the proceeds to buy or lease a vehicle for the commissioners to use.

The fifth agenda item was Macks Creek Community Park Discussion.

A representative from the Park Board was present to speak with the Commission. They have been trying to set up a 501(c)(3) organization, but they haven’t completed the process yet. The Park Board wants to install new equipment, but they wanted to avoid paying the $5,000 in taxes that would come with it. The Park Board offered to give Camden County the money for the equipment and then have the county pay to purchase and install it. This would allow them to avoid the tax burden. The Commission called County Attorney Jeff Green on the phone and he opined that it would be legal to process the payment through the county.

The Commission voted unanimously to accept the funds as a donation from the Macks Creek Park Board and have the county make the payment.

The final agenda item was Three Brothers Meat Co. – DNR Discussion.

Ira Moss and Chris Lane were present from Three Brothers Meat Company to address the Commission.

They are co-owners of a meat processing business and they’ve been having some problems with Missouri DNR. This was a longer presentation, but I’m going to give a brief summary of their situation.

When they initially tried to purchase the business from the previous owner, the sale was held up because of issues with the Clean Water Act. The business uses a lagoon system to process and clean the run-off water from the processing facility. $65,000 in improvements were needed for the water system and they paid $32,000 of that themselves at closing.

When an inspector from DNR recently came to inspect the facility, the owners assumed he was going to spend most of his time inspecting the lagoon system. Instead, the inspector was more concerned about the pens where they temporarily keep the cattle while they’re waiting to slaughter them. DNR is considering requiring stricter water treatment standards just for the cattle pens that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. From the owners’ description of the business, it sounded like the pens usually only held a dozen animals at any one time.

Missouri DNR does not consider the business to be an agricultural business. Instead, they treat it like a production plant. According to the owners, the stricter enforcement has kept them from being able to increase the size of their business.

The commissioners were sympathetic to their situation. According to Moss, the Head of Permitting for DNR will be at their facility on March 14. The commissioners expressed a desire to be at that meeting also.

And that was that.

This is a pattern that I’m seeing more and more with government and inspection authorities. DNR would prefer to have a few large, centralized industrial meat processing facilities which would make it much easier to conduct inspections. They don’t want small, local meat processing facilities scattered throughout the state. It doesn’t matter to them that the local facilities are more convenient for farmers and hunters.

It’s the same reason they keep encouraging Camden County’s Public Water Supply District #4 to take over more of the private sewage plants on Horseshoe Bend. DNR is simply tired of having to keep track of them all and inspect them. In DNR’s perfect world, one water district would run it all and would be responsible for all of them.

One district to rule them all. Nice and easy.

For DNR.

Similarly, the ATF would love to push every small gun shop out of business and have a gun sales market where only big box store corporations sell firearms. It’s a worrying trend. These government agencies need to remember that they exist to enforce standards and help with compliance, not to shape the free market by picking winners and losers.