I attended the June 27, 2024, Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.
Commissioners Skelton and Gohagan were present.
The first agenda item was Bid Award – 240625 Assessor’s Annex Building.
The Assessor selected Wright Roofing’s bid for $24,578.01 to repair the siding on the building.
The commissioners unanimously voted to accept this bid.
The second agenda item was Bid Opening – 240627 Post Office Outer Remodel.
It sounded like this was a bid to remodel the storefront of the old Post Office building.
MTS Contracting bid $57,000. Camdenton Glass bid $39,470. The Maintenance Supervisor wanted some time to review the bids since it appeared that each bidder was proposing different renovations to the storefront.
The Commission voted unanimously to table the bids for review.
The third agenda item was Lodging Tax.
Recently, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the statutes that authorized the local lodging tax and its method of distribution. Laura Salamun was the Camden County litigant in the lawsuit and the Commission asked her to talk about it since she was in attendance at this meeting.
(The court described the collection of the lodging tax as an “unconstitutional statutory scheme.” It ruled that it was a violation of the Missouri constitution for lake area business districts to grant the lodging tax revenue to the advisory board, a private entity. It also instructed the circuit court to appoint trustees to “wind up and dissolve the Camden County lake area business districts.”)
Salamun mentioned that the TCLA (Tri-County Lodging Association) could still continue to exist if it could find alternate funding sources. The CVB (Lake of the Ozarks Convention and Visitor Bureau) already has other revenue streams.
Presiding Commissioner Skelton stated that the Collector has already been instructed to stop collecting the lodging tax.
Salamun estimated that there might be approximately $1 million in lodging tax still in the accounts. She clarified that the lawsuit was not about having a lodging tax. It was about having fair representation.
The next agenda item was Sheriff’s Department Firearms Inventory Discussion.
County Auditor Jimmy Laughlin said that all of the department’s firearms have been inventoried except for the guns assigned to around a dozen reserve deputies. LANEG’s (Lake Area Narcotics Enforcement Group) firearms have also been inventoried.
Laughlin explained that until he took office, the county operated the inventories like a 3rd Class County. The Commission was in charge of inventories.
Presiding Commissioner Skelton asked Sheriff Helms if the Sheriff’s Office still had an Honor Guard? Helms responded that it was disbanded because too many people dropped out of it. Skelton asked if the Garand rifles in the inventory were still operable or had they been set up to only fire blanks? Sheriff Helms wasn’t sure.
Sheriff Helms then complained that he hadn’t been notified by federal law enforcement prior to their recent raids on the Galloping Goose motorcycle gang in Camden County. The ATF told Helms they didn’t give him a heads up because they didn’t want it to leak out. He felt that the real reason the ATF didn’t notify Camden County prior to the warrant service was because Camden County is a (2nd Amendment) sanctuary county. Helms and several other sheriffs are planning to meet with the ATF to complain. Commissioner Skelton expressed interest in attending that meeting.
The final agenda item was Resolution – Public Admin Conservator Funds.
Camden County is currently negotiating the purchase of the Lighthouse Clinic building near the Justice Center.
This resolution established that 75% of the Public Administrator’s public and administrative funds would go to the county until the purchase price of the new building was paid off. Commissioner Gohagan asked that the resolution be amended to reflect that the money would go toward Building and Grounds funding.
Presiding Commissioner Skelton agreed with this amendment and the resolution was passed unanimously.
And before you ask, I don’t know how much the county is going to pay for the building.
In Old Business, there was a budget amendment to move funding into place for the new maintenance worker position.
This budget amendment was approved unanimously.
Commissioner Gohagan mentioned that there is currently an issue with cable and internet companies cutting micro-trenches into the county’s roads and not repairing them adequately. He felt the county needed to come up with a mechanism to address this problem. The county might even have to pull the road bonds of the companies if they won’t address it.
There was then another brief discussion about inventoried equipment. Sheriff Helms said that the only surveillance equipment his department possessed were game cameras that E-911 uses to watch certain popular road signs that routinely are stolen.
(In case you’re wondering, many man caves and dorm rooms have green Copperhead Road signs on their walls. )
Skelton commented that most of the surveillance equipment probably belonged to LANEG.
Commissioner Gohagan stressed the importance of inventorying the county’s equipment and establishing a baseline. In his words, “You can’t know what you’re missing until you know what you have first.”
And that was that.
Among the Dogwoods 