I attended the July 2, 2024, Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.
All commissioners were present.
The first agenda item was Road and Bridge bid opening.
The bid request was for a single radius arch multi-three plate structure for use as a bridge culvert. Specifications were 55 linear feet in length and I suspect that this was intended for Willow Creek Bridge.
Welborn Sales was for $14,850.
Viebrock Sales was for $35,000.
Metal Culverts, Inc. was for $16,255.25.
(It wasn’t clear why there was such a disparity between the Viebrock bid and the others.)
This item was tabled for review by Road and Bridge.
The second agenda item was Board of Equalization – board appointments – Stacy Shore, George Pruitt, & John McCann.
The commissioners unanimously appointed all three to the Board of Equalization.
The final agenda item was June 2024 tax abatements.
All of the abatements were unanimously approved by the Commission.
What is the Board of Equalization?
From the Camden County website:
The BOE “is comprised of a three member panel of local taxpayers, appointed by the Camden County Commission and is completely independent of the Camden County Assessor’s Office. The purpose of the Board of Equalization is to hear disputes between property owners and the Assessor as far as Fair Market Value is concerned.
Each party to the dispute is given time to present her/his case and the Board will either render a decision, will take the information under advisement, or request further information from one party or both.
An appellant may discuss any issue desired, but you must remember that the BOE is only considering what is the Fair Market Value of the property under appeal. A decision by the BOE will be made in writing to the taxpayer.”
Old Business:
County Attorney Jeff Green offered some legal advice concerning the recent lodging tax court decision. According to Green, there are 15 days from the date of the decision for rehearings or other attempts to review the decision to occur. Until that period has passed, he advised that the county should continue to collect lodging tax revenue. After that, the court will need to appoint a trustee to wrap things up.
Green felt that that the county needed to take a “wait and see” approach. The legislature might even attempt to correct the statutory issues associated with the tax. Green said that the safest choice would be to advise the Collector to collect the tax, but not disperse it. Green also mentioned that Casenet has been down for 48 hours, so that is unlikely to speed up any judicial activities.
Presiding Commissioner Skelton stressed that Camden County’s self-imposed deadline for ARPA money commitment has passed. The county will look to recover the ARPA money that was allocated, but not yet committed by other organizations.
Public Comment:
Tom Abbett from the Ozark Amphitheater also spoke before the Commission. His venue has been growing and expanding. As they have begun to host larger shows with larger audiences, traffic before and after events is starting to become a major problem. He suggested that Business 5 should either be expanded to accommodate an extra turning lane or traffic on that road should be restricted during concert ingress/egress periods to get concert goers in and out of the theater more efficiently.
This would require coordination between Camden County, Camdenton, and MODOT since all of the organizations have a stake in any planned changes to that road and its use. The commissioners were receptive and seemed to appreciate the extra economic activity the Ozark Amphitheater brings to the local businesses.
And that was that.
Among the Dogwoods 