July 25, 2024, Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

I attended the July 25, 2024, Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

All commissioners were present.

Before I get started, is my house the only house that has been inundated by lobbyist-funded Lisa Thomas mailers? I’d like to start a contest on the best use for all of this wasted paper. Let’s see your entries!

My suggestions is:

Use the Lisa Thomas mailer to protect your family from license plate readers.

At the beginning of the meeting, Tranquil Woods paving was added to the agenda. This probably explained why there were more people attending this meeting than usual.

The first agenda item was Agreement between Climax Springs School & Camden County to allow parking of road graders on school property.

This HAS to win the award for Jordan’s longest description ever of an agenda item.

Not really much more to write about this item. Thanks a lot, Jordan.

The agreement was approved unanimously.

The second agenda item was Contract with Forvis Mazars, LLP for grant management services for the Human Trafficking grant.

Forvis is the same company that Camden County hired to make sure they spend their ARPA money properly and get all of the paperwork submitted correctly.

County Auditor Laughlin explained that Forvis would be providing a similar service for the Human Trafficking grant. It would be billed in $15,000 quarterly payments. The money to pay for Forvis would come from the grant itself.

Presiding Commissioner Skelton asked if the county could train an employee to manage these grants for the county?

The County Auditor responded that the county could do that, but then there might be the risk that if they made even a tiny innocent administrative mistake, the county would have Osage Beach Mayor Harmison up their ass freaking out and screaming that a crime had been committe…

Just kidding. He didn’t say that. I was daydreaming again.

But that would be crazy, right?

The Auditor actually explained that the rules are that the county can only send employees to grant training once the county gets a grant.

What a dumb policy. Can you imagine a government policy that doesn’t let you train on how to do something until after you have to start doing it? It’s almost like the government is forcing organizations to contract with these large, wealthy accounting companies who can then tell them how to spend their own tax money.

The Commission approved this Forvis contract unanimously.

The third agenda item was Senior Services Fund Board reappointment – Jim Powell.

Jim Powell was re-appointed unanimously by the commissioners.

The fourth agenda item was Budget amendment for new printer – Commission Office.

The Commission needs a new printer and it will cost $6,620.

Commissioner Gohagan commented that the county is actually saving money in the long run by purchasing printers instead of leasing them.

(Insiders also report that the county would be saving money by not letting Commissioner Gohagan go anywhere near the printer based on his previous bad luck using them.)

Presiding Commissioner Skelton agreed, but pointed out that the county would have to arrange for a maintenance contract for the purchased printers if they stopped leasing them.

The budget amendment was approved unanimously by the Commission.

The final agenda item was Discuss budget cycle management software.

Presiding Commissioner Skelton explained that he wanted to have a budget output that is more user friendly and easier for citizens to read and understand.

Commissioner Gohagan stated that he and the County Treasurer have been discussing the implementation of the State of Missouri’s County Checkbook program.

SHOW ME CHECKBOOK

(This program is called the Show-Me Checkbook and it allows you to view county expenditures and vendor payments online. Approximately 20 counties participate.)

The County Auditor said that the county’s existing BSNA system has a transparency side of it that has never been activated. (Classic. Love my County.) This transparency feature would put the county’s checkbook on the county website. He hopes to have this feature operational by the end of this Fall.

The final item was the Old Business item: Tranquil Woods paving.

This was a discussion about paving Tranquil Woods Road.

The Road and Bridge Administrator stated that that the county road system had required approximately $200,000 in repairs since the last rains. The department’s budget had benefited from savings due to new repair techniques and a cheaper than expected asphalt cost.

Tranquil Woods would cost $890,000 in asphalt materials to pave. That amounts to a quarter of the county’s total asphalt budget.

Presiding Commissioner Skelton stated that he had told the residents that the county would pave the road. Apparently, Commissioners Williams and Skelton made this promise at last year’s budget meeting.

Commissioner Gohagan retorted that he (Gohagan) had made no such promise.

Commissioner Williams said that the county used to make a deal with residents that if they would pay for the asphalt, the county would provide the labor and equipment for free. Williams thought that if the county was going to pave any new roads, Tranquil Woods would be a good place to start. According to Williams, Camden County hasn’t paved a gravel road in at least 20 years.

I checked and discovered that the county actually has a policy for paving gravel roads posted on the Road and Bridge Department’s website.

It turned out that almost of the people present at the meeting weren’t from Tranquil Woods Road. They were actually from Big Island. They were opposed to the county spending so much money to pave a new road when so many existing paved roads, including their own roads, were in desperate need of repair.

I pointed out that Camden County had paid IMS $60,000 to conduct a thorough driving survey of all of their paved roads. The survey had graded each road and the intent of that effort was to give the county a rational measurement to determine which roads needed asphalt repair. Why would the county now decide to arbitrarily pave a certain gravel road?

Commissioner Skelton mentioned that the Commission could raise the existing levy 3 or 4 cents. This would generate $1.9 million for the roads.

There was a discussion of raising extra revenue to pay for roads. Commissioner Williams floated the idea of placing a 1 cent sales tax increase on the ballot to repair the road system. His suggestion was based on the commonly heard strategy that a sales tax increase would spread the cost of the tax to visitors as well as residents. Commissioner Gohagan was concerned that a sales tax increase would also impact the locals.

(Under current revenue rates, a 1 cent sales tax would generate an estimated $13.6 million annually. This would be a tremendous increase in county revenue and would practically double the sales tax revenue the county generates.)

I told the Commission that I was pretty confident that residents who lived in the Horseshoe Bend Special Road District would balk at the idea of paying an extra 1% sales tax for roads that aren’t anywhere them. They already pay a property tax levy rate for roads of 0.4600 instead of the 0.1100 paid by the rest of the county. Frankly, property tax is the best way to fund roads locally. If people want to know how much it costs to have well-maintained roads, look at the HBSRD.

Spoiler: It costs 4 times as much.

Commissioner Gohagan asked the Road and Bridge Administrator if there was any logical reason why the county should pave the gravel road at Tranquil Woods. He responded that there was no such reason. Gohagan pointed out there was no reason to pave it and the Commission had not voted to pave it.

Gohagan also said that he thought the planned repair of the Willow Creek Bridge was being funded incorrectly. The impact fees earmarked for that repair were supposed to be spent on locally impacted roads per the county’s own ordinance. Gohagan felt that the bridge repair should either be funded from some other source or the impact fee ordinance should be rescinded or amended.

Commissioner Skelton questioned whether the county should even continue to collect road impact fees? Commissioner Gohagan was fine with the fees, but wanted a better method to assess construction impact on the roads.

Commissioner Skelton felt that the use of Neighborhood Improvement Districts (NID) was a good way to get roads paved. The County Auditor mentioned that the NID was the method the county historically used to pave neighborhood roads.

Toward the end of the discussion, it seemed that Commissioner Skelton had changed his mind and preferred to use the county’s asphalt budget to maintain and repair the existing paved road network. Skelton also wanted to get a traffic count for Tranquil Woods Road.

Commissioner Williams mentioned that there have been a lot of complaints from Tranquil Woods about traffic passing through their neighborhood.

A lot of conversation about tax rates, revenue and levies followed.

Presiding Commissioner Skelton did not feel there was a need to vote on this matter. He stated that the county should follow its existing policy regarding paving gravel roads. He discussed cutting costs by reducing the number of take home county vehicles.

Commissioner Williams reiterated that the county should pave the road because they promised to do it.

Commissioner Skelton admitted he was wrong to promise that the road would be paved. Since he became aware of the existing policy, he would prefer to follow it. He stressed that he felt it was a better idea to spend that road and bridge budget maintaining the existing paved roads in the county. Commissioner Gohagan agreed with him.

And that was that.