Archive for 2023

The Salem Police department has released their report for the month of April. The department responded to 12 accidents during the month. Officers also responded to 10 commercial and two residential alarms along with fifty animal calls. The department investigated two assaults or fights in progress, and one assault or fight afterwards, two burglaries and performed 21 well being checks during the month. The department also investigated 17 domestic disputes, conducted 60 follow-up investigations and provided 13 escorts. They investigated two incidents of fraud, took one missing person report, and offered assistance to four motorists. Salem police wrote six property damage reports during April, plus took 16 stealing and two shoplifting reports. Officers also conducted 85 traffic stops during the month. The average response time to calls during April was one minute and forty five seconds and the average time spent on the scene was eighteen minutes and thirty one seconds.

Andrew Wynn has taken over as Chairman of the Healthy Dent County Board of directors at the non-profits May meeting. Wynn works as Vice-President/Lending Officer of Town and Country Bank and has served as the non-profit’s Vice-Chairman since 2014. He succeeds long-time Chairman Liz Gruendel who served 12 years in this leadership position. Gruendel will continue on as Vice-Chairman of the Board. Current Board officers are Chairman Andrew Wynn, Vice-Chairman Liz Gruendel, Treasurer Jason Jones and Secretary Tammy Sellers. When Gruendel first took over as Chairman, Healthy Dent County was a new non-profit working to establish programs and procedures. Under her leadership, the first-ever community center was established in Salem. The Salem Community Center @ the Armory has now become a place where health, education, and community meet. For additional information about Healthy Dent County and Salem Community Center @ the Armory please stop by their offices at 1200 W. Rolla Road, visit our website at www.salemcommunitycenter.org, find them on FaceBook, or give them a call at 729-8163.

The Salem R-80 Board of Education will be meeting Thursday evening at 6:00 for their regular monthly meeting. After the call to order and approval of the agenda, the Board will move into Executive Session to address student issues. In open session, the board will hear the Superintendent’s reports by Dr. Lynne Reed and Dr. Nate Wills, followed by the administration reports from the school principals as well as a reports on athletics and activities, special education and the instructional coaches. In new business, the board will consider the extra duty stipend schedule, approve a contract with Shield Solutions, approve CSIP, approve the Career Ladder Plan, consider the Healthy Dent County Partnership, and consider an agreement with BSN for Under Armour athletic uniforms and apparel. Other new business to be considered will include RFP’s for bus maintenance and depository agreement, approve a contract with Show-Me Therapy Services, approve a contract with First Student for ECSE, Construction Trades Building bid opening, approve an MOU with a University of Missouri College Advisor, accept a bid on the baseball field renovation, declare busses as surplus property and request bids for purchase, and adopt a Chaperone Code of Conduct. The Board will consider resignations before adjourning and moving into executive session. The regular meeting Thursday evening is open to the public.

This Friday, Marty Coulter of Washington, Missouri, will hold a one-day oil painting workshop from 9:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon with a one hour lunch break. He will be teaching how to paint nature’s beauty onsite with tips on how to quickly and loosely to capture the spontaneity, beauty and feeling of the moment. The cost is $150 which includes easels, canvass and basic oil painting supplies.

This Saturday at the Ozark Natural and Cultural Resource Center at 10:00, Marideth Sisco will speak on the history of how to survive in the hardscrabble Ozarks: use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. This will also be the last day of the Dent County History exhibit at the ONCRC. The exhibit will be open Saturday from 9:00 in the morning until 2;00 in the afternoon. The Ozark Natural and Cultural Resource Center is at 202 South Main. The exhibit and speaker are both free and open to the public.

The Dent County Commissioners met Monday morning at the courthouse. Deloris Gray Wood from the Dent County Historical Society was in discussing the “History of Current River in Dent County From the Road” project. She is applying for a grant to provide historical information signs at locations along the Current River and wanted to know if the county would donate the labor and their expertise in putting up the signs at the appropriate locations once they were determined. She said all the supplies would be provided and the commissioners agreed it would be no more than $250 per sign. Grant Wilson from Congressman Jason Smith’s Rolla Office came in to update the commission on activities which included another field hearing of the Ways and Means committee in New York on trade enforcement. They want to reduce trade with countries that don’t share the same ethics and philosophies of the United States. He also talked about some house bills including HR2811 that would raise the debt ceiling, but eliminated the increase in funding for IRS agents, pay back any unused ARPA or CARES Act funds from COVID-19, and eliminate the student debt payoff. Other house bills were for rebuilding the wall at the border and also a bill to protect the taxpayer funding of unemployment to recover fraudulent unemployment payments during COVID-19. Dent County Treasurer Denita Williams brought in the Sales Tax report for the month of May. She said the General Revenue Fund and LEST Fund each received $81,699.49 in May which is $3,721.52 less than for May of 2022, but there is also a reduction in the fund distribution due to the over-payment of sales tax agreement between the DOR and Dent County. Year-to-date, the funds are each up $1,801.01. The Road and Bridge Fund received $36,906.25 in May which is down $1,801.87 from May of 2022, and the jail funds each received $74,233.79 and that is down from $76,858.96 received in May of 2022. Year-to-date, the jail funds are up $5,715.73. Williams said the Department of Revenue said that last months sales tax figures were lower due to an Ameren refund of $40,000. In the road report, District 1 Commissioner Wes Mobray said crews would be out checking roads from the storms over the weekend plus doing some chip and seal repair. Commissioner Gary Larson gave the District 2 report and said crews were working on the Department of Conservation Road project on Dent County Road 2530 which needs to be done before the end of May. Larson said workers are adding materials and repairing Dent County Road 4380, also known as the Fiebelmann Road that washed out. He said other roads in Howes Mill and Boss will be checked. Larson said there was also a report of tree hanging over the county road 4380 and he said the crews would take care of that as well. Larson then gave his Presiding Commissioner report and said he attended the Ozark Rivers Solid Waste Management District board meeting where they reviewed financials, approved grants and revised a by-law that reduced the amount of council members from 23 to 12. Larson said he was then elected vice-chairman of the board. Larson went on to say he attended the Meramec Regional Planning Commission External Relations committee meeting where they approved holding the MRPC Annual Awards Dinner that will be held in Hermann this year at the Hermannhof Festhalle in October. Larson said he was also appointed to the Membership Dues Structure Committee that will be meeting in June, July and August. He went on to report the commission needed to appoint a replacement for the late Gary Brown on the Transportation Advisory Committee. The commission agreed to appoint A.J. Seay to the position who said he would accept the position if appointed. The next TAC meeting will be held on June 8th. Larson said Brown also served as the “at large” Dent County for-profit position and the commission will look to find a replacement. Larson reported the Meramec Regional Development Corporation has funds available for those wanting to expand or start a business, and he said the Meramec Regional Community Foundation provided over $70,000 in scholarships to area graduates in the Meramec Region. The next meeting of the commission will be Thursday morning at 9:00 at the courthouse and the meeting will be open to the public.

Liam Duncan of Salem and his fishing partner Blake Meiser from the Eureka Fishing Team finished third in the Missouri BASS Nation High School and Youth State Championships on Stockton Lake Sunday and captured 3rd place in the Youth category! This qualifies them to be one of three junior teams to represent Missouri at the Bassmaster Junior National Championship on Lake Hartwell in South Carolina on July 21st and 22nd. The team of Duncan/Meiser also finished 3rd for the Missouri BASS Junior Series for the year as well!

The Salem Memorial District Hospital Board of Directors will conduct their May meeting this evening at 6:00 in the hospital library. Hospital Administrator Wayne Reid will give his report before old business is discussed including the kitchen drain proposal, architect work on the clinic, finance committee meeting dates, strategic planning updates, and a legislative report. New business to be discussed include the Covid-19 masking policy. Reports will then be heard on the summary of operations and statistics for the month of April, the 340B program, hospital resources update, the hospital foundation report and a report from the Chief Nursing Officer Ashley Sullins to be followed by a report on the hospital foundation, and reports from the medical staff. The board may then vote to go into closed session if needed. The meeting tonight at 6:00 will be open to the public.

The Salem Utility Committee meeting was held Wednesday at the Salem Community Center @ The Armory. City of Salem Treasurer Stacey Houston reviewed the actual numbers for the year through April and also discussed preliminary draft budget numbers for the electric, water and sewer departments. Houston said all three utilities have or will exceed their budgeted sales for the current fiscal year, but also said the expenses associated with those accounts have also gone up. In preparing the budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, she said she reduced the amount of kilowatts sold by 2.5%, but the wholesale cost of electric increased by 12% and by city ordinance, an increase in the electric rate will automatically go into effect after the budget is approved which she estimated at 10%. She reminded the utility committee the $10 residential and $15 commercial availability fee charged this year to boost the reserves will sunset unless the committee elects to extend it. Houston also talked about how the budget reflects the contribution to the Reserve Funds of each utility as described in the Reserve Funds Balance Policy. The policy says the City will strive to maintain electric, water, and sewer reserve fund balances of at least 25% of the prior completed fiscal year’s actual expenditures for the respective department. It also says the City’s annual budget shall include budgeted transfers to reserve fund balances of at least 5% of the prior completed fiscal year’s actual expenditures for the respective department. The policy allows for budgeted transfers to reserve fund balances will be made quarterly with the 4th quarter installment amounts determined by the City’s financial condition. Houston said the city has budgeted buying a vacuum truck for $191,000 that would be split with other departments. They estimated the electric fund to have a surplus for the current fiscal year, but the preliminary budget numbers for the 2023-24 year with the additonal expense for capital improvements, the truck purchase, poles and more would show a $37,000 plus deficit. For the water department, there is a $6.00 service availability fee on all bills and this year there will be a surplus, as there will be for the 2023-24 fiscal year. The city also will be needing a new well and storage tank, and that will eat up those surpluses quickly and there is no automatic water rate increase by ordinance so no increase was budgeted in her draft budget. That is expected to be done in 2024. The sewer fund will have a rate increase, but that will not be known until the cost of issuing the sewer bonds passed by voters is determined and the city does not yet have that figure. With the work that must be done on the Waste Water Improvement Plant, the payback of the bonds as well the Certificate of Participation payments, the utility committee will have to determine the increase once all the data is known. To help determine some of the rates, City Administrator Sally Burbridge discussed in lieu of a meter charge based on size of water line, the rate use by St. James for their sewer is based on water consumption in gallons so the more water you use, the higher the service availability meter fee. So those who do not use as much water will not pay as much. She presented this to the committee to consider as an option. Currently Salem uses just a straight fee all meters of $6.00 per meter. The committee was updated on infrastructure improvements including the paving of Water Street, 228 potholes being patched, numerous leaks repaired including an eight-inch water line busted in half going out to the hospital where the entire section had to be replaced with new base pea gravel. The old base was jagged rock and not pea gravel and the rock eventually cut into the PVC pipe causing the problem. Burbridge talked about a product demonstration held by Midwest Infrastructure Coating on how to stop infiltration through the manholes in the city of which there are about 500. Over time, these manholes deteriorate allowing for leaks through the grout, along the pipes, etc. Burbridge said the city’s average flow at the Waste Water Treatment Plant is about a million gallons on a normal day, but if there is a steady rain, it can jump to seven million gallons. The example provided showed that if a manhole leaks two gallons of groundwater per minute for an entire year into the wastewater system, that equates in one years time to 1,051,200 gallons, and if it costs $3.00 to treat 1,000 gallons of wastewater, that would cost the municipality $3,154 for that one manhole which is more than the $2,250 cost for the coating per manhole. Burbridge would like to budget for this process and it will be brought up at the Capital Improvement Committee meeting. More information is available on the City of Salem website. The meeting was then adjourned.

An accident happened Friday morning just before 11:30 in Texas County on Highway 63 about three miles north of Houston. According to the highway patrol report, a 2005 Ford E-250 van driven north by 47-year-old Michael Wandra of Springfield, stopped for an animal in the road. The van was struck from behind by a 2011 Ford Fiesta, driven by 65-year-old Randy Harris of Licking. Harris suffered minor injuries and was taken by Texas County ambulance service to the Texas County Memorial hospital in Houston. The Fiesta sustained moderate damage and was towed from the scene by Jay’s Towing. The Ford van had minor damage and was driven from the scene. Both drivers were wearing seat restraints at the time of the accident.