Local News – Wednesday, May 8th, 2024

The City of Salem Utility Committee will be holding a meeting this evening at 6:15 at the Salem community Center@The Armory at 1200 West Rolla. At the meeting, the committee will hear about utility billing and payments as well as changes in the office. The committee will hear about the Servile Protection Program and be updated on the MMMPEP who will be holding their next meeting on May 9th. The committee will also hear work reports from city employees before there is a draft budget presentation and rate discussion. The Utility Committee meeting tonight is open to the public.

The Salem Memorial Hospital Board of Directors will be holding a special closed session meeting tonight at 5:00 at the hospital library.

Join Montauk State Park team members from 9:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon this Friday and Saturday for Old Mill Days 2024. The day will be spent celebrating early 20th century life in the Ozarks, when the old mill was in its prime. The mill will be open all day with free tours upon request. Guests are invited to see how people lived when the mill was in its prime. Both days will feature historical skills demonstrations, living history performances, live music, crafts, games and food. There will also be an arts and crafts fair with local vendors offering up some of the finest homemade goods and services available. All activities, except for the tours, will take place in the day-use area by the mill. Guests are encouraged to stop by, learn a new skill, immerse themselves in local history and support small businesses. Don’t miss this fun, educational and free event! Montauk State Park is located at 345 State Road 6670 in Salem. For more information about the event, call 573-548-2201. For more information on state parks and historic sites, visit mostateparks.com. Missouri State Parks is a division of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

Dent County Recorder Cindy Ard wants people to be aware of a new website where you can sign up to find out if someone is recording a document or changing a recorded document with your name on it. The website is www.deedwatch.com and once signed up, you would receive an e-mail letting you know if a document is recorded with your name on it. There is no charge for this service. Just go to the website, and in the drop-down box, select Dent County, Missouri. In the second box, enter your e-mail that you want the notification to come to. From that point, just follow the simple directions to finish signing up. You could include the name that should be on your deed, or any other form of your name the deed may have been recorded. This service is provided by the Dent County Recorders Office to prevent anyone from being scammed out of their property or having someone attached their name to your deed without your knowledge. If you have questions about this service, contact Cindy Ard at the Dent County Recorders Office at 573-729-2198. You can also e-mail her at dcrecorder07@gmail.com.

The United States Forest Service has recently published three blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) on SAM.gov for companies and service providers to bid on. These contracts intend to make it easier for the Forest Service to quickly get work accomplished by establishing agreements with vendors ahead of time. A BPA is a simplified method of filling anticipated, repetitive needs for open market supplies and services. Interested vendors will need to respond by May 17th. These BPAs include a variety of categories for services such as road repair, construction and maintenance, paving, trail construction and maintenance, signage installation, facility repairs, carpentry, painting, roofing, plumbing and electrical work. Companies that submit proposals can select where in the Forest Service Eastern Region, they would like to provide their services. Region 9 stretches from Missouri to Maryland, to Maine, to Minnesota, covering a large portion of the Eastern and Midwestern U.S. If a vendor only wanted to provide services to Missouri locations, that would be completely appropriate and considered in this process. Vendors and companies that bid on these BPAs will need to have a company profile on SAM.gov, which can take a little time, so do not wait until the last minute to decide to enter a bid. To get started with registering and receiving an unique entity ID through SAM.gov, start here: https://sam.gov/content/entity-registration. You can then look for the three bids currently available in the eastern Region for roads, facilities and trails.

The Salem Community Garden will host a work shop a presentation on “The Right Place for the Right Plant” on Thursday night, May 16th at the Salem Community Garden at 801 East Scenic Rivers Blvd behind the Salem Methodist Church. There is no cost to attend and you do not have to have a plot at the community garden to attend. For more information, call Charlie Grimm at 573-368-9902 or the Dent County Extension at 573-729-3196.