Local News – Friday, October 14th, 2022

Jim Martin, the National Outreach Chair of the National Stars and Stripes Museum and Library from Bloomfield, Missouri, was in town Wednesday afternoon to present a proclamation naming Salem as a “Stars and Stripes City” at the City Hall Council Chambers. The proclamation says Salem was recognized for its “ongoing embrace and dedication to the principals of informed citizenship, commitment, and service in our democratic society.” Martin said Salem qualified for the recognition by meeting the National Stars and Stripes seven required criteria including embracing the freedom of the press as well as welcoming and embracing the spirit, commitment and service of the men and women of the armed forces of the United States of America.

The Dent County Commission met Thursday morning at the Dent County Courthouse. At the meeting, Dan Riley from Jadwin was in to complain about his land line phone service on Route K through what used to be Centurylink and is now Brightspeed. He said he has no dial tone most of the time and the company won’t repair the lines to get service to the homes in area where there are a lot of elderly people. Cell service in that area is sketchy at best and in order to make emergency calls, people have to drive a distance to a location where there is cell service. Skiles said he would attempt to contact the phone company and see if he could have someone check out this issue. State Representative Ron Copeland was in and asked what he could do to help the county. The commission asked if he could work with the Department of Revenue and get the misappropriated county sales tax issue resolved where Dent County could pay the money back over ten years and not three or five years as suggested by the Department of Revenue attorney. In the road report, District 1 Commissioner Wes Mobray said the Title II project work is being done on Dent County Roads 5590 and 5600 where culverts are being installed and rock is being added. He also said brush would be cut on county road 6220. District 2 Commissioner Gary Larson indicated work crews were repairing chip and seal county roads 3210 and 3220, screening brown rock and delivering chips to the company doing chip and seal work. Larson said a new pipe was being installed on county road 5200 where ditch work was also being performed. Presiding Commissioner Darrell Skiles wanted to remind everyone about the Family Feud event at the Salem Community Center@The Armory tonight. Dent County Clerk Angie Curley said she balanced with the treasurer on all accounts for the month of September, and she also balanced with the county collector and assessor on all add-ons, abatements and collections for the same month. Dent County Treasurer Denita Williams reported sales tax revenues for the county were up in all the funds over last year when the Department of Revenue again withheld sales tax monies from the county. For the General Revenue Fund and Law Enforcement Sales Tax Fund, the county received this month $102,663.50 and that is $83,294.28 more than in 2021. Year-to-date, those funds are up $401,946.62. In the County Road and Bridge Fund, sales tax revenues received were $47,081.78 and that is up from the $7,456.24 figure from 2021, and year to date, that fund is up $199,451.04. The jail trust and operating funds both received $94,150.76 in October and that is $43,819.47 more than received in 2021. Year-to-date, the jail funds are up $362,139.68. At 10:00, Aaron Benson from Great Rivers Engineering opened five bids for the Cooley Bridge replacement project which was FLAP project #56. The bridge, which is located near Bunker, had an original engineering estimate of $448,000, and the five bids received ranged from $399,110 to $1,104,999. The low bid was from H.R. Quadri Contractors, LLC of Van Buren followed by the bid from Gene Haile Excavating, Inc. for $460,975. The bids will be reviewed by Benson before he makes his recommendation to the county next week. Once approved by the commission, the bid will be submitted for funding through MoDOT. Stephen Bubanovich from Quadri was in attendance and said he would like to get started in December if the paperwork could all get approved and the county was good with that, pending that everything was complete in their bid packet. Great Rivers Engineering and the commission agreed to extend bidding on the Tan Vat asphalt project which is FLAP Project #57 until October 27th. Dent County Collector Shannon VanKirk said the county received only $22,196 in tax payments which was down about 1.13% from 2021 totals, and that tax bills will be going out on November 8th. If people would like to use the Pre-Pay tax installment plan for 2023, VanKirk said now is the time to come in an apply to get that done. She also said that people can now go to the Dent County Portal to review previous years personal and real estate property taxes. The next meeting of the commissioners will be Monday morning at 9:00 at the courthouse and the meeting is open to the public.