Local News – Tuesday, July 9th, 2019

The Dent County Commissioners met Monday morning for their regular meeting at the courthouse. In the road report, District 1 Commissioner Dennis Purcell stated grading would be done on Dent County Roads 5600 and 6600 and materials would be added to county road 5080. He also said brush would be cut on county roads 4210 and 4215, and that a man would be traveling to Springfield to get oil for chip and seal repairs. District 2 Commissioner Gary Larson said materials would be added and grading done on Dent County Roads 3080 and 3090, while only grading will be done on county road 3130. Larson went on to say brush would be cut on county road 3020 and that services as going to be done on grader #31 and tractor #6. Presiding Commissioner Darrell Skiles said he attended a 9-1-1 regionalization meeting last Wednesday in St. James that deals with the regions described in House Bill #1456. That bill said up to 11 regions could be created, but right now ii looks like the state has proposed eight regions and that Dent County would be in Region 6 that will extend from Maries County to the Arkansas Line in Oregon County. The reasoning behind this is to make the 9-1-1 system more effective and efficient in the state. Dent County Clerk Angie Curley said Dent County residents should have received their new voter registration cards and they are blue. Dent County Collector Denita Williams brought in the sales tax numbers for the money received by the county this month from the state. She said the General Revenue Fund and LEST Funds were down this July from July 2018 by over $18,000 in each fund. The GR and LEST Funds received $75,501.19 this July and year-to date are down $19,413.75 which is about a 3.4% drop. Williams said the Road and Bridge Fund went from $44,222.42 last July to $35,798.72 this July which is a reduction of over $8,400. Year-to-date, the Road and Bridge Fund is down $4,623.25 and that is a drop of about 1.66%. She said the Jail Trust Fund and the Construction and Operating Fund each came in at $72,454.84 for the month of July and that is down from July of 2018 which came in at $88,075.12 for each fund. Year-to-date, each jail fund is up about $363.16. At 10:00, Commissioner Purcell opened bids received for a quality used truck for the county to purchase for the road and bridge department. Three companies submitted bids for a total of eight vehicles. B&B Motors submitted bids for three trucks, Chafin Motors had bids for two trucks and C&E Auto submitted bids for three trucks. No action was taken at the meeting as the trucks will need to be looked at by the commissioners before a decision is reached. At the last meeting, the commissioners agreed to seek lease/financing bids for two graders that will be due in the office by 10:00 on July 18th. The commissioners also announced that there will not be a commissioner meeting this Thursday morning due to previous commitments by all three commissioners. The next meeting will be held July 15th at the courthouse at 9:00 and the meeting will be open to the public.

The Salem Police Department has released some reports. On Friday night, June 28th at about 10:00, an officer located a 39-year-old male of Salem in the 1500 block of South Gertrude who had two active arrest warrants from the City of Salem. The suspect was taken into custody on the warrants and was later released with a date to appear in court after posting bond. On Saturday night, June 29th near 7:16, a vehicle was stopped for a traffic violation. The investigation of the stop led to the arrest of a 31-year-old male of Salem for driving while having his license revoked. The suspect was issued a summons to appear in court and released. On Sunday afternoon at 12:28 on June 30th, an officer was dispatched to the Dollar General parking lot in reference to a female slumped over the in the driver’s seat of a vehicle. The investigation of the report led to the arrest of a 51-year-old female of Salem for being in possession of a controlled substance. The suspect was incarcerated pending the application for a warrant. Please contact the Salem Police Department at 729-4242 if you have any information regarding an ongoing investigation.

The Missouri Department of Conservation has announced it has reduced the number of counties in its management zone for chronic wasting disease (CWD) from 48 to 29 starting in July. Changes to the CWD Management Zone will impact restrictions on feeding deer, antler-point restrictions, antlerless permits for some counties, and mandatory CWD sampling. The 29 counties now included in MDC’s CWD Management Zone are: Adair, Barry, Cedar, Chariton, Christian, Crawford, Franklin, Gasconade, Hickory, Howell, Jefferson, Knox, Linn, Macon, Mercer, Oregon, Ozark, Perry, Polk, Putnam, St. Charles, St. Clair, St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve, Stone, Sullivan, Taney, Warren, and Washington. In response to finding CWD in Missouri, the Conservation Department created a CWD Management Zone around where confirmed cases of the disease have been found to help track and limit its spread. Recent research shows more than 90 percent of bucks in Missouri disperse less than 10 miles. Based on this recent research, the Department of Conservation is removing the following counties from its CWD Management Zone because they are more than 10 miles from locations where cases of CWD have been found: Benton, Bollinger, Boone, Callaway, Cape Girardeau, Carroll, Cole, Cooper, Dade, Grundy, Livingston, Madison, McDonald, Miller, Moniteau, Morgan, Osage, Randolph, Schuyler, Scotland, Shelby, and St. Louis. Added to the CWD Management Zone were Christian, Howell, and Oregon counties because of recent CWD detections in Oregon, Stone, and Taney counties.