Local News – Tuesday, September 1st, 2020

The Dent County Commissioners met Monday morning at the courthouse for their regular meeting. Dent County Treasurer Denita Williams presented the CART money received by the county in August and the total figure came to $62,940.00 which is more than $2,900 over 2019 when the county received $60,037.34 in August. Year-to-date, the CART funds are $24,439.57 less than what was collected in 2019 which is about a 5.4% decrease. Williams also brought in the quarterly budgeted disbursement requests for the Salem Nutrition Center of $14,000 and the SMTS Bus Service of $6,750 which were signed by the commission. In the road report, District 1 Commissioner Dennis Purcell stated grading would be done on Dent County Roads 5080, 5090 and 6670 while materials will be added and grading done on county road 6245. Materials will also be added to Dent County Road 6250. Purcell said brush would be cut on county roads 4220 and 5120, and the work crews are 95% of the way finished with Dent County Road 5520 which they rebuilt last week. Purcell said 179 dump truck loads of clay material were used on the road. He said crossover pipes were installed and two inch clean rock was put down. Workers will be putting down 1 inch base over that and finish up the job this week. Purcell stated that the commission will sign the two Federal Land Access Program projects he has been working on so that the county can solicit engineering firms for the projects. The projects are the replacement of the Cooley Bridge on Dent County Road 5610 in the Bunker area, and the asphalting of the Tan Vat hill on Dent County Road 6670 that goes into Montauk State Park. County workers will prep that hill with the installation of a number of crossover pipes before at least four inches of asphalt is put down. The money for the project comes from the Federal Highway Administration and is distributed through MoDOT. The county will contract out both of these project and they must be completed by June 1, 2022. District 2 Commissioner Gary Larson reported grading would be done on Dent County Roads 2540, 2550 and 3300 while materials would be added and grading done on county road 4380. Larson said brush would also be cut on county roads 3140 and 3150. Presiding Commissioner Darrell Skiles said he spoke with the Dent County Assessor Jamie Homeyer and she was able to secure a contract with her software vendor Clear Basin for one year to allow people to fill out and submit their personal property lists online for property tax assessment. There will be a $1,500 set up fee and $5,000 for the contract for one year. The county will submit this for reimbursement through the CARES Act funds. Skiles said he plans to travel to Columbia Wednesday representing CCAM in negotiations with the management of the Holiday Inn to see what can be done about the annual training having to be cancelled in 2021 that would have been held at the motel. Skiles hopes that an equitable arrangement can be reached, be it a small penalty or an extension of the contract that both sides can be happy with. Skiles also wanted to congratulate Judy Apperson from the Salem Community Center@The Armory on her retirement. Apperson helped create new county addresses through the rural addressing service that is handled out of their office. Skiles also presented an addendum to the MRPC contract for services for the CARES Act application review. The addendum indicates that participating counties would help pay for any attorney fees and postage costs of large packages dealing with the application process. The addendum was approved by the commissioners. Dent County Clerk Angie Curley wants to remind everyone the last day to register to vote for the General Election will be October 7th. Curley will be attending the Annual County Clerk Election Authority conference in Kansas City this week. The Commission had five CARES Act Reimbursement requests. One came from Green Forest R-2 School for $2,365.21, another from Northwood R-4 School for $33,831.30 and a third from the Salem Memorial District Hospital for $53,768.00, a fourth for the Ozark Dental center for $20,000 and the last one from the dent County Health Center for $7,831.67. The Commission approved all five requests. It was also announced that with Monday being Labor Day, the county commissioners will not meet again until September 14th at 9:00 at the courthouse.