News – Friday, November 22nd 2024

The Dent County Commissioners met for their regular meeting Thursday morning in the courthouse. In public comments, David Meinell from Dent County Road 6600 gave a history on how the road came to be and that it was built to be 30-feet wide with 3 to 1 slope on each side. He said right now the road is passable with some bad spots and District 1 Commissioner Wes Mobray said the district is a long way from being finished with that road. They installed an additional new culvert pipe, and Mr. Meinell was concerned the FEMA personnel would not approve that, opting instead for a concrete vault, but Commissioner Mobray said the entire commission met with FEMA personnel Wednesday as well as Dent County Emergency Management Director Derrick Marfitt. Mobray said they had no problem with what the county did to that road. Denver Ellis from Dent County Road 2300 brought in some water well application papers from the Department of Natural Resources on the new water well approved last Tuesday night by the City of Salem. Ellis said they had requested from the city an impact study on how this well would affect county residents in the area, but they have not received it yet after numerous requests. Ellis was asking the commission if they could follow up on this to find out how it would have an effect on the water supply for county residents on Dent County Road 2240 and surrounding areas. Commissioner Gary Larson said the commission would investigate it. Emergency Management Director Marfitt said the counties in the region exceeding the 11 million dollars of damage which is the federal threshold for being declared a disaster area, while in Dent County alone the road damages are being estimated over six million dollars after an initial estimate of 4.6 million dollars. Marfitt said Montauk State Park sustained about eight million dollars in damages, but that is under a different category than the counties with it being a state park. In the road report, Commissioner Mobray said rock would be added and grading done on Dent County Road 5110 while only grading would be done on county roads 5115, 5460 and 6080. Rock will also be added to county road 6050. Mobray said from their meeting Wednesday with FEMA, the county would be reimbursed in two phases for their work. Phase 1 is to get the roads back open and passable. Once that is complete, the county will begin Phase 2 which is to put the roads back into their original condition prior to the disaster. The county would be reimbursed for that when the project is complete. Mobray also said there would be no FEMA assistance on Private Lane 601 in Dent County about three miles west of Highway 119 as they did not meet the required damage threshold. District 2 Commissioner Gary Polk said rock would be added and grading done on Dent County Road 4283. Commissioner Larson had nothing to report except that the commission would not be meeting Monday due to the MAC Conference, and there would also be no meeting on Thanksgiving Day. Dent County Clerk Angie Curley said the first day to sign up for the Municipal Election in April will be December 10th at the office of the entity you are seeking election. She also said the courthouse would be closed Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving. Dent County Extension personnel were in attendance to discuss their budget for 2025. First, they wanted to present to the commission work done in the community. Livestock Specialist Eric Meusch wanted to remind farmers who suffered damage to their farm road, fences or buildings due to the flooding, or suffered a loss of livestock, to get in touch with their FSA office. He also said two Dent County residents will be part of a five-year experimental grassland study using bio-char. Community Development Specialist Ray Walden said Dent County is part of a Missouri S&T grant on rural infrastructure, and they are working on a multi-state grant effort on housing. They reported there were 38 more 4-H participants in 2024 over 2023 and the extension is still looking for a youth associate leader. Besides the county, the extension is funded by a couple of additional sources totaling about $13,000. They did ask for an increase over last year’s budget due to the increase in minimum wages. The next commissioner meeting will be Monday, December 2nd at 9:00 at the courthouse and the meeting will be open to the public.