"They've gone hog wild."”

Dent County Presiding Commissioner Darrell Skiles

Maries County Presiding Commissioner Victor Stratman said at a recent meeting of the South Central Missouri County Commissioners Association in Houston, MO, commissioners didn’t let officials from the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) off the hook with the department’s stance on not allowing the hunting of feral hogs on land in the Mark Twain National Forest.

The association is made up of commissioners from 17 counties and meetings are held twice a year. At the recent meeting, Stratman said the commissioners got pretty excited and let the conservation representatives know how they felt. He said the conservation people “stood up there and took it.”

MCD has proposed a ban on feral hog hunting in the national forest and instead wants to trap them in the effort to eradicate the pests, which demolish crops and gardens. The department has 26 crews trapping hogs. The feral hog population in Missouri is estimated to be about 10,000, but they said it could be as high as 50,000. The hogs live in groups and move into an area as a group and quickly do big damage. If people have to wait for MDC staff to come out and trap them, it’s too late as the hogs have already done their damage. MDC said its about a two to three week wait to get a trapping crew to a site.

Stratman said the local landowners whose land and property is being damaged by the feral hogs want “to put dogs on them and run them off ten miles,” but doing that will mean going into the forest and will be against regulations. If they just run the hogs off their property, they come right back. MDC wants to trap them and eradicate them and they say dogs running the hogs interferes with the trapping. At the meeting, they showed a photo with dogs in a hog trap.

In an article in the Salem News, Dent County Presiding Commissioner Darrell Skiles said MDC will need a lot of manpower to come in and set up traps to try to get rid of the hogs. It’s a problem in other states and Skiles said, “They’ve gone hog wild.”

Stratman said the consensus among the commissioners it that it’s going to take everybody to deal with these feral hogs as they need traps, dogs and hunters.

Also discussed by the commissioners at the association meeting was that Doe Run, the lead company, wants its assessment lowered. The commissioners said if they let Doe Run do it, other utilities will want the same thing.

For Four Months

Stratman was on the telephone with AT&T again, trying to get resolution to the phantom phone number the county is billed for each month but does not exist in the courthouse. He told the AT&T representative that for four months the county has been trying to get this number cancelled and they can’t seem to get it done because AT&T continues to bill the county for it. Costs are adding up. A letter was sent to AT&T four months ago asking the company disconnect it because it is not being used.

The representative told Stratman she will email the county with a discount on the bill and a tracing order. AT&T says the county owes $1,065.28 for the phantom line, and the commissioners don’t think the county owes anything for it.

More than last year

County Clerk Rhonda Rodgers said the county has received its liability, property, vehicle and equipment insurance quote from MOPERM. Eastern District Commissioner Doug Drewel asked her if it went down. Rodgers replied that it did not and in fact the premium quote is $98,552, which is $13,000 more than the previous year.

She contacted the insurance sales agent, Jennifer Gerling of the Wallstreet Group, who explained the increase. Gerling said liability coverage for counties on average increased about 14% this year and Maries County’s increase is 8.9%. Also, the property insurance for the county has increased 10.6% because of the claims this year.  Stratman said the claims include the drug dog, which was a big claim, and a couple of road grader accidents when a Road One grader backed into a car and when a Road Two grader was hit by a car.

Gerling said the county may be able to lower its premium by going from a $5000 deductible on collision to a $1,000 deductible. And, the county can increase the $1,000 courthouse building deductible from $1,000 to $5,000. Gerling is getting prices and they hope the premium will be less.