MARIES COUNTY — June began with a country already suffering from the physical, emotional and financial fallout from COVID-19, which now on top of that mountain of uncertainty is a country dealing with racial factionalism.

At the June 1 Maries County Commission meeting, the commissioners along with County Clerk Rhonda Rodgers, Treasurer Rhonda Slone and Prosecuting Attorney Tony Skouby were talking about the current problems facing the United States. Americans both black and white were rioting in cities throughout the country over the death of George Floyd. He was a black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer in eight minutes as the black man lay on the pavement in handcuffs with policeman Derek Chauvin’s knee pressed upon his neck. Chauvin and the three other officers who stood by as Floyd died, were all fired from the police department. Later last week, Chauvin was charged with second degree murder and the other three have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. In Missouri there were protests in Springfield, St. Louis, Kansas City, Columbia,  Jefferson City and other smaller towns. Some looting and burning happened in other cities and nationally the National Guard was called up in many states.

The county leaders have worked long and hard through the coronavirus, dealing with issues they never would have imagined. Some 30 million Americans are out of work and on average 1,000 Americans are dying from the coronavirus each day. There have been food supply interruptions, closures of public buildings and people wearing masks and practicing social distancing.

Prosecutor Skouby said the meat packing businesses are booked solid into next year. They are turning away butchering business. He said someone could make some money if they had a saw and what is needed to butcher. Skouby said he heard a record number of fishing licenses have been sold. Treasurer Slone said the heard swimming pools and swing sets are selling like crazy as parents attempt to find something to do for all those kids who’ve been out of school since March.

“It’s a whole different world with protesters standing shoulder to shoulder,” commented Eastern District Commissioner Doug Drewel. People are tired of staying at home and now they are out protesting and not following the social and physical distancing guidelines of staying six feet apart. Drewel wondered how many people are infected with the virus after they partying at the Lake of the Ozarks on Memorial Day weekend when Missouri made national headlines with film footage of the party at Backwater Jack’s.

“I’m glad we live out here,” said Western District Commissioner Ed Fagre. Being in a rural area, we missed not only the high number of cases of the coronavirus, but the racial tensions, protests, rioting, looting and burning.

“There’s going to be a money crisis when the free money dries up,” Skouby commented. “They’ll be closing things and not building things.” He said a recession or depression is likely on the horizon, which will lead to much more violence. “Our jobs to protect citizens is going to become more important.” They will have to help as many people as they can.

Fagre said he thinks rather than handing out piles of money so that people don’t want to go back to work, they would be better off doing what President Franklin Roosevelt did during the Great Depression and to put people to work building much needed public projects, such as roads, bridges and buildings. A lot of those structures they built then are still in use today.

“I’ve said that for years,” Skouby said. “Instead of jail, build stuff and get a skill.”

“Have people changed so much they won’t work?” Drewel asked. “There are millions of people we can’t control.”

Rain by eleven

Stratman said the warm weather following weeks of rain and cold was welcomed by farmers who have used the good weather to cut hay. He said a lot of it was cut this weekend. Generally, Stratman said they can’t bale hay until mid-May. In June, the days are longer and there’s less morning dew. His father, Al Stratman, used to say, “No dew in the morning, rain by eleven.”

Got into the void

Ken Stratman reported he was able to drill through the shaft and into the void. He made four or five holes about three-quarters of an inch big and the water came out and poured into the elevator shaft. They think that after all these years, that particular water problem is finally fixed. Fagre said water was sitting on flat rock with nowhere to go.

Coming from
everywhere

Stratman said the license office has been busy the past two weeks and the staffers have had to work additional hours on multiple days to handle the number of customers. Rodgers said the line was all the way down the hallway Friday at 4 p.m. Stratman said they’ve worked at least an hour longer nearly every day.

Rodgers said the customers “are coming from everywhere.” Customers they know about came from Devil’s Elbow, Arnold, Crocker and more. Fagre said they say the license office workers in the courthouse are more pleasant than in other license offices where they are reported to be not as nice. Slone said there’s a lot of work they aren’t getting done because they are so busy with customers. Stratman said there’s a “glut” now and it will be fine once they work their way through it.

Four dollars a minute

Commissioner Stratman was looking at the AT&T bill and was troubled by it because it was for $1,330 for 911 and the county is being charged $4 a minute for long distance calls. There was a 15 minute call that cost $63 and a 10 minute call the county was changed $42 for. It’s too much.

Dispatcher and IT Coordinator Shane Sweno came to talk to the commissioners about the bill because he and Stratman have been trying to bring the phone bills down to a more affordable level. He said he’s still working on this 911 phone bill but it is so hard to communicate with AT&T. Stratman agreed saying, “It’s a nightmare” and it seems as though each time he calls he gets somebody that acts “like it’s their first day” on the job.

Sweno said he would like to see if they can get a long distance plan on that phone line or switch to another provider such as Century Link if possible. Slone asked them to be careful when “messing with 911” as that is an important phone line.

Stratman told him about AT&T charging $200 for 10 phone calls. Sweno said they may be calls to other dispatch centers. He will try to get something done. Drewel asked how much can be saved by switching and Stratman said they’d already received $4,000 in credits by being willing to be on the phone with AT&T for hours disputing the costs and even a phantom phone number the county did not have. In the meantime, the commissioners approved the latest phone bill and hope the next one is not the same price.

NG9-1-1

Sweno said he is planning to apply for a 911 grant through the state 911 board. It’s a new grant with the application due June 30. There are both grants and loans available to help pay for updating 911 dispatching equipment. They want to move Maries County’s dispatch to Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1), which is an initiative aimed at updating the 911 service infrastructure in the United States and Canada to improve public emergency communications services in a growly wireless mobile society, according to Wikipedia.

Sweno said Maries County’s dispatch equipment is nearly 10 years old. The grants and loans are to help rural counties update equipment. Stratman said to go for the grant if possible rather than the loan. Sweno said all of the equipment needs to be updated with new hardware. Drewel noted technology changes fast.

Fagre was talking about Elon Musk’s Tesla launching satellites into space on a large scale. Starlink, the SpaceX satellite internet project’s goal it to provide low-cost internet to remote locations. Musk was quoted when he revealed the project, saying they were talking about something that in the long term will rebuild the internet in space.

Money getting
tighter

Slone had numbers about CART revenues. CART money comes to the two county road districts each month from the county’s portion of the gasoline tax charged per gallon of gasoline sold. The county’s portion is based on a formula using population and county road miles. Road One receives more money each month that Road Two because it has more miles.

CART funds received by Road One and Road Two, respectively, were approximately $21,000 and $17,000 in January; $22,000 and $18,000 in February; $18,000 and $15,000 in March; $21,000 and $17,000 in April; and $18,000 and $15,000 in May.

Drewel commented the money is getting tighter.

Get what you need

Vienna License Office Manager Jennifer Roberson spoke with the commissioners briefly, saying the office really needs a third computer to put state motor vehicle on, along with a printer. Fagre said to ask Shane Sweno and he can fix it up for the office. “Get  what you need,” Fagre said.

Roberson said she’s been working on weekends to try to keep up with the paperwork. The lines at the office are slowing down but they remain steady. One of the part time workers has agreed to work more hours to help with the workload.

Stratman told Roberson, “We appreciate how hard you are working down there.”

Heavy rain

It rained heavily Wednesday night into Thursday morning. Different amounts of rainfall were reported throughout the county from nearly five inches in the Dixon area of the county, about four inches on the east side, and two to three inches on the west side. The Maries River was up and full and Stratman said it may have been out of its banks overnight but was back inside them that morning. Slone said the Gasconade River was “up and muddy.”

Fagre said the roads were washed in places again at certain spots and some culverts had ends washed. The commissioners received several calls about road problems on Thursday morning.