Regional County Commissioners and Clerks Meet in Memphis
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By Echo Menges
Approximately 70 county officials, members of their staff, and other leaders from throughout the region descended on Memphis Wednesday, October 5, 2022, for the bi-annual meeting of the Northeast Missouri County Commissioners and County Clerks. County representatives from north of St. Louis to the most northern tier of the state were in attendance.
The meeting began early Wednesday morning at the Boyer Center located on the northeast side of the Memphis Town Square and attendees were welcomed with an assortment of breakfast donuts, juice and coffee. The meeting was officially opened by the local Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 4958 who presented the colors and the opening Pledge of Allegiance was recited.
Kicking off the presentations portion of the gathering, a Scotland County history talk was given by Jeff and Lynette Dryer, and Teresa Cotton, which was followed by a presentation from Missouri Farmers Care representative Ashley McCarty.
Matt Amick, from the Missouri Soybean Association followed with a short break before the Missouri Department of Transportation addressed the attendees.
Derek Weber, Executive Director of the Northeast Missouri Regional Planning Commission, gave updates on various initiatives the commission is pursuing and thanked the local representatives for their efforts in helping planning programs move forward.
State Senator Cindy O’Laughlin (R-Dist. 18) gave a brief legislative update.
“As you know we just concluded a special legislative session I personally thought might not have a great outcome but we did manage to actually pass a couple of measures. One of which is a reduction in income tax for people. I do believe that people need to keep more of your own money. I do believe that you can spend your own money more wisely than we can spend it. I think that was a good thing. That was at the Governor’s request that we do that. We also extended the agricultural tax credits that we passed this last session. We only passed them for a two year period of time. He wanted them passed for a six year period of time. I thought we might get a little tangled up in that but, fortunately, we didn’t. We did have to make two or three trips to Jeff City, but we managed to get that done, so that’s good. If you want to look into the future for the legislature. You know, it’s been pretty rocky there the last couple of years. We have a pretty big turnover in the Senate. We have seven new people coming in. Five of those seven are already legislators who are coming over from the House side. I think they will be a good addition to the Senate. I look forward to helping you with anything that I can,” Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin told the crowd of attendees.
Scotland County native and Missouri State Fair Queen Elise Kigar gave a talk about her experience of becoming this year’s State Fair Queen and her impressions of being thrust into the spotlight after being crowned.
Representatives of the Missouri Association of Counties Steve Hobbs and lawyer Travis Elliott gave presentations as well discussing various topics including the Missouri Sunshine Law.
Elliott focused on advising attendees to reply back to public records requests with the fee amount and deposit needed before filing records requests. Elliott also advised attendees to wait to fill records requests until the money is turned over. According to Elliott, this will turn some public records requestors off from seeking documents, and it could “buy more time” for them to fill requests – if a deposit is required to move forward.
Echo Menges, President of the Missouri Sunshine Coalition and NEMOnews Media Group journalist, followed Elliott with an impromptu address inviting the attendees to the coming NEMO Sunshine Law Training session being offered in Edina on November 3.
“I know everyone in this room cares as much about government transparency and public records as much as I do,” said Echo Menges during her address.
Pastor Mike Wilson offered the invocation before lunch was served by the Scotland County VFW Ladies Auxiliary, which consisted of a delicious spread of salad, green beans, dinner rolls, scalloped potatoes, with roast beef and ham provided by Keith’s Cafe, and a large assortment of desserts provided by the Ladies Auxiliary.
Lunch was followed with break-out sessions of commissioners and clerks before the meeting concluded.
Vendors were set up during the event to promote various services, and door prizes were given out by the Scotland County Commissioners Duane Ebeling, David Wiggins and Brent Rockhold with the help of Scotland County Sheriff Bryan Whitney.
The next meeting is scheduled to be held in the spring of 2023. It will be hosted by the Shelby County Commission and Clerk’s office in Shelbyville in April.