Saline County Study
Committee
Monday, May 8, 2000
Saline County Extension Office, Marshall
Minutes
Saline County Study Members Present: Mark Belwood, Kathy
Borgman, Wayne McReynolds, Marc Harris, LeAnn Haling, Vince Buck
Saline County Study Members Absent: Ruthie Cramer, Becky Plattner, Roy Hunter,
Richard Clemens
Saline County Commissioners Present: Mike Dillon
Saline County Commissioners Absent: John Stouffer, Richard Pemberton
Saline County Extension Staff Present: Cynthia Crawford, Darin Starr
University Partners Present: Anna Cox,
Jim Meyers
University Partners Absent: John Lory, Tom Johnson, Chris Barnett, Kathy Miller,
Mubarak Hamed, Chris Fulcher, Dr. Ron Powers
Marshall Democrat News: Bob Stewart
Chairman Mark Belwood called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. He announced that Chris Fulcher and Tom Johnson
both expressed continued interest in the study but were unable to attend due to other
commitments. Mark circulated copies of ads to
the Saline County Study that were run in the Democrat News by Carol Brown. Missouri Department of Transportation will be
holding public meetings on I-70 roadwork on May 15 at Oak Grove, May 16 at Concordia, May
17 at Boonville, and May 18 at Columbia, 4:30-7:00 p.m.
Mike Dillon will attend one of the sessions.
At our last meeting Richard Clemens requested we have
preliminary results from the preference rankings available to preview before this meeting. Anna Cox will have a report tonight, but was not
able to provide one earlier, due to end of the semester scheduling.
There was one correction of the April minutes; the May meeting
should have been noted as May 8 instead of May 9. The
minutes of the April meeting were approved as corrected.
Cynthia reported on the LIFE classes. May and June classes have had smaller
registrations, but are being held as planned. A
result of earlier classes has been a meeting of the Juvenile Office, Extension, LIFE
Advisory Board, and the InterAgency Council around the issue of Saline County’s
children, youth, and families. They will meet
June 22nd. It was suggested this
might be the next topic of LIFE fellowship classes. Darin
reported many participants of the LIFE classes have expressed interest in a gathering at
the end of the year.
Mark Belwood reported on Town Hall meetings. He attended 7 of the12 held and thought they went
well. There is a collection of the notes on
the web site. Anna Cox distributed responses
from 91 surveys in answer to this question: Would
you have answered anything different had you taken the survey before participating in the
Public Issues Forum Discussion? She also
reported that out of 94 surveys completed, 61 were usable. “Usable” means that
their inconsistency levels were 20% or less.
How will we structure our recommendation to the Commissioners? Mark asked that before we begin this process all
steering committee members do the following:
1). Review the original
proposal of study,
2). Review our mission statement,
3). Remember the CAFO issue is central to the
recommendation and should be addressed.
Mark reported one citizen from north of Slater, Howard Jones,
made a special effort to phone and urged the study group to keep the recommendation
simple, to limit it to one or two points, and to remember the CAFO issue should be
addressed. Mark asked Mike Dillon what the
Commission might expect from us. Mike
responded that the commission has no preconceived ideas, that’s why the group was
formed.
Mark then asked the study group to consider if more data was
needed. He expressed his desire to have an
update from Jerry Organ to determine if any action of this year’s legislative
session, or happenings with other health ordinances might affect any recommendations the
study might make. Do we need copies of the
health ordinances relating to CAFOs passed by six counties (Pettis, Linn, Livingston,
Camden, Caldwell, and Henry)? Do we need more
information on water quality such as information on buffer strips or amount of drain tile? Do we have an accurate enough data layer for items
such as rural residences? We will need the
survey information from the Public Issues Forums and the LIFE classes.
Kathy expressed the opinion that we should gather needed
information such as update from Jerry Organ, but we could continue to collect data for a
long time, especially if we started in a whole new area such as water quality. We have held the public forums and we should move
ahead in a timely manner.
Our next meeting will be June 12. Anna Cox indicated she could have the information
from the surveys compiled by that time. Wayne
asked if we were going to make one recommendation or give alternate recommendations. LeAnn suggested we go through the collection of
comments from the PIFs and present a summary of them to the commissioners so that the
voice of the people is heard. If we held our
meeting one week later, we could include information from the last LIFE class too. It was decided we would meet June 19 and Mark will
contact Jerry Organ to see if he could report to the group then. Mark will ask him if he can provide copies of
Health Ordinances.
Larry Meeker, the director of the community affairs office of
the Kansas City Federal Center for the Study of Rural America, would like to meet with the
group to hear about our study. It was decided
to do this later.
Our goal is to have a draft recommendation by August 1 and a
final recommendation September 1. LeAnn
suggested we provide information from the PIFs and LIFE classes and then “test the
waters” among the study group. Does
anyone favor only letting the free market work? If
the group feels there should be some controls, can we begin to reach a compromise? CPAC is committed to helping us in any way
possible. If we come up with a recommendation
and want them to run a scenario of what the recommendation would mean, they will try to do
so.
Mark suggested our recommendation could include the following:
1). Executive summary of
the recommendation,
2). Recommendation on land use and future
development in the county,
3). Recommendation on CAFOs,
4). Recommendation on continuing knowledge
based decision-making capacity in county,
5). Present results of PIFs and LIFE classes.
Vince expressed the opinion that we present one main
recommendation. Marc Harris noted that we
might make a “cut and dried” recommendation, but there is always need for forms
of adjustment to make it work. People must
always talk with one another.
We will set the following dates at which time the study
committee alone will meet to form its recommendation:
June 19 (hopefully Jerry Organ will attend this session and Anna Cox will
present survey results), June 26, and July 10.
Cynthia will be in St. Louis next week meeting with Extension
people from Missouri and Illinois. She will
present information about our study program.
Meeting adjourned 8:50 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathy Borgman, recorder
This web site is hosted by CARES- University
of Missouri - Columbia
This web site is maintained jointly by the Saline County Study Steering
Committee and CARES
For problems or questions regarding this web contact the Saline
County Steering Committee or Chris
Fulcher (CARES).
Last updated: October 13, 2000
