OSAGE COUNTY — Last week, Road and Bridge Foreman Justin Bridges said he’d received several phone calls about downed trees above bridges.

“They’re on private property, of course,” Bridges said. “And they’re calling and saying, ‘Hey, unless you want a tree against the bridge, you better go up there and clear this out.’ (That) kind of falls on property owners to take care of, does it not?”

“Yes,” said Presiding Commissioner Darryl Griffin.

“That’s kind of what we’ve been letting folks know,” Bridges said. “We’ll take some photographs as well, if you want. And if there’s damage that happens, we’ll (notify) their property insurance.”

“We need to work together as a team,” said Eastern District Commissioner Jeff Peters.

One tree, however, was thought to be on, or partially on, the county’s temporary easement for the new bridge on CR 625, and feelings were mixed on whether the county should remove it. The commissioners discussed that situation with Aaron McVicker from McClure.

“Wayne Brenneke said around three grand to remove it if the landowner agrees,” McVicker said.

“We’re getting too far out,” Griffin said. “I don’t think we ought to go up there. Just wait till it comes down on our bridge.”

“Not to try to talk you into doing it, but I think it might be on the temporary easement we’ve already got,” McVicker said.

“If it’s on our temporary easement, it might be worth going down there and removing it,” Griffin said. “We don’t want to go down there and damage our bridge either. You plug it up and then going around and eating the sides out.”

Commissioners agreed that they wanted to do the right thing and leave the property owner happy, but had to consider all the legalities.

“This is an odd situation,” said Western District Commissioner Dale Logan. “Why are we messing with a tree on the landowner’s land, but yet if it’s going to affect the bridge ...”

Commissioners ultimately decided to assess the situation, determine whether or not the tree was on the county’s easement, and talk to the property owner.

• Commissioners got a little bit of sticker shock while speaking McVicker about the Bridge Engineering Assistance Program (BEAP) study done on the bridge on CR 243. The current bridge, with a span of right around 20 feet, is not listed as a state-inspected bridge, meaning the county would be responsible for the entire replacement cost.

“Based on the hydraulics, that came back needing a 75-foot opening, which is squared to the creek,” McVicker said.

The cost of that new bridge was estimated to be approximately $980,000, not counting engineering fees, which McVicker estimated to be around $150,000.

“Going from that 20-foot to 102-foot span there, it’s going to qualify for MoDOT. Could we submit with this or not?” Griffin asked.

“Since it’s not on the register now, it doesn’t qualify for funding now,” McVicker said.

He went on to say that his measurements showed the internal span right at 20 feet, which is what is necessary to be inspected and funded by the state.

“Since we’re showing a 20-foot opening, my approach would be, ‘Hey, can you guys reassess this and go measure and see if you think it’s 20 foot?’ If it’s 20 foot or over, it automatically gets added. That’s where I would start, with (MoDOT) and say, ‘Hey, you know, we’re measuring a 20-foot opening. Can you explain why it’s not on the list?”

Griffin suggested that perhaps changes to the floodplain changed the span necessary for the bridge, and that maybe MoDOT would consider that. McVicker noted that the bridge is in a floodplain, as shown in the report.

“That’s the way I would approach it,” McVicker said. “Try to get it funded, because it needs to be a lot bigger.”

Griffin said they would be seeing Joanie Prenger from MoDOT at a meeting the following week, but would call her as well.

• Osage County 911/EMA Director Ron Hoffman and Sheriff Michael Bonham answered additional questions regarding their request for funds to change CAD systems from SOMA Global to Central Square.

“So, the question was, did we ever find out where we was going to get that $24,000 next year, if we put it up this year out of the use tax,” asked Griffin.

Hoffman said he currently has budgeted $56,400 for CAD software, which will cover all but about $11,383 of the annual fee for the first four years, then should cover all of it when the annual fee decreases after the initial startup costs are covered.

“I know this year we’re going to have to put it up,” Griffin said. “Next year, you’re going to have to come up with (the difference).”

“There was still $2,000 that we didn’t pay them for Live Scan, and they were wondering about getting that, but we never got Live Scan,” Hoffman said.

“They were inquiring about getting paid for something they didn’t provide?” Logan asked incredulously.

“$2,000,” Hoffman agreed. “That we didn’t pay them.”

“So besides inconvenience — it doesn’t do the stuff that others do — Sheriff, you said something about they wasn’t getting reports back in time for grants,” Peters asked.

“They have never hooked up — although they’ve had ample time to hook up — with the state for MULES (Missouri Unified Law Enforcement System),” Bonham responded. “That’s how we get our information back so we can run things in the car and locally. Number two is that they’re supposed to be putting our Unifying Crime Report numbers into the state system, (which) gets loaded up into the federal system that makes us eligible for grants. So if you do not have that done, if that’s not being reported, they can cut our grants off. Also, NIBRS (National Incident-Based Reporting System) is the other one.”

“Help me explain how one day we woke up and now we’re not eligible for this,” Peters said. “How long had they dropped the ball with this, what they’re doing? How did we get into the situation (we’re) in?”

“I’ll be glad to answer,” Bonham said. “So, first of all, we were not privileged to see the build. They told us it was coming along, coming along. We’re going to go live in January. On Jan. 14, we go live. We start to see that things are not done. They said, ‘We’re working on that. We’re talking (to) the state.’ We could see that they were not progressing from that point, because now we have a live system. We did not have a live system at all for the sheriff’s side of things other than the dispatch.”

“We (were) trying to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were working with the partners,” he continued. “They have the contract, they’ve got the paperwork signed, but they never built the bridge between those two, so nothing has been recorded. Nothing. And that’s how it’s gotten that far, because there was no way we could have visibility on what we don’t have visibility on. Does that make sense?”

“I’m not understanding how you got to June,” Peters said. “Was it fine before January?”

“We were not using their system,” Bonham reiterated. “They were doing a dispatch, and they were doing EMS first. The build-out for dispatch was important because everything then would base off of that.”

“So, this January was the first time we’ve ever used it,” Peters asked.

“We’ve been using the CAD (in the 911 call center) for 18 months,” Hoffman said. “And their promised portion for him didn’t come around until January, and it still didn’t work.”

Hoffman went on to say the 911 portion also didn’t work as promised, but they were able to use it. EMS is not using the system at all.

Peters expressed concern that the county had already doubled up payments one year to switch to SOMA Global, and they were now being asked to do it again with little assurance they couldn’t find themselves in the same position in another few years.

Bonham and Hoffman explained that Central Square is already being used by over 50 entities in Missouri, and that the servers are off the rack and can be sent immediately.

To help answer questions about the functionality of the new system, Bonham called Phelps County Sheriff Michael Kirn, who told commissioners they had been using Central Square for three years and were happy with it. He said their biggest problem came from the transfer of data from previous systems.

“We knew it was going to be a problem,” Kirn said. “The city and the other cities in the county all wanted to transfer data. And so, when you take dirty data, transfer over to new system, all those patches that were on that dirty data to hide it come off. And so you have nothing but problems. We should have started a new system, archived our old system, and we wouldn’t have half the problems we had. It wasn’t the program; it was the fact that we’re dumping all this dirty data into it.”

The Sheriff and commissioners asked several other questions regarding functionality, and Kirn said everything was working well for them.

“All the applications are good,” Kirn said. “You know, the system is somewhat user friendly. I mean, it’s a learning curve from the system we had before we went to this one. It was, by far, much worse. And so when we went to this one, it was much more user friendly for our officers, for the jail staff, and now that they’ve been on for several years, the speed has picked up with entering data and processing information. It’s much better than what I figured it would be.”

“You’re not going to get rid of it any time soon?” Bonham asked.

“No, our expectations are fully met,” Kirn said.

Logan asked Hoffman if he though Central Square would provide an additional discount if the county paid the start-up costs up front in their entirety, instead of spreading them out over multiple payments. Hoffman said he could not answer that, and suggested having someone from the company address commissioners directly to answer all of their questions.

It was decided Hoffman would ask Central Square to send a sales rep and a tech person to meet with the commissioners on June 10, the day the demo was set for.

• Groundskeeper John Kennedy told commissioners the generator servicing went well. The technician did not have the correct part on hand to repair the courthouse generator, so that repair will take place at a later date.

• Former Public Administrator Paul Stratman addressed the commissioners regarding statements that were made about him in a previous meeting. That is covered in a separate article this week.

• Sheriff Michael Bonham notified the commissioners that the Osage County Detention Center will be closing temporarily, due to a staffing shortage. That was covered in a separate article, last week.

• Griffin thanked Patrick Kliethermes for getting the files ready for scanning by the state archivist.

ROAD & BRIDGE

Foreman Bridges told commissioners the new bridge on CR 416 would be open by the end of the week. It opened last Thursday.

• Bridges said one of his people did mark a telephone pole on private property with orange paint.

“I did some inquiring, and it was apparently one of our employees that did that,” Bridges said. “It was not asked about, there was no permission given to do so. And the rectification is (forthcoming).

Logan asked why the property owner was upset about paint on a telephone pole.

“Because they’re restoring a house out there, and they think that made it look kind of gaudy,” Griffin said. “And (Road & Bridge) come up on their property — it wasn’t right on the county’s right-of-way. The pole was up on their property.”

“It was way up,” Peters agreed. “They were marking it simply because of the pipe coming towards the low power line.”

“The purpose with which it was being done was well intended,” Bridges said. “It just probably wasn’t the right answer.”

• Peters questioned what percentage of the county’s budget for road rock had been spent, and how much had been spent on the east side vs. the west side. The Road & Bridge phone was busy, so commissioners were not able to get that information during the meeting.

• Peters asked Bridges to send a crew to CR 751 to look at a washed-out area and a plugged culvert pipe after the bridge on CR 416 was complete. Bridges said he would.

“Maintenance on that end down there, because it’s so far away, has been lacking,” Peters said. “They’re taxpayers like everybody else. We need to pick that up.”

“There was quite a bit of maintenance that took place a couple of weeks ago that will help get us back closer where we need to be in that area,” Bridges said. “But we will address that road.”

• Logan reminded Bridges that CR 507 also still needs attention.

• Quarry rock was hauled on CRs 416 (420.75 tons for bridge project) and 634 (171.57 tons); roadwork was done on CR 412, 416, and Barbara Ln.; a tree was removed from CR 512; brush mowers/whippers have been working on CRs 516 and 542; and grader operators have been active as follows: GR01 (CRs 501, 502, 511, 512, 512A, 513, 521, 522, 523, 608, 609), GR02 (CRs 716, 717, 718, 741, 742, 735A), GR03 (CRs 303, 621, 801, 804, 805, 806, 807, 809, 810, 821, 822), GR04 (CRs 610, 611, 612, 634, 635, 613B, GR05 (CRs 403, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416, 437), and GR06 (CRs 321 and 412).

• Dump truck 27 (2000 Sterling Single Axle), plow truck 29 (2014 Dodge Ram two-ton), and plow truck 47 (2009 Ford F450) were in the shop. Bridges told commissioners it was the trailer for low truck 27 that was in the shop, not the truck itself.

• Citizens contacted the department regarding cattle-guard issue and culvert relocation on CR 623, private culvert installations on CRs 505, 611, and 741, and pothole/road cave in on Barbara Lane.

• Compliments were received about CR 613 and 801.

911/Emergency Management

Hoffman told commissioners he had surplus items available to other county offices.

“I’ll send out a list or a picture so that you don’t have to go down there if you don’t need to,” Hoffman said. “Then we’ll gov deals (whatever is left).”

FINANCIAL

• County Aid Road Trust (CART) distribution received from the state of Missouri for the month of May was $84,504.36, including Motor Fuel Tax ($64,257.71), Motor Vehicle Sales Tax ($14,261.33), and Motor Vehicle Fee Increases ($5,985.32).

• Commissioners approved bills totaling $128,684.91, with the following totals by department: Assessor ($540), Building & Grounds ($182), Circuit Clerk ($786), Collector ($25,877.02), Commission ($3,082.50), County Clerk ($2,750.04), Election ($4,486), Health Department ($2,701.05), Misc. ($2,878.69), Prosecuting Attorney ($822.36), Public Administration ($2,523.60), Recorder ($540), Road & Bridge ($76,318.37), Sheriff-Jail ($2,272.63), Treasurer ($540), and Road and Bridge Misc ($2,384.65).

• Checks were submitted for signatures.