(News release) – The Missouri Department of Transportation said sidewalk projects on Frederick are currently underway with additional projects planned later this year in St. Joseph.
MoDOT said sidewalk improvements throughout St. Joseph continue with a project on Route 6 (Frederick) spanning from Woodbine Road to Route AC. The project, which is already underway, is partially funded through the Transportation Alternatives Program with MoDOT providing a 20 percent match. According to MoDOT, these federal grant funds help pedestrians in St. Joseph enjoy safer walking, visiting restaurants and shopping. The project will also bring improvements to intersections in the area of the projects to ensure they comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
After the sidewalk improvement project is complete, the surface of the roadway will be milled and resurfaced between Route AC and Interstate 29. This resurfacing is scheduled to begin in September. The roadway will remain open, but one lane could be closed in each direction. Some or all of the resurfacing work could occur at night.
Drivers are encouraged to use caution during both the sidewalk and resurfacing projects, as crews will be working in close proximity to the traveling public.
(Missourinet) – The Missouri Senate will convene Monday afternoon in Jefferson City to begin the special session called by Governor Eric Greitens (R) on abortion-related issues.
The governor issued his call last Wednesday. Greitens is urging Missouri lawmakers to pass legislation to protect pregnancy resource centers and to implement health and safety standards in abortion clinics.
“These are just some really common sense health and safety standards for the people of Missouri, while we’re also standing up and protecting these pregnancy care centers which do fantastic work, not just in St. Louis but across the state of Missouri, including right here in Springfield,” Greitens said.
Greitens and former Arkansas Governor and former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee rallied with supporters in Springfield and in Joplin on Friday.
Greitens announced his special session call in a Facebook video, saying “I’m pro-life, and I believe that we need to defend life and promote a culture of life here in the state of Missouri.”
Greitens said abortion clinics should have an annual safety inspection.
The Missouri House Progressive Caucus, which includes State Reps. Stacey Newman (D-Richmond Heights), Crystal Quade (D-Springfield) and Cora Faith Walker (D-Ferguson), has issued a statement, describing the special session call as “punitive and an irresponsible waste of taxpayer dollars to address GOP sponsored legislation which failed to pass in the regular session with a GOP majority.”
The House Progressive Caucus statement also says the majority of Missourians oppose what the caucus describes as Governor Greitens’ “continuous attacks on women’s private legal reproductive choices.”
State Rep. Jay Barnes (R-Jefferson City) has written an op-ed, which says that Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis facility had to call an ambulance 58 times in seven years. Barnes also writes that Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis facility has been cited by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services “for hundreds of regulatory violations.”
The top Republican and Democrat in the Missouri House also have differing views on the special session.
House Speaker Todd Richardson (R-Poplar Bluff) has issued a statement which said Missouri “is a state that is strongly pro-life.” Richardson also said Missouri House members “are ready to return to work to uphold the values of Missouri families, and to advance policy solutions that will continue to make Missouri a state where women’s health is a priority and precious, innocent life is protected.”
House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty (D-Kansas City) said Governor Greitens is “wasting” more taxpayer money. Beatty has issued a statement, which reads in part: “Missourians structured the General Assembly to be a part-time, citizen legislature with tight restrictions on when it has authority to act. Special sessions are supposed to be called only on ‘extraordinary occasions’ when immediate action is necessary. The governor’s failure to enact his agenda during the regular session falls well short of that high standard.”
Missouri Senate Majority Floor Leader Mike Kehoe (R-Jefferson City) has issued a memo to staff, which indicates the Senate will also be in session on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and possibly Friday.
The Missouri House is not expected to convene in Jefferson City until Tuesday June 20.
(News release) – On Monday the Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety will launch a new week-long campaign focusing on pedestrian safety. The campaign will be geared toward pedestrians and drivers, educating both about what to watch out for to ensure everyone is safe.
Statewide, from 2013-2016, a total of 347 pedestrians were killed, and 1,021 were seriously injured.
The top five pedestrian contributing factors involved in the 347 fatalities were failure to yield (100 fatalities), alcohol impairment (55 fatalities), distraction/inattention (44 fatalities), drug impairment (20 fatalities) and physical impairment (11 fatalities).
“We want to be sure that citizens are as safe as possible in all modes of transportation,” said Bill Whitfield, chair of the coalition’s executive committee. “We encourage all drivers, cyclists and pedestrians to make safe choices so everyone, no matter the mode of transportation, makes it to their destination safe.”
Keep the following pedestrian safety tips in mind anytime you walk:
Drivers and pedestrians need to make eye contact with each other. Don’t assume that the other one has seen you.
If you must exit a stalled vehicle alongside the roadway, do so on the opposite side of traffic and do not attempt to walk across the oncoming traffic.
Only cross at an intersection or crosswalk – stepping out from between parked cars or other obstacles by the road can keep a driver from being able to see you and stop in time.
Look left, right and then left again before crossing an intersection or crosswalk – you always want to double check the lane that you’ll be entering first.
Be aware of drivers even when you are in a designated crosswalk – drivers can look and use their mirrors, but there are always blind spots.
Avoid walking with headphones in – you won’t to be able to hear if a car is coming.
Always wear brightly colored clothing for visibility when exercising alongside a roadway.
Always walk against the flow of traffic rather than with the traffic.
Always be cautious when exiting parking lots, and be on the lookout for pedestrians.
For more information, visit savemolives.com
Northwest Administration Building. Photo courtesy Darren Whitley/Northwest Missouri State University
(News release)– The United States Department of Education has awarded Northwest Missouri State University’s TRIO program funding that will allow it to continue for another five years.
The funding for the program is approved through 2022. The Northwest TRIO program will receive $368,829 annually through the competitive grant, which totals roughly $1.84 million during the five-year period.
TRIO is a federally recognized educational outreach program designed for students with disadvantaged backgrounds. It serves as an umbrella organization for Northwest programs consisting of Student Support Services, Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math and Science. TRIO programs provide valuable, supportive services to students from poor and working families to successfully enter college and earn degrees.
Since 1986, Northwest TRIO programs have promoted educational opportunities while assisting students in their personal journey of earning a higher education degree. The partnerships TRIO has within the Northwest campus community assist with addressing the unique needs of academically capable individuals who are first-generation students and come from families with limited income.
“Upward Bound’s pre-college planning framework assists its students in embracing more intensive academic performance habits to help their transition to post-secondary education,” Northwest TRIO Director Cassie Tavorn said. “This funding makes a very real and positive difference in the lives of our future decision-makers.”
The grant will allow Northwest’s TRIO program to serve 80 students when the new grant cycle begins Sept. 1.
The summer programs help students bridge the gap between high school and college while providing an environment for them to experience college life and independent living. The programs assist students with enhancing their academic, social, leadership and cultural competency skills to become forward thinkers in education.
Columbia Mayor Brian Treece. Photo courtesy Missourinet.
(Missourinet) – The list of city mayors across the country that have joined a pact to achieve the benchmarks set forth in the Paris agreement seems to grow by the day.
The Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, or Climate Mayors, has swelled to well over 200 cities since President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the accord.
The organization’s website lists St. Louis and Kansas City as participants. Columbia mayor Brian Treece said his city is also a partner, along with a small group of St. Louis suburbs.
In a letter to the U.N. Secretary General, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who’s a special United Nations envoy for cities and climate change, said, “The bulk of the decisions which drive U.S. climate action in the aggregate are made by cities, states, businesses, and civil society.”
Treece, who has looked over the Paris accord, said he agrees.
“I read the major tenets of the agreement before signing on with Climate Mayors, and there were activities that the city of Columbia were already doing,” Treece said. “A lot of it is simply measuring our output in order to make meaningful changes that protect the environment and improve our economy.”
Climate Mayors was formed by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, former Houston Mayor Annise Parker and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. Its website says the organization “commits U.S. mayors to strengthen local efforts for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to supporting efforts for binding federal and global-level policymaking.”
Treece said he thinks some form of unified action is needed after President Trump removed the country from the Paris accord.
“I think it’s appropriate and responsible that mayors that can take an active effort at the local level, join together and begin to honor some of the goals of that accord,” Treece said.
The Paris agreement itself, which places voluntary benchmarks for greenhouse gas limits from 195 countries, wasn’t designed for participation from parties other than national governments. Under former President Obama, the U. S. had pledged a 26 percent to 28 percent greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2025.
Mayor Treece notes Columbia reached and set its own benchmarks on the local level.
“We were the first city in the state of Missouri to have a renewable energy mandate,” Treece said. “We now acquire 15 percent of our energy from renewable sources, like solar and wind. That number is supposed to increase to 25 percent by 2023.”
Columbia is a “full service” city, which means it owns and operate most of its municipal services. As such, it runs its own power plant. That operation once supplied energy by burning coal, a process which has since been replaced by the use of bio-mass, and in the past several years, the addition of wind power.
Treece said the city has a new contract with a wind supplier for the cost of two-cents per kilowatt, which will help bring down power costs.
“Our voided costs. Our whole sale cost of producing our own energy, whether we use coal or bio-mass is three-cents, and we sell it for seven-cents a kilowatt to the consumer,” Treece said. “So this really is about economic competitiveness as much as it is about protecting the environment.”
Most of the more than 200 Climate Mayors are from solidly Democratic leaning cities, which is consistent with St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia in Missouri. Treece wouldn’t speculate as to whether liberal cities are more inclined to embrace environmental priorities.
He did say his city has been enthusiastic about the cause. He mentioned that Columbia Mall had adopted practices in line with the Paris accord, and reduced its power costs by 25%.
“They’ve saved enough electricity to power 181 homes here in Columbia,” Treece said. “To me, those are dramatic steps that can be taken to really make that type of retail business more competitive.”
Treece said he hadn’t, so far, had any contact with other city heads who were members of Climate Mayors. That could change, though. The organization’s website says it will “initiate a mayor-to-mayor, city-to-city outreach effort to bring mayors together over the coming year to develop a shared framework for local leadership and action.”
One of the pieces on display at the AKMA in the Beauty of Our Beasts Exhibition. Courtesy AKMAOne of the pieces on display at the AKMA in the Beauty of Our Beasts Exhibition. Courtesy AKMA
Patrons of the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art have two new exhibits to check-out this weekend.
The Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art and the St. Joseph Friends of the Shelter have partnered on an exhibition that focuses on animals. The “Beauty of Our Beasts” celebrates furry, scaled, and feathered friends. According to a press release, a call for artwork was made to the general public with no requirements made regarding the artist’s age simply that they create a masterpiece of their best friend, their pet. The exhibition does include 99 works of art from 70 artists, including 37 students from St. Paul Lutheran School. Five states are represented: Arkansas, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, and New York.
There are 43 works for sale with proceeds to be divided between AKMA and the Friends of the Shelter. This display of small artworks of pets of all kinds will be on display from June 9-October 8, 2017 at the AKMA.
A second exhibit, The Restless Regionalist: The Art of Joe Jones will debut Sunday at the Museum.
According to a news release, around sixty works by Joseph John Jones (1909-1963) from the Moffett Collection will tell the story of a radical artist who beat the odds of a rough childhood in St. Louis to be counted as a nationally-important American artist. Jones is known for politically-charged pieces addressing social injustices such as Klu Klux Klan lynchings and workers’ strikes, agitating in his own artistic way for social reforms as a deeply committed member of the American Communist Party. Even as a child of ten years, Jones had run-ins with local St. Louis police, and spent time in a youth detention facility before running away from home to California and getting arrested again for vagrancy. Poverty was a constant companion throughout the artists’s life and in consequence Jones could never afford instruction so was largely self-taught. His political philosophies were also gained through independent reading and thought. Steeped in Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and Communist Manifesto, Jones became a leader in what became known as “Marxart,” featuring depictions of workers of the world uniting and achieving a better society for themselves. The artist’s sense of regional ties is expressed through gritty scenes of American life in the Heartland countryside as well as in urban settings included in this exhibition. Supplemental works by close friends such as Henry Varnum Poor (1887-1970) and colleagues.
The exhibition will be on display through September 10th.
(Missourinet) – Civil rights activists have filed a lawsuit over Missouri’s new voter ID law.
Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who ran on a platform to implement the measure, has been on a tour of the state to explain its requirements.
The law, which went into effect June 1st, is being challenged in Cole County Circuit Court, over its funding. The court suit lead by the American Civil Liberties Union argues there’s no money to finance voter education, free voter IDs and birth certificates, and training of poll workers.
It seeks a temporary restraining order to block the law from remaining in effect during a special election in St. Louis July 11th. The ballot is taking place to fill the aldermanic seat vacated by Lyda Krewson, who was elected mayor.
Lawmakers allocated $1.5 million for the voter ID law, but Governor Eric Greitens has yet to sign the legislation, and early absentee voting starts Monday, June 12th, in St. Louis.
Tony Rothert with the ACLU of Missouri contends the law technically can’t be in effect.
“The terms of the law say if there’s not an appropriation, then the ID requirements cannot go into effect,” Rothert said. “There has not been an appropriation. Therefore, by the terms of the law, it should not go into effect now.”
A passage in the statute itself states, “If there is not a sufficient appropriation of state funds, then the personal identification requirements…shall not be enforced.”
The law requires a government issued photo ID in order to vote. People who brings items such as a utility bill or current paycheck can still vote if they sign an affidavit acknowledging they can get a free ID. Those without a photo ID would be allowed to cast on a provisional ballot.
Voter ID laws are highly controversial. Several have been struck down in other states. One last year in North Carolina was cited by a judge for intentional suppression of African American votes.
“States are not allowed to make an end run around voting rights by forcing burdensome changes to election law and then failing to provide the required funding for proper implementation,” said ACLU attorney Sophia Lakin.
Secretary Ashcroft’s office hasn’t responded to a Missourinet inquiry for comment. The lawsuit was filed Thursday by The American Civil Liberties Union and the Advancement Project on behalf of the Missouri NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Missouri.
Thirty-three states, mostly led by Republican Governors and legislatures, have enacted some form of a voter ID law in recent years.
The Platte County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is prosecuting a Liberty attorney who is accused of multiple crimes resulting from a lewd computer chat with with an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.
Jerome M. Patience, 39, who lives in Independence was charged in Platte County Circuit Court Wednesday after allegedly chatting with the “girl” for nearly a month in 2016. Patience is charged with felonies of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor and two counts of attempted sexual misconduct involving a child and a misdemeanor of attempting to furnish pornographic materials to minors.
According to a news release from the Platte County Prosecutor’s Office, in May of 2016 Patience allegedly began chatting with an undercover officer posing as the child. During the chats, Patience allegedly spoke of sex with her and showed interest in meeting. However, Patience allegedly said he was afraid to meet her because it was illegal, and he would lose his job and his family. He also allegedly wrote that he did not know where they could meet “that I can trust that it doesn’t get me arrested.”
Investigators ultimately identified the Liberty law office from which Patience was conducting his chat. He told the “girl” that he only chatted while at work and not during the evening or weekends.
On August 25, 2016, investigators served a search warrant at the law firm. Patience’s computer was allegedly open to the Yahoo account from which he had conducted the chat with the undercover officer.
Zahnd said the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri reviewed the case for several months, ultimately deferring to Platte County to prosecute the case.
Patience is currently being held in the Platte County Detention Center in lieu of a $30,000 cash bond.
(News release) – Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway has released a report on the government of Livingston County, located in northwestern Missouri. The report shows a well-managed county with some room for improvement related to electronic data security. The county earned an overall performance rating of good, and the State Auditor recommended several changes to increase cybersecurity and better protect sensitive information.
“In today’s environment, government must take every available precaution to ensure citizens’ information is protected,” Auditor Galloway said. “I’m pleased that Livingston County officials are taking this opportunity to incorporate proper measures to reduce the risk that sensitive financial and personal information could end up in the wrong hands.”
The audit recommends better password and security controls throughout county government. Livingston County officials are in the process of implementing these new safeguards.
The State Auditor is also conducting an audit of the Livingston County Circuit Court. The results of the court audit will be released later this year.
(News release) – A Northwest Missouri State University faculty member and students are collaborating to offer a day camp this summer to help children in the region who may be coping with grief and loss.
Elizabeth Dimmitt, a senior instructor of psychology at Northwest, said she felt compelled to organize the camp after noticing a local need to assist grieving children and a gap in community resources available to meet the need. Dimmitt decided to offer the camp in Maryville after attending conferences where counselors and psychologists presented positive outcomes of similar camps.
“We have many kids who have lost a parent or grandparent to death or incarceration or may be involved with the foster system, but we also have kids who have lost a home or have gone through significant moves or have lost a sibling or a friend,” Dimmitt said. “This can leave children feeling confused and alone, even in the midst of loving family and friends. It is important that they have a place where they feel safe in expressing their emotions, seeing that others navigating a similar experience and we also want them to know that they are allowed to have fun again.”
The camp is designed to help children establish friendships and a sense of belonging, Dimmitt said. It will help them explore feelings of grief while helping them develop skills to cope with those emotions. The camp also will offer some educational resources for parents and caregivers.
Campers will gather each day at the Mozingo Outdoor Education Recreation Area (MOERA), a 320-acre parcel of land at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park that is operated by Northwest’s School of Health Science and Wellness and provides a variety of outdoor education and recreation opportunities. Campers will participate in activities involving nature, music, art and games; older children will use MOERA’s ropes challenge course.
The camp experience is one day and will operate on three separate days to accommodate varied age groups – Wednesday, July 19, for 5 to 8 year-olds; Thursday, July 20, for 9 to 12-year-olds; and Friday, July 21 for 13 to 17 year-olds.
Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis, and the cost to register is $25 per person.
For more information about the camp or to offer assistance, contact Dimmitt at 660.562.1852 or ekeane@nwmissouri.edu.
(News release) – The Missouri Department of Transportation said sidewalk projects on Frederick are currently underway with additional projects planned later this year in St. Joseph.
