JEFFERSON CITY – Wildfires in states west of Missouri are consuming large swaths of livestock pasture. As a result, livestock producers are in great need of animal feed. In order to streamline relief efforts, the Missouri Department of Transportation, at the request of Gov. Eric Greitens and in consultation with the Missouri Department of Agriculture, is waiving travel time restrictions for those hauling oversize loads of hay in Missouri.

Oversize permits are required of loads exceeding 8’6” in width. Through April 8, 2017, permits for overwide loads of hay will:

– Be issued free of charge

– Be issued up to 12’ wide (load length, height and weight must remain within legal limits)

– Allow travel during curfew hours and at night

These continuous movement oversize permits are only available to those hauling hay in direct response to disaster relief efforts.

Drivers must abide by all other permit regulations including the use of reflective oversize load signs and clearance lights instead of flags at the edges of loads when hauling at night or when visibility is less than 500 feet.

For assistance obtaining an oversize permit, carriers may contact MoDOT Motor Carrier Services at 1-800-877-8499 between 7:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

(Missourinet) – A proposal in the state legislature would call for state parks to be properly maintained, brought up-to-date and in good working order.

The measure blocks the establishment of new state parks or expanding any existing park by more than 10% until needed repairs are done, including that no current state park would have deferred maintenance.

House Republican Randy Pietzman of Troy said he filed the legislation after youth groups in his district complained about a dilapidated swimming pool.

“They told me if they don’t fix these facilities by next year or the year after, at least tell them they’re going to fix them, they’re all going somewhere else,” Pietzman said.  “To me that raised a lot of concern. They’re just letting these places go so bad that groups that are supposed to be enjoying them feel like they can’t even come back anymore.”

Pietzman said extensive neglect is widespread at existing facilities.

The proposal requires the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which is responsible for park maintenance, to submit an annual report to lawmakers on construction at state parks and historic sites.

Pietzman claims DNR delayed repairing the swimming pool because it was an historic site that would be prohibitively expensive to restore to its original condition.

To address this issue, he inserted language in the bill to bring facilities up to “current standards,” which would allow for complete replacement of aging structures at a less expensive cost.

The measure also calls for DNR to report all revenues and expenses at each state park or historic site to ensure the agency doesn’t transfer money from a profitable park to one that’s under-performing.

Pietzman said his legislation is being warmly received across the state, including among park workers.

“When you start talking and bring this up to people around the state, they’re very happy about it, very happy,” Pietzman said. “A lot of the park employees around the state have called me and told me that they’re very grateful that I filed this bill.  I thought that that was pretty amazing actually.”

Pietzman contends he has no ax to grind with DNR and calls his proposal an accountability measure. But he’s concerned construction of the massive Rock Island Trail for bicycling could drain money from maintenance efforts.

“They need million and millions of dollars of work on it to get it functional the way it sounded to me, with bridges and everything else in there,” Pietzman said. “Just to give them a free pass on it, I don’t know if that’s going to work.”

Pietzman said he is hopeful a twenty-year timeline for the trail to be completed will allow both it and proper park maintenance to take place simultaneously.

The Rock Island Trail is billed as a “rails-to-trails” trail which will stretch over 200 miles, intersecting with the existing Katy Trail, and extending the bike trails system into the Kansas City metro area, which is not currently served.

Pietzman said more work will be done to address the Rock Island Trail issue once the proposal hits the House or Senate floor.

It passed unanimously out of the House Conservation and Natural Resources Committee with bipartisan support, and was being looked at by a rules panel Monday. The Department of Natural Resources didn’t respond when asked by Missourinet to comment on the proposal.

(Missourinet) – Legislation requiring the Amber Alert System Oversight Committee to meet at least annually has been approved by a Missouri House committee.

The Missouri House Crime Prevention Committee has voted 8-0 to approve State Rep. Curtis Trent’s (R-Springfield) bill. He tells Missourinet the bill is expected to be in front of the consent committee on Tuesday.

The current law says the committee should “regularly review” the Amber Alert System, but does not specify what “regularly” means. Trent’s bill is known as “Hailey’s Law”: it is named after 10-year-old Hailey Owens, who was kidnapped, raped and murdered in Springfield in February 2014.

Hailey’s mother and the suspect’s family support the bill and have urged lawmakers to streamline the Amber Alert System.

Craig Wood is charged with first degree murder, kidnapping, rape and sodomy and is scheduled to go on trial in Greene County on October 23.

(Missourinet) – A bill to establish the crime of “Unlawful Traffic Interference” is being considered by Missouri lawmakers.

A person would commit the offense by intentionally blocking passage of a vehicle on any roadway.

The practice becomes a felony if it takes place on an interstate highway, and the penalty escalates further if more than one person is involved in an unlawful assembly.

House Republican Nick Marshall of Parkville, who’s sponsoring the measure, says the penalties are necessary to discourage the behavior.

“We have to be clear that we cannot allow folks to stand on interstates and on highways and block traffic, and, for all intents and purposes, unlawfully detain and imprison folks in their cars.”

Interstate highways in St. Louis and Kansas City have been blocked in recent years by protests over racial issues, including the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014.

Marshall presented his proposal before the House Crime Prevention and Public Safety Committee. It allows for misdemeanor charges against anyone who deliberately obstructs traffic by walking, standing, sitting, lying or placing an object on a roadway.

The crime would elevate to a class E felony if the person commits the offense a second time or if the action took place on an interstate highway. Such crimes carry a maximum penalty of 4 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The measure makes any gathering of more than one person on a street, highway of interstate highway an illegal assembly if the intent is to block traffic.  This act would be classified as a class D felony, with a maximum punishment of 7 years in prison and a $10,000 fines.

House Democrat Bruce Franks of St. Louis sits on the committee which heard the proposal.  Franks is a community activist who took part in protests which blocked interstate highways in St. Louis after the shooting of Michael Brown.

During the hearing, he noted that he would have committed a felony under the measure. Franks contends protests are meant to make people feel uncomfortable.

“To make people uncomfortable, to let people know that’s it’s not going to be business as usual, and actually make your voice heard,” said Franks.

He said he thinks the measure would punish protesters who would dare to make others feel uncomfortable.

“As long as it’s not making everybody else uncomfortable, it’s O.K. to protest.,” Franks said. “But the moment when you’re making everybody uncomfortable, or you don’t necessarily see the measurable outcome of said protest, then it’s unlawful or it’s against what’s right.”

Democrat committee member Stacy Newman of Richmond Heights said she took issue with some wording in the proposal.  She said, as written, it could implicate government employees on the job.  She mentioned a well-publicized incident during an exchange with bill sponsor Marshall.

“As we saw in New Jersey when there was a decision to close a bridge that did everything that you just said in terms of consequence,” said Newman.

Marshall responded “Oh, I see, you’re referencing (New Jersey) Governor (Chris) Christie”.

Traffic became severely clogged after workers were instructed to set up cones on a busy New Jersey bridge in 2013.  An ensuing controversy has dogged Christie since.

A number of law enforcement organizations testified in favor of the measure, including the Missouri State Troopers Association, Fraternal Order of Police and the Missouri Sheriff’s Association, while the American Civil Liberties Union spoke against it.

Marshall says his proposal mirrors existing laws in Washington State which criminalize the intentional obstruction of traffic, notably one in Seattle.

(Missourinet) – Missouri House Republicans have moved to stop St. Louis from raising its minimum wage.

A bill that would ban local governments from having a higher minimum wage than the state passed in the House Thursday in a vote that largely fell along party lines.

House Republicans called the need to stop local wage increases an emergency, and passed the bill with a clause that would make it go into effect immediately. If the Senate passes the measure with the emergency clause, the law would go into effect as soon as the governor signs it. Normally, it would take effect in August.

The bill was introduced last week after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in favor of a St. Louis City proposal to raise its minimum wage. The city’s plan would raise it to $11 an hour by 2018. This prompted swift action by House Republicans.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jason Chipman (R-Crawford), said it was urgent that the state stop the St. Louis minimum wage raise. Under the Missouri Constitution, a bill can be passed with an emergency clause if an issue presents an immediate threat to health, welfare, peace, or safety that justifies emergency action.

Chipman argues that minimum wage hikes could present an urgent health matter to citizens of the state.

“We know that jobs will be lost, and if not that, your hours reduced so you can’t afford to buy stuff,” says Chipman.

House Democrats protest the use of the emergency clause.

Rep. Jon Carpenter (D-Clay) opposed the local minimum wage hike ban, and expressed stronger opposition still to making it effective immediately.

“Whether or not we increase the state minimum wage or the wage in Saint Louis is just another par for the course issue,” says Carpenter. “For us to contend that it is a special emergency that requires a constitutional emergency clause to be invoked is several steps too far.”

Carpenter points to other states that allow local governments to set minimum wage, challenging other lawmakers to call those situations emergencies.

St. Louis Democratic Representatives stressed the rights of local governments. Rep. Karla May (D-Saint Louis) says many Republicans were contradicting their small government principles.

“It amazes me how many times people get up on this floor and talk about intrusion of federal government on state government,” says May. “And you say you want ‘smaller’ government? It’s hypocrisy!”

Local minimum wage efforts gained ground earlier this year when the Missouri Supreme Court overturned a 2015 ruling that a Kansas City ballot measure to raise its minimum wage was against state law. Advocates scored another victory last week with the high court green-lighting the St. Louis wage hike, but with Republicans acting quickly to stop it, that progress may be undone.

A version of the wage hike ban has been filed by Sen. Dan Hegeman (R-Cosby).

Gov. Greitens, who has voiced opposition to minimum wage hikes in the past, would likely approve a bill that would keep local governments from raising the wage.

(Missourinet) – A state House committee has unanimously passed a resolution that would urge a federal agency in charge of recovering missing U.S. soldiers to make it a priority to resolve open Missouri cases.

Missouri has 15 Vietnam War soldiers who are considered unaccounted for. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s mission is to fulfill the task of bringing home America’s Prisoners of War and Missing in Action from all past wars and conflicts around the world.

On April 21, 1967, Army Staff Sergeant Paul Hasenbeck of mid-Missouri’s Freeburg vanished while returning from a patrol in the Vietnam jungle. Hasenbeck was with three comrades from the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, which was assigned to the 196th Light Infantry Brigade.

Jeanie Hasenbeck’s life mission has been to find out what happened to her brother. She says officials at the Pentagon have disputed reports from Vietnamese sources and U.S. intelligence services that Paul had been captured and moved to several different locations by troops who forced him and his companions to teach Viet Cong cadres to speak English.

The CIA told her it had no files on her brother at a time when she already had obtained several CIA documents from other sources.

She says over the years, the Vietnamese government has released several contradictory accounts of her brother’s fate.

“When Paul went to Vietnam, I know he expected to be wounded. I know he expected to be killed, but he never expected to be abandoned. I feel that’s what we’ve done,” says Jeanie Hasenbeck. “Everyone on that list deserves, after they gave their all and did everything their country asked of them, to have a resolution so that they can be brought home.”

A museum in north Vietnam’s Hanoi once held 13 pieces of Paul Hasenbeck’s personal identification. All of which had his name, rank and unit. The museum had everything marked from the Quang Ngai Province where he had disappeared.

“We find it really hard to believe that they (the North Vietnamese) took such meticulous care of all his paperwork, but could not keep track of where he was buried,” says Jeanie Hasenbeck.

Gary Kremer was a close friend of Paul Hasenbeck’s. He says America owes Paul.

“Paul’s mom went to her grave wondering what happened to her son. I think she looked out over audiences everywhere, still looking for Paul. I hope something can be done while Jeanie, Larry and their siblings are still here,” says Kremer.

Norb Plassmeyer also supports the resolution. His brother, Bernard, also of Freeburg, disappeared on September 11, 1970. His plane was shot down during a night mission in Vietnam.

During a hearing on the resolution, no one spoke in opposition to Meta Republican state Rep. Tom Hurst’s measure.

The other 13 missing Missourians are mostly aircrew members:

Steven Neil Bezold, Donald Martin Cramer, William R. Edmondson, Dickie W. Finley, Frederick W. Hess Jr., Charles W. Marik, Carl D. Miller, Dayton W. Ragland, Dwight G. Rickman, Robert P. Rosenback, John W. Seuell, George Craig Smith and Randolph B. Suber.

(Missourinet) – Debate on a bill that would prevent local governments from having a higher minimum wage than the state rate dominated Wednesday’s Missouri House floor debate, and a final vote is expected Thursday morning in Jefferson City.

The move to prevent local minimum wage hikes comes in response to the Feb. 28 Missouri Supreme Court decision to allow the City of St. Louis to raise its minimum wage to $11 an hour by 2018. Legislation filed the next day flew through House committees and out to the floor this week, where the Democratic minority now staunchly opposes it.

Democrats opposed to the bill introduced more than a dozen amendments Wednesday, none of which were approved by the House.

State Rep. Clem Smith (D-Velda Village Hills) says the state government should keep its hands off of local policy.

“Let’s not do to local governments what we say the federal government does to us,” he said, telling the assembly that it should let the City of St. Louis make its own decisions on wages.

The bill’s sponsor, State Rep. Jason Chipman (R-Steelville), calls the Saint Louis City minimum wage increase a potential mishap.

“When you do something bad in a lab, it stinks up the whole lab,” he says. Chipman says that minimum wage hikes are a threat to smaller businesses. “If you are a giant business, if you’re Walmart, you are jumping for joy because it will destroy your smaller competition.”

While many Republicans support state minimum wage control, some raise doubts on grounds that it was a heavy handed, top-down measure, contradicting what they say is the government’s role to protect personal freedom.

State Rep. Paul Curtman (R-Union) supports the bill, but raises doubts over the bill’s legitimacy under the Missouri Constitution.

“Simply by doing it by statute in this body, there is a good case that it might be unconstitutional,” he says, adding that the debate was a waste of the assembly’s time. Curtman says the best path of action would be to amend the Constitution.

The House will finish debate on the minimum wage increase Thursday morning at the Statehouse. Despite some reservations on the part of a few Republicans, it is expected to pass.