The St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce will be hosting its first Elected Officials Social.

Chamber Director of Communications and Marketing Kristi Bailey said, after the recent election, there are a lot of new office holders in Buchanan County. Bailey said anyone in the business community is invited to attend an event this week to meet and talk with newly elected officials from the school district and city and county government.

“There will be appetizers and drinks provided and it’s just kind of a meet and greet, come and go as you please type of an event,” Bailey said. “(We) just wanted to give our residents an opportunity to come out, if they have questions, if they just want to shake a hand and get their face in front of someone, to come out and do that with us.”

The social takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, January 22, at Room 108 located at 722 Felix Street.

Free health screenings and information on health and wellness services will be available at the 12th Annual Health and Fitness Fair in Maryville.

Rita Miller is the Community Relations and Development Manager at SSM Health St. Francis Hospital in Maryville. Miller said they developed a partnership with Maryville Parks and Rec to put on the health fair each year.

“We’re always hoping that our residents in the area understand they just need to get up and move and see what services and products might be available to them to help achieve some of their health goals,” Miller said. “We know that obesity and heart disease are the two key areas in our community that need to be addressed and we’re hoping that some of those individuals that may be having some concerns about those disease conditions in their lives might come out and see what we might have available to achieve some goals.”

At the health fair, free screenings will be offered for blood pressure, lung capacity and  finger-stick cholesterol and glucose.

“It gives people the opportunity to check and see where their health is… so they can maybe set some goals for the rest of the year,” Miller said.

Anyone planning to take part in the blood draw is asked to fast for at least 8 hours (no food or drink except water). The blood screening will be limited to the first 100 participants and will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Miller said there will be 25 to 30 vendors at the fair including Advanced Dermatology, Curves,  Lettuce Dream, the University of Missouri Extension and Rogers Pharmacy, a sponsor of the health fair. There will also be free samples and giveaways, door prizes and a bounce house for kids.

The Health & Fitness Fair will be held from 8 to 11 a.m. on Saturday, January 26, at the Maryville Community Center, 1407 N. Country Club Road.

The St. Joseph Police Department released its Crime Analysis Report for 2018 which showed a decrease in total number of crimes reported.

There were 11,715 crimes reported in 2018 compared to 12,112 in 2017.

According to the report (see below), total crime represents all offenses including status offenses, lesser included offenses under Incident Based Reporting and police productivity crimes.

In February 2018, the St. Joseph Police Department switched over to Incident Based Reporting, which St. Joseph Police Chief Chris Connally said the whole country will be switched to by 2020. The switch was made from Uniform Crime Reporting, which has been the reporting system since the 1920s. Connally said Uniform Crime Report is based on a hierarchy.

“If you had an incident with multiple crimes, for example, a burglary that involved an assault and a large destruction of property, it used to be, that was recorded in a hierarchy, that would have just been reported as the highest crime, it would have been reported as one burglary,” Connally said. “Under Incident Based Reporting… that’s reported as a separate burglary, a separate assault and a separate destruction of property, they’re called ‘Lesser Included Offenses’ now. So it creates a different picture.”

Connally said there are several encouraging things in the report including a 26% decrease in stolen vehicles.

“We had 200 less cars stolen this year… and that’s less than both the last two years, but it’s still way too many for a community of our size. That’s an area of crime that, really, with the help of the community, we can have a lot bigger impact on that. Just last week, we had four vehicles stolen that had the keys in the car and the car running.”

Connally said with all the crimes reported, the underlying cause is an issue.

“Alcohol, drug addiction, mental health issues, a lot of these are the root causes of crime and these are a lot of the issues that we need to work in,” Connally said. “I’ve seen a lot of great response from our community in these areas, we have the opioid task force, we’ve got some new treatment centers.”

One of the increases in reported crimes was in the area of aggravated assault, which could include someone being shot, someone with broken bones or some type of serious injury.

“Those were up by six, which doesn’t sound like a huge number, but the fact is, it’s too many,” Connally said. “What’s significant about that is, last year’s aggravated assaults, 47% were domestic related, in other words, involved some type of intimate family relationship or relationship by child. This year, 58% were domestic related… that’s something that we also need to work on. When we go to domestics and domestic assaults, we try to provide information on resources that are available and we need to keep pushing that as well.”

 

The St. Joseph Police Department’s 2018 Annual Crime Summary:

There were six homicides reported in 2018, compared to eight in 2017.

There were 36 rapes reported in 2018, which is the same number reported in 2017.

There were 63 robberies reported in 2018, compared to 97 in 2017.

Aggravated Assault – 280 aggravated assaults were reported in 2018, compared to 274 in 2017. Of the aggravated assaults reported in 2018, 58% were domestic related, compared to 47% in 2017.

Violent crime – Violent Part I crime was down 7% for 2018, compared to 2017, with 386 crimes reported. In 2017, 415 rimes were reported.

Arson – 12 arsons were reported in 2018, compared to 15 in 2017.

Burglary – 723 burglaries were reported in 2018, compared to 751 in 2017.

Stealing – 3,436 stealing offenses were reported in 2018, compared to 3,666 in 2017.

Motor vehicle theft – There was a 26% decrease in motor vehicle thefts in 2018, with 574 thefts reported. In 2017, 781 thefts were reported.

By SARAH THOMACK
St. Joseph Post

Many federal workers faced their first pay day without a paycheck last week.

AFL-CIO Community Services Agency Executive Director Penny Adams said the Help-Me-Hotline is a resource available to anyone impacted by the federal government shutdown.

“For a lot of these workers, they have not ever had to reach out for any kind of assistance. Hopefully, many of them have some sort of savings they can fall back on, but the majority of the people live paycheck to paycheck and that’s not an option for them,” Adams said. “When they are in these situations, they don’t really know where to begin, so what we want to let them know is the first place we recommend they call is the Help-Me-Hotline. It’s committed to connecting people needing assistance to the resources that are out there in our community.”

Adams said furloughed federal employees in need of social services and anyone with questions about availability of public benefits can call the Help-Me-Hotline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to get help.

“They can call about absolutely anything,” Adams said. “We have a database that we can enter in what their needs are – say if they’re calling about food – we can enter in ‘food pantries’ and bring up all the food pantries and then we will help them narrow it down to a food pantry that works for them… because everybody’s situation is different.”

Callers also can receive information on mental health counseling, transportation, job training, substance use recovery services, child care and volunteer opportunities. Additional information about unemployment benefits for furloughed employees is available from OPM.gov.

Adams said while they are focused on helping those in the northwest Missouri area, they also have access to resources all over Missouri and in Kansas. The Help-Me-Hotline is a free and confidential service.

For more information visit www.helpmenow.org or call (816) 364-1131 or (800) 365-7724.

The St. Joseph Police Department has identified the officers involved in a shooting on Dec. 29th that resulted in a man’s death.

As previously reported, at approximately 10:40 a.m. on Dec 29th, officers went to the 1000 block of South 12th to search for a person with warrants. During the search, the officers encountered another person who threatened with a firearm.

Christopher L. Kelley, 42, was shot by officers and was transported to the hospital where he was pronounced deceased a short time later.

According to Capt. Jeff Wilson with the police department, the officers were Officer Matt Kneib, a 17-year veteran, and Officer Brett Sagel, a two-year veteran.

Wilson said both have returned to work and are currently on administrative assignment. The incident is being investigated by the Missouri State Highway Patrol.