(From the city of Joplin)
The City of Joplin has recently received word from Becky Baltz, District Engineer of the current Joplin District of Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) that the Missouri Highway Commission voted to reduce the number of district offices from ten to seven. This action eliminates the Joplin district, and moves the district office to Springfield.
A request for an extension in making this decision was sent by various audiences from multiple agencies. The delay was to be utilized for planning, as the City had convened a community group to review possibilities and develop various options for MoDOT’s consideration, in order for them to make a fully-informed decision considering all possibilities. Planning began initially but was abruptly stopped by the May 22nd tornado disaster.
One of the first requests was signed by legislators from the State Senate and House of Representatives. Additional requests came from the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce. Most recently, the City sent a letter with this 90-day extension request signed by Public Works Director David Hertzberg and just yesterday, during this disaster recovery, the Mayor and City Manager sent another letter for the 90-day extension request. The City was unable to develop a plan for MoDOT to consider because of the recovery effort.
“This is absolutely inexcusable and shows incredible insensitivity to the tragedy that has befallen the Joplin community,” said Mark Rohr, City Manager. “We had contacted them numerous times asking them for an extension of this process. Our most recent effort was during the disaster that was caused by the May 22nd tornado, yet they ignored our appeal.”
1 comment:
Randy,
The small group of people making the decisions at MoDOT have developed a culture of insensitivity in the last ten years. It began with selling bonds and plundering Amendment 3. The ballot language for the 2004 Amendment 3 said "Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to require that all revenues from the existing motor vehicle fuel tax (less collection costs) be used only for state and local highways, roads and bridges, and also require that vehicle taxes and fees paid by highway users be used only for constructing and maintaining the state highway system (less collection costs, refunds and highway patrol law enforcement costs), except that up to half of such vehicle taxes and fees, phased in over four years, will go into a state road bond fund to repay state highway bonds?" The Amendment was passed by voters with an overwhelming 78.9% majority. Would we have the same results if the ballot additionally said "The highways and transportation commission shall have authority to issue state road bonds for the uses set forth in this subdivision"? Those words were in the full text of the Amendment. I bet most voters didn't realize they were voting to allow more government debt when they voted in favor of Amendment 3. And if the ballot language had explained
... MoDOT will use the state road bond fund to get into several billions of dollars of new debt to launch a Five Year Construction Spree, to take the whip to their employees and overpay their contractors to highly accelerate the projects, in order to attempt to impress Missourians into providing additional funding to meet transportation needs. If additional funding does not materialize, MoDOT will cut 1200 of their 6300 employees, close 131 buildings, sell 740 pieces of equipment, reduce their number of districts from 10 to 7, and will then provide "good" service with what's left ...
would Amendment 3 have passed? Because that's what's taking place. And the ones losing out are the taxpayers of Missouri and MoDOT's rank-and-file workers, while the $90,000 to $160,000 administrators who conjured up this strategy aren't being fired or demoted, but are keeping their jobs and huge paychecks.
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