Park Buildings Delay.

The City Council Public Services Committee voted unanimously Tuesday evening to reject all bids for the proposed Park Department maintenance building. Of the five bids received, the lowest was nearly $100,000 over the budgeted $280,000. Crossland Construction was the high bidder with a base bid of $426,500.

The Committee requested that the Engineering Department have the specifications for the building redesigned to reduce the cost.

The Committee also voted to extend the completion date of the concession stand located at the new girls softball fields in the Fair Acres Sports Complex. Discussions with the contractor and various City staff indicated that weather and miscommunications over the grade to be set contributed to the delays. The revised completion date was set for early in February. The Committee is pushing to have the fields ready for play this spring.

City Administrator Tom Short reported that a walk through of Memorial Hall with architects resulted in minor modifications to plans for renovations of that structure.

Powers Museum Online For Winter.

news release Powers Museum

The Powers Museum will close its 2000 season at the close of business on December 23 and remain closed until March 2, 2001 for its annual shutdown period of January and February.

During this time the museum will conduct annual maintenance and special work projects including interior painting and reorganizing the collection storage areas this year.

Anyone needing information from the museum’s library and archives during January and February should call 417-358-2667 or email info@powersmuseum.com to make an appointment with the museum’s curator so that materials can be prepared in advance of a researcher’s visit.

While closed, the public is invited to visit the museum’s website located at www.powersmuseum.com. Updates to the site will be done during December and January and visitors can find excerpts of the 2000 year as well as upcoming 2001 displays. The museum’s online newsletter can also be found in the website’s section entitled "Curator’s Cupboard."

Over 3,600 people have visited the Powers Museum website since it was formally launched in late summer 2000. The website provides information on the museum’s hours, exhibits and programs as well as sections with expanded information on various aspects of the museum’s operations and mission.

Like the museum, which is dedicated to presenting the history of Carthage from post-Civil War decades to contemporary time, the website takes the same approach and features current summaries of Carthage in the 1860’s-1870’s as well as Carthage in the last year of the nineteenth century - 1900. Both of these topics were expanded into mini-displays during the 2000 year.

Other topics presented on the website are: Powers and Wright family history, general review of library and archival holdings available for research, collection highlights, information for teachers and home-schoolers as well as tour operators, volunteer opportunities, museum shop offerings, links to other four-state museums and Missouri historical organizations.

Among the volunteer opportunities that will be available in Spring are several part-time docent positions for assisting with computer data entry and photographic scanning.

The 2001 exhibit and program schedule should be posted by mid-February. One of the events being planned for Spring is a series of free public presentations through the Missouri Humanities Council Speaker’s Bureau during March, April and May. Topics will focus on kitchen collectibles, lace and other textile handy-work, and the historical development of Ozark tourism. Please consult the website for further information or call 417-358-2667.

A check with City Hall yesterday afternoon showed continued interest in the upcomin’ City Council race. No current Council members have filed as of yet.

Charles Tobrock has filed in the First Ward. H.J. Johnson currently holds that position and has made no statements as to his intentions. Carey Murphy and Bill Putnam have filed for the Fourth Ward seat. Fourth Ward Council member Art Dunaway has indicated he will not seek reelection. As reported yesterday, Ronnie Wells filed in Second Ward. Charlie Bastin currently holds that seat. No word yet from Charlie.

The Third Ward seat held by J.D. Whitledge and Fifth Ward held by Lujene Clark do not have anyone filing at this time. Clark has indicated she will not run.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

by

Metcalf Auto Supply

Click & Clack
TALK CARS

by Tom & Ray Magliozzi

I’m an aerodynamics engineer. When I was in the U.S. Air Force a few years back, I worked with folks from the Lockheed low-speed wind tunnel. In the 1970’s, aircraft production went into a slump, and Lockheed started looking for other customers for its wind-tunnel services. Prime candidates were the auto makers, and Lockheed was successful in convincing Ford, among others, that the wind tunnel would help them reduce drag and wind noise on their vehicles. Needless to say, in the past 15-20 years, Lockheed has learned a lot about car and truck aerodynamics.

Anyway, they actually performed tests on pickups with the tailgate both up and down, and found that drag was actually LOWER with the tailgate CLOSED! This ran counter to their intuition. The reason is that a closed tailgate sets up a large "bubble" of stagnant air that slowly circulates around the bed of the truck (we aero types call this a "separate bubble"). When air approaches the truck, it "sees" the bubble as part of the truck. So to the air, the truck looks like a nice, flat covering over the bed, and the air doesn’t "slam" into the vertical tailgate.

So, believe it or not, it’s best for gas mileage to keep the tailgate CLOSED. Hope this information is helpful.

TOM: Sounds pretty convincing. We also heard from none other than Bob Stempel, the former GM president, who wrote us to say that aerodynamically it doesn’t make that much difference. But, he says, a pickup truck is structurally much SAFER with the tailgate up.

RAY: So for that reason alone, we suggest you throw away those tailgate nets, folks, and return your tailgate to the upright and locked position.