| Today's Feature Surveys in on Memorial Hall.
Survey results were on the
agenda at Thursday evening’s meeting of the
Memorial Hall Long Range Planning Committee.
According to Economic Development Director Max
McKnight, the Committee received 139 responses to
their survey concerning the current and future
use of Memorial Hall, a response rate of just
over two percent.
Two people indicated that they
had never attended an event at Memorial Hall, but
the majority of those responding, 76%, fell into
two categories, 1-3 visits or 4-10 visits per
year.
Five exterior improvements were
listed on the survey, parking, lighting,
landscaping, painting and original restoration,
to be ranked in order of importance. Responses
were tallied on a weighted basis depending on the
ranking assigned, and original restoration
emerged as most important with landscaping being
least important. Parking was ranked second with
lighting a very close third.
"That’s a pretty
significant jump between original restoration and
parking," McKnight said. "That does, to
me, indicate that people are interested in having
it remain historically significant."
Responses concerning interior
improvements, flooring, lighting, acoustics,
catering kitchen, elevator, painting and window
treatments, were ranked as well. Lighting was
ranked most important with acoustics a very close
second. Catering kitchen was third, followed
closely by painting. Fifth in importance was
flooring. Window treatments fell a distant sixth
with the elevator close behind in last place.
Write-in suggestions for the
interior came in heavily in favor of improving
the restrooms. Comfortable seating received
several votes as well. While there was no
consensus among write-in suggestions for the
exterior, improving the south entrance and
covered access were two ideas mentioned.
McKnight, who tallied the
survey results, commented that several of the
rankings were so close an additional response or
two could have changed the order of importance.
In the exterior category, parking and lighting
were that closely ranked and in the interior,
lighting and acoustics were as well as catering
kitchen and painting.
"The one that I found most
interesting is the elevator," said McKnight.
"I expected that would get a higher rating
than it did."
Kate Anderson, a member of the
Carthage High School Student Council, reported
that members of the student council were most
concerned with the overall appearance of the
building and parking areas and were interested in
the possibility of original restoration.
"I think it’s a very
productive and informative survey," said
Committee Chair Marvin Van Gilder. "I’m
a little disappointed that we didn’t get
more response, but I think the quality is what
counts. I’m somewhat encouraged by the fact
that the thinking of the people who responded
seems to be pretty much in line with what we have
discussed."
In other business, the
Committee received an estimate on the cost of
equipping a catering kitchen based on information
provided at an earlier meeting by Michelle
Montague, Director of Food Services at
McCune-Brooks Hospital. The total cost for the
equipment would be approximately $25,500.
City Manager Tom Short
presented a Request for Qualifications for
architectural services for the Committee’s
review. Once the Committee has made its
recommendations for the future of Memorial Hall,
professional services to determine the cost and
feasibility of accomplishing the goals of the
Committee will be necessary.
The Committee will meet again
on Thursday, May 21 to review a draft of its
report to the City Council. They plan to make any
necessary changes and corrections immediately in
order to have the finished report available for
the May 26 Council meeting.
Commentary
Martin "Bubs" Hohulin
State Representative, District 126
BASS BOAT WANTED: call
555-1212. Don’t be surprised if you start to
see a lot of ads like this start to show up in
your local papers. This week the House approved,
on an almost party line vote, legislation that
will force taxpayers to pick up the tab for
insuring the kids of families making 300% of the
poverty level. I know I wrote about this a couple
weeks ago, but with the new developments and the
overall awfulness of the bill, I thought it was
worth writing about again.
As you probably already know,
Medicaid is the health care arm of the welfare
system. Some years ago, we went to the level of
insuring kids from families making 185% of
poverty. That seemed bad enough, now we are going
to 300%?! Let’s put this into perspective;
300% means that a husband and wife with two kids
can make $49,000.00 per year and Medicaid
(taxpayers) will pay for the health insurance for
their kids.
Listen to some of the arguments
for this bill. When we brought up that a family
of four making $49,000.00 per year should be able
to pay for their own insurance, we were told that
yes, that is true, but some parents choose
instead to forego insurance and buy luxuries.
Think about that. The message that is being sent
is that if parents want to forgo their
responsibility, don’t worry, the State will
pick up the slack. What a horrible message to
send, and yet that seems to have been the
standard message for the last several years. Gee,
I wonder if that has anything to do with the way
society seems to be headed?
Probably the most offensive
argument was that since most of this was going to
be paid for with money from the U. S. Government,
it wasn’t going to cost us anything, it was
free money. Where do they think the U. S.
Government gets its money? That’s right,
from you. It doesn’t matter whether
government programs are paid for by federal,
state, county, or city governments, it all still
comes from YOUR pocket. This is fine if you think
government can spend your money better than you
can. I however, firmly believe that the more of
what you earn stays in your pockets, the better
off families will be and the better off the State
and Country will be.
Finally, we had about twenty
amendments for this bill that we wanted to offer.
If something was going to pass, we wanted to make
it as good as possible. Unfortunately, due to the
democrats’ unwillingness to allow free and
open debate, they voted to cut off debate and
force a vote on the bill. One of the most
important amendments would have made it illegal
for parents to drop existing insurance just so
they could take advantage of the new welfare
program. We didn’t get to vote on that so
parents, if you want to drop your kids’
insurance to buy something else, don’t
worry, Mom and Dad Government will take care of
them. If you’ve got a boat for sale, you
might want to polish it up; the ads will be
coming.
As usual, I can be reached at
House Post Office, State Capitol, Jefferson City,
MO 65101, or 1-800-878-7126 or
mhohulin@services.state.mo.us for your questions,
comments, and advice.
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