| Today's Feature Proposed Codes Change.
Public Works Committee members
voted at last Tuesday afternoon’s meeting to
allow a request for a Council Bill to amend the
1996 National Electrical Codes.
Currently homeowners are
allowed to do their own electrical work on their
property. They must have a permit and the work
must be inspected and meet codes. The term
homeowners also includes landlords, so current
law also allows landlords to do electrical work
on rental property occupied by others.
The proposed change would allow
homeowners to do their own electrical work only
on the home they occupy. Landlords would have to
hire a licensed electrician to work on their
rental properties.
According to Assistant to the
City Engineer Joe Butler this change would bring
the electrical codes in line with the current
plumbing codes concerning homeowner work.
Butler says that work is often
done on rental homes now without permits being
obtained so work is not inspected and is often
not up to code. If a licensed electrician does
the work rather than the landlord, it is more
likely that a permit will be obtained and
inspectors will be aware of the project and able
to inspect the work.
Committee Chair Bill Fortune
said that although the current law does require
permits for electrical work whether done by a
homeowner or a professional he could see the
rationale behind the proposed change. Committee
Member Charlie Bastin moved to allow the request.
Fortune and Bastin voted in favor. Committee
Member Larry Ross had to leave the meeting just
prior to this discussion. Trisha Burgi-Brewer
abstained from voting because she has an interest
in the proposed change.
Brewer is a landlord and said
her husband does electrical work on their rental
properties.
"This would very adversely
affect me," said Burgi-Brewer.
AmeriCold Logistics Acquires
Carmar Group
Atlanta, GA.. AmeriCold
Logistics, Inc., the largest provider of frozen
food warehouse services in North America, has
entered into an agreement to acquire the Carmar
Group of companies, headquartered in Carthage,
MO. The transaction is scheduled to close within
90 days.
Carmar has five refrigerated
facilities plus a contract to construct an East
Coast distribution warehouse for a key customer.
These five facilities total 61 million cubic feet
of storage capacity in Missouri, Arkansas and
Georgia. From their facility in Carthage, Carmar
is managing a national consolidation program for
multi-temperature delivery.
In a letter to all AmeriCold
and Carmar associates, Dan McNamara, CEO of
AmeriCold Logistic, Inc. state, "The Carmar
acquisition is further evidence of our commitment
to enhance our nationwide warehousing the
distribution programs for our customers. The
Mayes family built an outstanding company with
strategic locations, great employees and
management, and a reputation for providing high
quality service. We look forward to including
Carmar in our organization, further strengthening
our ability to sere our expanding customer
base."
AmeriCold Logistics,
headquartered in Atlanta, GA currently has 84
facilities nationwide totaling 385 million cubic
feet of storage capacity. In 1997 the company
handled over 35 billion pounds of
temperature-controlled products and managed
transportation programs which controlled over 7
billion pounds of freight.
Decoration Day On The Place.
It's lonesome -- sorto'
lonesome - it's Sund'yday to me.
It 'pears like-mor'n any day I
nearly ever see!
Yit with the Stars and Stripes
above, a-flutterin' in the air,
On ev'ry soldier's grave I'd
love to lay a lily there.
They say, though, Decoration
days is generally observed
Most ev'rywhere's specially by
soldier boys that served -
In pint o' fact, we're allus
home on Decoration day.
They say the old boys marches
through the streets in columns grand,
A-follerin' the old war tunes
they're playin' on the band -
And citizens all jinnin' in,
and little children too,
All marchin', under shelter of
the old Red, White and Blue-
With roses! roses! roses! eery
body in the town;
And crowds o' girls in white,
just fairly loaded down,
O! don't the boys know it, from
their camp across the hill?
Don't they see their com'ards
coming and the old flag wavin' still.
O! cant' they hear the bugle
and the rattle of the drum?
Ain't they no way under heaven
they can reckolect us some?
Ain't they no way we can coax
'em, through the roses, jest to say
They know that every day on
earth's their Decoration day?
We've tried that -- me and
mother - where Elias takes his rest
In the orchard, in his uniform,
and hands acrost his breast,
And the flag he died for,
smiling and ripplin' in the breeze
Above his grave, and over that,
the robin in the trees!
And yet it's lonesome,
lonesome! It's a Sundy'day to me,
It 'pears like-morn'n any day I
nearly every see!
Yit, with the Stars and Stripes
above, a-flutterin' in the air
On every soldier's grave I'd
love to lay a lily there.
--- James Whitcome Riley
Commentary
Martin Bubs Hohulin
State Representative, District 126
Well, the 1998 Session of the
Missouri General Assembly is now in the history
books. By Constitution, the Session ended at 6:00
p.m. Friday, May 15. While the end of this
session lacked the drama of last year’s
failure to pass the operating budget on time, it
still had an incident that shows 1. How the
majority party abuses its power, and 2. Why we
need to change the leadership in the General
Assembly.
At the risk of sounding
partisan, let me give you a little background.
Keep in mind I am not trying to play partisan
politics, I am just giving you the facts of what
happens. There are 163 members of the Missouri
House of Representatives. Currently there are 75
republicans, 86 democrats, 1 vacancy and 1
independent. The vacancy is another story in
itself. It is a republican area and Gov. Carnahan
has steadfastly refused to call a special
election. It takes 82 votes to pass anything in
the House, including electing a Speaker and
Speaker Pro Tem. If you lose the vote for
Speaker, you are pretty much relegated to playing
defense for the next two years. For the last 40
plus years the democrats have controlled the
House.
They control what bills will be
discussed, who will be Committee Chairmen, what
bills will be voted on, and what bills will never
see the light of day.
Ironically, the incident of the
last day involved a piece of legislation I
actually supported except for one small part. The
bill would establish a presidential primary in
Missouri. I support this because I think it would
involve more people in the process. Currently,
Missouri uses the caucus system to choose their
presidential candidates. I have to admit, I have
never been to a presidential caucus. Before I was
elected I didn’t know enough about politics
to even know what a presidential caucus was.
Since I have been in office, I am always in
Jefferson City when the county caucuses are held.
So while I was in support of
the overall idea, I found one part of the bill
objectionable. There was one sentence in it that
allowed someone running for president to run for
another office at the same time. There are no
other allowances in Missouri for someone to run
for two offices at once, and for good reason. I
and Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, each had an
amendment to take that part out. We mistakenly
figured there would be debate allowed on the
issue. How wrong we were! The Speaker and
Majority Floor Leader waited until 5:58 to bring
up the bill for debate, knowing we wouldn’t
risk killing the bill by amending it and sending
it back to the Senate. On one hand it was a
brilliant move on their part, but when we are
doing the peoples’ business in Jefferson
City, there should be free and open debate
instead of shoving an election issue through in
all of two minutes. It simply is not a good way
to do business. If this was an isolated incident
that would be one thing, but we see this happen
too many times on too many issues. Many times
this year we saw debate shut off (it takes 82
votes to end debate) and a premature vote forced.
All sides should be heard, because when they are
not, it is you that is being shortchanged.
As usual, I can be reached at
the House Post Office, State Capitol, Jefferson
City, MO 65101 or call 1-800-878-7126 or email
mhohulin@services.state.mo.us for your questions,
comments, or advice.
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