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Earlier this week we reported that our City Council seems strangely opposed to putting city council meetings online. City Manager Bagby's comparisons are, well, you just have to watch the video. But here is a recap of reasons for not putting City Council meeting videos online are: 1. Citizens should just pay $15.89/month for City Cable Basic TV package rather than the city pay to upload it to YouTube.com 2. To upload to YouTube would essentially compete and take incentive of people to pay for City Cable 3. This might cause a City Cable rate increase. "A 1% sales tax isn't a significant cost but when you keep adding and adding, at some point Mr. Bach will be asking for

...let's, instead, conduct a $400 study! At Tuesday night's (1/22/2014) City Council meeting, Councilwoman Pearson requested that the Council move to post their City Council meeting videos online as well as the council packet which explains to the councilmembers in depth what each agenda item is about. Both of these requests are fulfilling her campaign promise for more transparency in our local government, and both of these requests are very good ideas. As reported earlier this year, Pearson has been posting City Council meetings under the YouTube handle TransparentLocalGov. The city is requiring her to buy copies of the Council's meetings on DVD at $30/month so she can upload them. What followed Pearson's request was comical from multiple points of view. Most

A letter was sent today to the Secretary of States office regarding the Heritage Title Company and their illegal standing: SECRETARY OF STATE JASON KANDER’s OFFICE STATE OF MISSOURI BUSINESS SERVICE DIVISION P.O. BOX 778 JEFFERSON CITY, MO RE: HERITAGE TITLE COMPANY, 2008 NORTHWOOD DR, POPLAR BLUFF, MO To whom it may concern, The HERITAGE TITLE COMPANY, which operates out of 2008 Northwood Dr in Poplar Bluff Missouri, is operating without a corporate or limited liability license in the state of Missouri, nor without the proper registration as a fictitious name. According to your online records, the HERITAGE TITLE COMPANY was notified on December 11, 2012 that their fictitious name had expired and they could no longer operate under that

According to the Daily American Republic on Wednesday, December 18, 2013: Changing the third party administrator...resulted in $300,000 in savings during 2013.... [reported by an MHJ Insurance Representative] Bagby said he budgeted around an additional $200,000 for health insurance in 2014... But how do those two statements jibe with the financials? According to documents released (Monthly Health Insurance Report Nov 2013) through the freedom of information act and sunshine laws of Missouri, the Insurance fund is set to lose over one million dollars in 2013 and there are murmers that insiders expect to lose an additional $2M next year. So how does a million dollar loss equate to "saving $300k"? Or possibly losing $2M more next year get blurred by

Poplar Bluff Schools moved to "Common Core" at the beginning of this year, some larger schools have been incorporating it since 2010 and it is mandated by Governor Nixon and the Dept of Education that all schools start Common Core by next school year. There are so many reasons why I oppose Common Core. For many it sounds like "Common Core" is just the next new schooling buzzword (ie, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, etc.), but its so much more than that. Let me sum it up like this: Common Core allowed the business and political but non-academic world to create standards of what students should learn at each age. Then President Obama used multi-million dollar educational