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SEMO.net has confirmed that the City Attorney is included in the City's health insurance program. We believe 100% of his personal medical insurance premiums are paid for by our city and 67% of his family coverage are paid for as well. How can that be? He's not a full-time employee. I called nine other Southeast Missouri city halls (Malden, Dexter, Sikeston, Farmington, Fredericktown, Jackson, Ste Genevieve, Kennett, Charleston) and NONE of them pay their attorney's medical insurance premiums. One City Clerk told me emphatically over the phone when I asked about medical insurance for their attorney, "Of course not, he has his own private practice!" Our City Attorney also has his own private practice at Duncan & Pierce Law Offices which is allowed by our

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

The drama of Poplar Bluff politics and business have made it into the headlines of the St Louis Post Dispatch with "Political novice draws scorn and lawsuit for questioning business as usual". The long article, over 40 paragraphs in length, is an intriguing outsider's view of the last five months of accusations, innuendos and lawsuits. Once again, Doug Bagby drags me into the story and refers to me as a "disgruntled small-business owner" but most of the strangest quotes come from Sammy Schalk of Gamblin Lumber and Charles Moffit of MHJ Insurance. Schalk is quoted as saying:  “You don’t want dunderheads on welfare on the bank board.” And Moffitt is quoted a few paragraphs later inferring that Poplar Bluff doesn't

UPDATE 9/7/2013: Someone evidently went down and paid for the two DVDs because the two council meetings in August have been uploaded to YouTube.com/TransparentLocalGov. Since coming into office in April, Angela Pearson has been posting each city council meeting to YouTube. But that comes as no surprise, Pearson's entire campaign was a call for transparency and accessibility. Having past council meetings available is a valuable resource for those who cannot attend the meeting as well as for those who do not have City Cable's television service. According to Pearson, she would pick up the video two days after each meeting and then have it uploaded to YouTube.com. But on Monday (Aug 26), Pearson posted on her Facebook page that she could