Category: Springfield

Some road construction here in Springfield:

* Relocate Weaver at Campbell 450 feet north of its current location. The new section of Weaver will tie in to the existing road about 800 feet on both sides of Campbell.

* Widen Weaver on both sides of Campbell to provide dual left-turn lanes on Weaver.

* Build dual left-turn lanes on southbound Campbell Avenue to eastbound Weaver Road.

* Build a new box culvert for Ward Branch Creek under Weaver west of Campbell; Weaver will be closed at the creek during that part of the project.

* Build new sidewalks along Weaver and a new Campbell pedestrian crossing on the south side of the new intersection.

* Build connections from the new section of Weaver to the old road to provide access to businesses, homes and apartments.

* Install new traffic signals and street lighting at the new intersection

Sounds complicated, but don’t worry: experienced, qualified engineers are on it:

The lead contractor on the project is D & E Plumbing and Heating, Inc. of Nixa, doing the work for a low bid amount of $4.3 million. The project is scheduled for completion by Dec. 1, 2011.

I spend a lot of time carping on when the private half of the public/private scams renege, but sometimes the public half plays the private for the sucker. Case in point: Branson stalls on paying fees to private airport:

Aldermen unveiled the $70.5 million budget to the public Tuesday but ultimately decided to postpone initial approval of it until they figure out whether they can find a way to fund a pay-for-performance agreement with the Branson Airport.

“I don’t think the city can appropriate the money for this year and for (2011) now,” said Alderman Bob Simmons. “That would be irresponsible.”

At issue is a contract, signed in 2006 and modified in 2010, in which the city agrees to pay $8.24 for each passenger the airport brings to the city. The city has not paid the final $260,000 bill for 2010 and did not include in its proposed 2011 budget the estimated $670,000 the city would be expected to owe the airport in 2011.

Alderwoman Sandra Williams said the city simply can’t afford the payments, although it has a $5.7 million carryover from 2010 it plans to put in its reserve fund.

Williams also said the contract with the airport never guaranteed that the city would always produce the funds.

“The payments are subject to annual appropriations and therefore, there can be no assurance that future boards will approve it,” she said.

Branson Airport CEO Steve Peet said the city is misinterpreting its ability to get out of the payments.

“Every long-term appropriation from a city has language like that,” Peet said. “If it’s for more than 12 months you have to have that language. It’s a way into the agreement, not a way out of it.” Peet would not discuss whether the airport would consider legal action.

Keep that in mind. Sometimes when you lie down with fleas, you get dogs.

Full disclosure: I love the Branson Airport. It’s tucked away nine miles into a golf course living development and sits atop a mountain. And it has direct flights to Milwaukee, although Branson would prefer to think it’s direct flights from Milwaukee.

This story shows how effective security cameras are at preventing crime:

The incident began around 1:30 a.m. Monday, when police say Aberle is pictured in security footage trying to break through a glass window on the north side of the building.

According to court documents, she is seen knocking over a trash can and then throwing trash against the window.

“During this time, Khelawan enters and is posing for the camera while Aberle continues to try to break the glass by throwing a landscaping rock against the glass,” the probable cause statement says.

The glass shattered after about 10 minutes of effort, the statement said.

Then, around 2:30 a.m, a vehicle rams the glass entry doors on the northwest end of the building. Aberle and Khelawan are seen getting out of the car and walking into the school, where they knock over trash cans and kick a glass display case, according to court documents.

No damage to the interior of the school was reported.

Half an hour later, the two are seen on surveillance footage walking from the building, officers said.

The vehicle is seen about 10 minutes later, ramming the glass entry doors on the north side of the building, but no one enters the school. The car is then seen on security footage cutting doughnuts in the grassy area north of the school, court documents said.

The school resource officer responding to the interior alarms at the school told Springfield police she encountered the two on the west parking lot of the school around 3:20 a.m.

The cameras have almost two hours of footage of the vandalism, including one of the alleged perpetrators mugging for the camera. Then, almost two hours later, a single cop shows up in response to the alarms.

Again, cameras save the day.

Looking for the county Republican Headquarters? Why, it’s right there….

… in Country Club Center.

Although it’s not really near a country club. It is, however, near Cosmic Fish, a tattoo parlor, and a discount smoke shop.

Democrat Dave Coonrod has served as Greene County’s Presiding Commissioner for 16 years. I don’t know who thought this was a good idea:

He’s still not afraid to learn the job? After your first decade in a job, maybe you ought to know it a little. By the end of your fourth term, perhaps you should know it pretty well indeed.

And, jeez, does his wife know he’s making a mess of his slacks like that? I hate to think of what kind of shoes he’s got in there. I’d have to come home barefoot and in my undershorts with some story about how I got accosted by a naked man with a gun on the run or something after a photoshoot like that.

Behold, the mighty Plaza Towers in Springfield.

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A couple points to consider:

• There is only one building. How is this “Towers”?
• A plaza tends to be a public square. That is, it is a ground-level sort of thing.

I dunno; Plaza Towers sounds kinda like something called “Sea-Level Mountains” on a single hill. But this 10-story (?) building is what passes for a tall building in Springfield.

A local flea market goes by the moniker STD Flea Market.

It advertises As Seen On TV / As Seen On Jay Leno.

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Now I’m just leaping to conclusions here, but it’s the women’s track, and the conclusions aren’t as far away. If STD Flea Market appeared on Jay Leno, it was probably followed by a close-up of the card, a pause for the audience to laugh, and then Jay went onto another card with a goofy name or strange nuptial couple name.

I guess the ad doesn’t have room for that. Instead, perhaps they want us to infer that Jay Leno found an inexpensive collectible motorcycle there.

I expect this stunning example of sign placement preceded the Campbell Avenue Exit Excellence recorded earlier.

Note that the street sign here is positioned about eight feet away from the Do Not Enter sign:

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This is particularly awesome when you see it from the other side. You know, when you’re driving eastbound on Sunset in the proper lane as you approach Grant:

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Notice that the Do Not Enter sign, whose back displays to the oncoming traffic, completely blocks the name of the street.

What could possibly go wrong here?

Sometime next week, apparently residents hereabouts might suffer from a severe eyeglass storm warning.

City Utilities plans to begin a series of high-pressure “steam blows” over the next two to four weeks to clear boiler pipes of any debris ahead of the power plant’s commissioning later this fall.

…

The roaring sound likely will be heard for miles, and a tall plume of steam will jet skyward from the south side of Southwest 2.

The steam blows will last for several minutes, and may be done several times a day until all of the boiler tubes and related pipes are clear of any rustlike scale that may have developed inside the pipes during construction.

Miller said the steam blows also should blast out any nuts, bolts, eyeglasses, gloves or other foreign debris that may have been inadvertently left inside the pipes during construction. [Emphasis added.]

So someone has admitted leaving eyeglasses in the inner workings of this plant, and sometime next week they’re going to launch these glasses as well as small bits of metal into the air and let them land where they will. Am I reading that right?

I have a couple days to make my Kevlar umbrella.

This plant is a couple miles and a couple hilltops north of here, but we’ll probably hear it. Combine this with great plumes of smoke a couple hills to the west as the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield conducts its controlled burns, and we’re just a couple cattle’s worth of leather-wearing highwaymen away from my worst nightmares circa 2008.

The city of Ozark is talking about having the YMCA help out with its parks department:

The funding issues are also causing the city to begin looking “outside the box” for future solutions, which could include the Ozarks Regional YMCA, Childers said.

The nonprofit group has been invited to the Aug. 9 meeting.

Ozarks Regional YMCA CEO Brad Toft said the group wanted to discuss with the aldermen a possible partnership between it and the city to manage the community center or the entire parks system, if the city’s interested.

And though it wouldn’t help with the city’s impending problem with balancing the center’s 2010 budget, it could help with future budgets.

I recommended that for the city of St. Louis on July 12.

In our first home, we came home from a restaurant to find someone had popped the glass door in our walk-out basement and made off with a sack of old coins. The paper called that sort of thing Debbie burglaries, since the people knocked on the door and if it was answered, they would ask for Debbie and leave when the fictitious Debbie wasn’t there. If no one answered and no dog barked, they’d go around back.

In our second home, scurrilous people knocked on the door on occasion with questionable sales brochures and poor dress.

Now we’ve moved out in the country to be safer, and the tactic has followed us here:

Rural residents beware: That salesman knocking on your front door could very well be casing your home to burglarize it.

The Greene County Sheriff’s Office has dealt with about 30 rural residential daytime burglaries in the past two weeks in widely scattered areas of the county.

They’re being perpetrated by small crews of thieves who typically knock on the front door to see if anyone’s home, according to Greene County Sheriff’s Capt. Randy Gibson.

“If there’s no answer, they go to the back door and break in,” he said. “In some cases, they’ve broken through locked doors. In some others, the houses were unlocked.”

We’re home most of the time, so we’re in sort of good shape to avoid this sort of burglary. But, damn, I thought I’d be able to let go of a little of my internal city boy grit out here. But I’ll need to continue to suspect everyone, I suppose.

I’ve sent out a bunch of checks to a bunch of charitable organizations in the last couple of months, and the recognition and membership kits have started to roll in. I can’t wait to put this one on my truck:

Since next week is National Parks Week, the National Battlefield will waive the normal $5/person, $10/family entry fee, so I’ll have that excuse to go…and to buy an annual pass.

For more information on the park, click here. For more information about the foundation, click here.