Love note from Jeff City

Greetings, My Fellow Missourians

The 59th Annual Osceola Labor Day Rodeo is now a memory. My “Hats Off” to all the volunteers of the St. Clair County Saddle Club and the Osceola Chamber for another great weekend. I especially want to thank the Saddle Club for allowing me to carry and post the Missouri State Flag at the parade and rodeo.

The Labor Day Rodeo in Osceola attracts hundreds of contestants, many of which bring their own horses to compete in equine events. In addition to many rodeos throughout Missouri many horse owners enjoy camping and trail riding. The Missouri horse industry produces goods and services valued at $718 million and 125,100 Missourians are involved in the industry as horse owners, service providers, employees, and volunteers. The Missouri horse industry directly provides 42,200 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs. There are 281,000 horses in Missouri, over 70 percent of which are involved in showing and recreation.

For the past couple of months I have been getting calls from concerned citizens with questions and enquiries about Berry Bend Park on Truman Lake. The park is managed by the Corps of Engineers at Warsaw. Due to anticipated budget cuts the Corps is considering cutbacks at some of the public use sites on the Truman Lake.

Berry Bend Park is one of the only Missouri Corps of Engineer owned sites that have equine trails. Unfortunately Berry Bend is the least profitable park. Now that they are facing budget cuts, the overnight camping area of the equestrian park will shut down. The horse riding trails will remain open for daytime riders to go in and out but there will no longer be any overnight camping.

The Corps of Engineers contacted Governor Parson’s in hopes that the Missouri State Parks would be able to take on the management of Berry Bend Park. I personally spoke with Governor Parson’s about the matter and unfortunately the Missouri State Parks doesn’t feel that they have the funding to take over the park. When situations like this occur, the protocol is to see if the State of Missouri is able to take the facility over first. Next, the county or municipalities are contacted and lastly the park of facility will go up for a public or private entity to lease it. That entity maybe a nonprofit organization or a profitable business.

This week I spoke with Tammy Gilmore, the Natural Resource Manager at the Harry S. Truman Reservoir and this is the information she was able to pass on to everyone.

“The Truman project is currently drafting implementation for 2020 operational and maintenance plans that consist of a $560,000 budget reduction from the previous FY 19 allocation. This direct cut is in the recreation business line and we must make operational changes to become more efficient. A recreational adjustment plan is necessary to incorporate the projects vision for current and future operations. Our goal is to provide high quality recreational areas while becoming more efficient in our operation and maintenance. This plan consists of  “right sizing” the recreation program at the Harry S, Truman Project to include potentially closing the Berry Bend Equestrian Area as well as other under- utilized and poor performing parks. The current trail system will stay open, however, the campground and amenities associated with the park will close in 2020. Staff will be working with user groups to find alternate solutions such possibly finding a group to lease the area in the future.”

Berry Bend Equestrian – 29 Campsites (24-30 amp electric/ 5 non-electric) Yearly Contract Costs – $22580 Average Revenue – $11086 Annual cost to operate per site is at a loss of $396 Average Occupancy Rate – 9%

Interim hours: Now that Session is over for 2019, I will be back in the District full time. If you need any assistance my Legislative Assistant Amy Helton will continue to be in my Capitol office Tuesday-Thursday and will be happy to help you.