MOScout Daily Update: O’Laughlin To Streamclog Solar - Disapparing Hospitals - Another LOZ Casino Try? - Missey on Neglect Removals and more…
O’Laughlin Plans to Streamclog Solar
The Republican Party has usually been in favor of streamlining regulations to allow for the free market to flourish. Senate Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin has made it very clear in her social media posts, she wants to slow down or even stop solar developments in rural Missouri. I call it streamclogging.
I understand private property rights but I also understand that regardless of your private property rights an industrial installation with immense economic and environmental impacts SHOULD BE REGULATED BY THE STATE. There are basically no oversight regulations or permits. This same company is doing the very same thing in a few other places in Missouri and their plan includes thousands of acres of food producing agricultural land…
Again, private property rights are important but you could not install something like this without public notice, public hearings, economic and environmental impacts being measured. This is no different and we should not and cannot allow this trampling of communities…
Another Attempt at LOZ Casino Coming
A new committee was formed yesterday to support “a constitutional amendment, or amendments, to change Article III, Section 39(e) of the Missouri Constitution pertaining to a gambling boat license issued by the Missouri Gaming Commission.” See the filing here. The committee, Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming, promptly received a $250,000 check from Signature GLP LLC, a company associated with developer Jeff Tegethoff.
· Last year, a similar question, Amendment 5, failed with 47.5% voting in favor.
Disappearing Hospitals
Missouri Hospital Association maps the closures of the last decade…
Why It Matters
Healthcare access, particularly in rural Missouri, is a big deal. There’s a lot of focus on affordability, but if there aren’t any hospitals near you, it won’t matter how affordable service is.
Eigel PAC’s Exploiting Elderly Donors?
The Missouri Independent published a humdinger of a story yesterday about the aggressive online fundraising of former Sen. Bill Eigel’s political action committee. Read the article here.
A Korean War veteran from Nebraska named Russell Wood made 35 donations totaling $1,050 over the last year to Bill Eigel’s campaign for St. Charles County executive. The problem is, Wood, who is 92, has never heard of Eigel or set foot in St. Charles County. He told The Independent he had no idea he had made so many donations to Eigel’s campaign.
At some point in the last four years, one of Eigel’s fundraising emails — which focus on national issues and often don’t make any mention of Eigel — showed up in Wood’s inbox. He’s concerned about immigration and crime and donated thinking he was giving to help Donald Trump and other Republicans defeat Democrats.
That’s when he appears to have been caught in an online fundraising practice that makes donations automatically repeat on a weekly or monthly basis unless the contributor changes a pre-checked box.
Poverty Driving “Neglect” Removals?
The Nation has an article up about state agencies removing children from their families. It spotlights Missouri. Read it here.
You might think that child welfare agencies remove children from their families primarily over suspicions of physical or sexual abuse. But the reality is that removals for the more nebulous category of “neglect” … In Missouri, neglect made up two-thirds of all referrals to a child welfare agency in 2024.
Most neglect cases stem from financial deprivation and its effects—such as inadequate food, clothing, or shelter. Research suggests that it’s poverty that drives these problems, not the parents’ unwillingness to address them…
The head of Missouri’s Children’s Division, Sara Smith, insists that caseworkers in her agency use an individualized approach in determining when a removal is necessary. “In and of itself, we wouldn’t take homelessness as a report,” Smith asserted…
Darrell Missey became the director of Missouri’s Children’s Division in 2022. A former judge who heard child welfare cases, he took the job with the goal of reducing removals… Still, he often felt forced to remove children because he didn’t have any housing to offer their families. Missey left the position in late 2024. Smith, his replacement, reassigned the person Missey had hired to work on removal prevention to a different role and fired his deputy director, he said. There is a “mentality” that “pervades the state” of removing a child instead of finding a way to fix or find housing, he added: “Missouri’s leadership is not interested in preventing children from coming into foster care.”
Gateway Seeks Additional $$$
Post-Dispatch reports that “Gateway Studios and Production Services wants the County Council to allow previously approved tax incentives to kick in despite the company facing mechanic's liens from construction firms that helped build the 32-acre site, according to Rodney Crim, head of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, the county's economic development arm.”
· The company was approved for a 10-year tax abatement worth $12 million in exchange for the creation of 100 jobs. Currently, the agreement prohibits such a deal with mechanic's liens filed against the property, off Interstate 64 and Spirit of St. Louis Boulevard.
FYI
Gateway Studios is represented in Jefferson City by Bardgett and Associates.
911 Boards Sue DOR
The 911 emergency services boards of Putnam County and Washington County filed suit against the Missouri Department of Revenue and their own county governments saying that use taxes earmarked for their services have been flowing to the county governments instead.
See the suit here. It cites last session’s SB 271, sponsored by Sen. Rusty Black.
To date, DOR has failed and refused to distribute any monies levied and collected on August 28, 2025, and thereafter, to Emergency Services Boards, and instead continues to disburse all such monies to the Affected Counties in which Emergency Services Boards are located.
Former Cape Councilman Pleads
Press release: Rhettney B. Pierce, 55, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau to one count of possession with the intent to distribute methamphetamine. He admitted buying four ounces of meth for $300 on Sept. 26, 2024, in a Cape Girardeau hotel room from a confidential source working with law enforcement. Pierce was arrested immediately after leaving the hotel room. He told investigators that he had been a habitual meth user since approximately 2019 and snorted a line of meth every morning and afternoon… In his plea agreement, Pierce admitted that throughout the interview with law enforcement, he requested a “break” or a “favor” about 20 times, also asking officers to keep the case quiet and give him “preferential treatment.”
$5K+ Contributions
People Not Politicians - $250,000 from The Fairness Project (Washington, DC).
Serve Missouri PAC (pro-McCreery) - $10,000 from Missouri Senior PAC.
Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming - $250,000 from Signature GLP LLC.
Lobbyist Registrations
Aaron Baker and Freddy Barnes added Par Health; and deleted Mallinckrodt LLC.
Ron Berry added ClassWallet, and Catalis.
Jay Reichard and Noel Torpey added Bridge to Nuclear.
Noel Torpey added Thrive Homes, LLC.
Henrio Thelemaque added Missouri Bootheel Regional Consortium, and New Vision Counseling.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Brandon Ellington, Randy Dunn, Nick Ragone, and Charlie Puyear.
Congratulations
To Elijah Haahr, whose team won first place at Sen. Curtis Trent bowling tournament in Springfield. Large crowd… Over $50K raised.
