Missouri candidates speak at Cape event

Two candidates for lieutenant governor in Missouri said Friday that the elected office is a part-time job and one of the candidates said he would be happy to take a pay cut.

Libertarian Party candidate Mike Ferguson of Grandview, Mo., told a Southeast Missouri Press Association candidates' forum in Cape Girardeau that the part-time job pays $77,000 a year. "I think the salary should be cut to $50,000," he told about 20 editors, publishers and reporters at the forum held at the Seabaugh Polytechnic Building at Southeast Missouri State University.

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, said the job involves being the constitutional president of the Missouri Senate, an ombudsman for Missouri's elderly and a member of the state's tourism commission.

"I think the office is what you make of it," Kinder said. "I do not propose to make it full time."

Three other candidates for the job, Democrats Bekki Cook of Cape Girardeau and Ken Jacob of Columbia and Republican Patricia Secrest of Manchester, did not attend.

Republican Catherine Hanaway of Creve Coeur, who is Missouri speaker of the House and a candidate for secretary of state, also spoke at the forum.

Two other candidates for secretary of state, Democrat Robin Carnahan of St. Louis and Libertarian Christopher Davis of Springfield, didn't attend.

At a luncheon earlier in the day, Gary Rust, chairman of Rust Communications, received the Mildred Wallhausen Friend of the Southeast Missouri Press Association Award for his successful efforts in newspaper publishing.

Hanaway said the job of secretary of state is to "run clean elections and be a regulator of and partner of business in this state."

Hanaway said she disagrees with the St. Louis elections board, which argues that state law allows polls to be open two weeks prior to an election for early voting.

"I don't think the law allows it," she said, adding that the issue will end up being settled in the courts.

Missouri's primary and general election system works well and doesn't need to be changed, she said.

Cottonwood celebration

Hanaway and Kinder were among several dignitaries who attended an unrelated news conference at the Show Me Center on Friday celebrating the success of the Missouri Legislature in securing continued state funding for the Cottonwood Treatment Center, a treatment center in Cape Girardeau for behaviorally disturbed children.

Kinder said he and other lawmakers were committed to saving the center and the children it helps.

"The children who come to Cottonwood are most definitely not replaceable," he said.

Gov. Bob Holden earlier this year proposed closing the center as a budget-cutting move. Hanaway said lawmakers put funding back in the budget because of the lobbying by staff and former patients of the center and parents of children served by the center.

Prior to the news conference, Kinder presented a resolution to former state representative Mary Kasten of Cape Girardeau honoring her late husband, Melvin Kasten.

Melvin Kasten served in the Air Force in World War II. He was a longtime surgeon in Cape Girardeau.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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