LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: MDC CAN'T PAY TO MAINTAIN WHAT IT HAS NOW

To the editor:

It seems that this letter may be too late in coming, since it would appear that the Cape Girardeau County Commission has made up its mind to get into the banking industry.

This bonding of the Missouri Department of Conservation nature center is something that needs to be approved by the voters. Our conservation department is in the habit of buying more than it can properly maintain. I can tell you firsthand of the battle that I had in getting $75,000 for the Lake Girardeau area that has yet to be finished. My requests were ignored until the media got involved. Then the conservation department in Jefferson City sent me a letter saying I could no longer obtain information without going through the department's in-house lawyer simply because I asked to see the area budget.

I understand the county is going to give them land at the park to put this nature center on. The conservation department has plenty of its own land to do this on.

What better place to do this on than the 351 acres it has at Lake Girardeau? People could hike, fish and enjoy nature without having to look through a glass at it. It might also boost our rural economy, which is much-needed. Trail of Tears State Park is in a rural area, and it does very well.

As for the financial end of this, if memory serves me correct at its August 1999 meeting the conservation commission voted in a budget for fiscal 2000 that was in the red. If that continues for the next 10 years, who will be holding the note? When I started doing battle with the conservation department, I called County Commissioner Larry Bock to see if there was anything our county commission could do to help me get them to take better care of the lake area. He told me the commission could do nothing. No one could help me get $75,000. But now I find we are in bed with the conservation department to the tune of $4.7 million and have been working on this for five years.

One of Monday"s editorials in the Southeast Missouri says that "if it is successful, the financing scheme could be used to build others around the state, ... but it is doubtful many other counties in Missouri have the financial resources to make things happen the way Cape Girardeau County can." The only part of that paragraph that sounds correct is the word "scheme."

Let's bond something everyone in the county can use every day, such as road improvements.

Entering into financial agreement with a commission that votes its own budget into the red is not smart business. When I was trying to get the lake improved, I was told that "there are more needs than dollars available." That is a quote from a letter dated June 30, 1999, sent to me from Jerry Conley, director of the conservation department. The department's purchasing rate is overextending its maintenance and repair budgets. If you can't fix it, you don't need it. As state Rep. David Schwab told me, the conservation commission is answerable to no one. Their budget is simply rubber-stamped by the House Budget Committee since the conservation department receives the eighth-cent sales tax, which is constitutionally earmarked for the department.

DOUGLAS FLANNERY

Whitewater, Mo.