Jim Ealer, an American Rally Association (ARA) committee member, met May 5 Crawford County Commission members to share details on the scheduled July 11 Missouri Ozark Rally planned in the county.

With the success of the 100 Acre Wood Rally, which was held across Crawford, Dent and Washington counties, and Rally Fest, which was held at Hood Park in Cuba, they wanted to use this next race to test out new roads.

“What I do as a facilitator, I would help the rally committee get approval from the local homeowners, you know, but I don’t really know a lot of people here, and so I mean, it would really work out great if we could get some kind of volunteer that actually knows people,” Ealer said. “I’m thinking Cedar Lane, to Evans and then to Keysville.”

Associate Commissioner of District 1 Mark Pfeiffer was concerned with the new roads since it would involve racing on some asphalt.

“We can establish some routes, newer routes, make sure it’s going to work for everybody. You know, I’m not, I’m not all excited about the asphalt part of it, you know. I like the gravel part of it because we can maintain that. The asphalt, we have enough difficulty as it is maintaining asphalt,” Pfeiffer said. “And, you know, we just now got this rally race back into Crawford County.”

Back in 2021, there were some miscommunications and misunderstandings about the Rally of the 100 Acre Wood that led to several complaints, and former Presiding Commissioner Leo Sanders and former Associate Commissioner of District 1 Rob Cummings refused to allow the rally to come back to the county.

Under the current commission, the rally races were allowed back into Crawford County in July 2025, but Pfeiffer thinks they should wait until 2027 before trying to expand the race. He doesn’t want to disrupt what they started by building it up too fast.

Ealer explained that the ARA uses smaller races, such as the Missouri Ozark Rally, to test new roads. He also said that they wanted to try to expand by getting a stage set in Cuba.

When Associate Commissioner of District 2 Jared Boast asked what their idea was for Cuba, Ealer said that they were thinking about a special stage in the Hood Park area.

“Maybe go around the track a little bit into the infield, and there’s also…a service road, go down and cut across the Maple Shade,” Ealer said. “There’s like a full four drives that have been cutting through the powerlines. It’s pretty roaded up, but jump back out on Maple Shade and, you know, have a little stage there will be pretty unique.”

No decision was made, but Ealer asked to be put on the May 12 agenda.

Citizen Mike Lovell was concerned about the county’s financial state and how to bring money into the county. He asked how much revenue events, like the rally races, brought to the county.

“What’s the dollar bills for our aggravation or our energy?” Lovell asked.

Pfeiffer said that it is hard to figure out the exact amount, but the 100 Acre Wood Rally does a survey asking people how much they spent in the county.

“I believe that it was a very small number of people that actually replied back to the survey,” Pfeiffer said.

Curt Faigle, with the 100 Acre Wood Rally, visited the commission during the March 24 meeting and said that there were probably around 1,500 people who went to the Rally Fest at Hood Park in Cuba.

For the actual races, he gave a conservative estimate of $2.5 million spent over the two-day rally period across the three participating counties. They estimate that 35 percent of that total was spent in Crawford County.

Lovell questioned if there was something else the county could do, like apply for federal funds, but Presiding Commissioner Steve Black said they already tried.

“We’ve tried that too. I’ve talked to MRPC (Meramec Regional Planning Commission) about grants. There’s nothing. There’s no money anywhere,” Black said.

Healthcare coverage

Black started the county health insurance discussion by rescinding the motion from the April 21 meeting that approved renewing with United Healthcare (UHC).

Boast said that the county would be spending about $75,000 less by going with Anthem instead of renewing with UHC.

Associate Commissioner of District 1 Mark Pfeiffer added that even though there is still an increase, if employees wanted to add their spouse or children to the plan, they would be paying more with UHC. 

“So it’ll cost an additional $190 to the employee over what it would for the Anthem plan, which is, once again, you’re still increasing, you’re just not increasing as much,” Pfeiffer said.

Black asked for Sheriff Darin Layman’s thoughts on the matter since he oversees a large group of people. 

“I spoke with my command about it rather extensively, and once they sat down with the number, it was pretty much a no-brainer,” Layman said. “As long as the coverage is the same, they didn’t take much issue with it.”

They approved a motion to go with Anthem with a 3-0 vote.

In other business, Boast announced that he received a letter from Capital Aggregates, a company that provides construction materials and mining services, informing the commission that customers can expect a 5- to 10-percent price increase depending on the product.

With rising fuel prices and new dredging permit conditions — following the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ recent finalization of changes to the areas where capital sand companies are authorized to dredge on the Missouri River — they now need to travel farther to reach the approved dredging zones.

Boast explained that the changing prices will also affect the county.

“So you mentioned that about fuel. We effectively budgeted fuel at $4 a gallon because fuel was in the low $3. Now fuel is hovering at $6, so there’ll be less fuel: less fuel, less driving, less maintenance,” Boast said.

Brent Cain, of Great River Engineering, had the commissioners sign some closeout documents for the Sellers Road bridge.

Only one bid was received for the plat and survey storage system for the recorder’s office. It was from Easi File in Anaheim, Calif., and was for $30,733.49, which was accepted with a 3-0 vote.