Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has obligated the insurance funds to assist in repairs from the November 2024 flooding event, which is now in the hands of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA).

Once Emergency Management Director Loren Wilson and the Crawford County commissioners fill out the documentation and send it to SEMA, the county will officially receive the funds.

Presiding Commissioner Steve Black addressed a social media post that had circulated about the obligated funds.

“So, I know there was a social media post sometime back that I was made aware of that claimed there was a check floating around somewhere from FEMA,” Black said. “The government doesn’t float checks around, so that was just one more creation.”

Black has recently been in contact with Chase Marable of Higginbotham Insurance. When Marable was at the Jan. 20 meeting, he said that it would probably be $50,000 to $75,000 more to insure the county against flooding. Those numbers have now been updated, making the commissioners happy with their choice to self-insure.

“Based on current underwriting conditions, including prior claims history and the applicable flood zone designations, the preliminary estimated premium to secure flood insurance coverage is expected to exceed $100,000 annually,” Black read from Marable’s email. “So our building’s loss was $360,000, you’re talking three-and-a-half years’ worth of premiums.”

They will draft their appeal on March 6 to send to SEMA with the letter from Higginbotham Insurance included.

Crawford County Coroner Darren Dake gave the 2025 coroner’s report, beginning with a message addressed to the citizens of the county.

“The main duties of the office of the coroner are to determine the cause and manner of death, and certify deaths that are reported to the coroner,” Dake read. “With the skill and experience of the coroner, investigators and board-verified forensic pathologists, we believe the quality of death investigations in Crawford County are among the best in the state.”

They have had many accomplishments over the past year, including the facility being approved for forensic examination of children, getting a contract agreement with the Department of Corrections for autopsies, being the only coroner’s office in Missouri to receive an award of accreditation and opening a harm-reduction vending machine which has free items such as Narcan, hygiene kits and first aid kits.

For 2025, there were nine unnatural deaths by drugs.

“Yeah, our drug deaths are going down,” Dake said. “The distribution of Narcan, I think, helps because a lot of people have Narcan, but overall across Missouri, drug deaths are going down for two reasons. One is because more and more people have Narcan, and they’re helping their buddies out. And two, there has been a major reduction in fentanyl in the reports we’re reading.”

Black was concerned about the unclaimed decedents.

“The number of remaining unclaimed decedents. Is that an expense for the county?” Black asked.

Dake explained that they are an expense since the county has to pay to cremate or bury them if they are unclaimed, but the eight they currently have are in the freezer facility while they try to find family. When they do cremate, it is approximately $500, but they receive a $600 reimbursement.

Major Adam Carnal was present to update the commissioners on the elevator at the county jail.

At the meeting on Feb. 17, Sheriff Darrin Layman said that they had received two bids, one of which was high and the other was more reasonable at about $25,000, but the bid had expired. The Crawford County Sheriff’s Office reached back out to the company with the lower bid who agreed to honor the bid.

“They’ve ordered the parts, so hopefully in the next few weeks, we’ll get that up and running,” Carnal said. “We also applied for the Blue Shield grant again, or for the designation to qualify for the grant.”

This grant awards $50,000 to law enforcement agencies to purchase equipment, training and/or technology. They’ll be getting an update soon on their reapplication.

Curt Faigle, Chairman of the 100 Acre Wood Rally, gave an update on the upcoming race. 

“We’re at 69 entries. The rally is coming up pretty quick, March 13-14, with the big festival in Cuba on (March 12),” Faigle said.

He showed the commissioners a copy of their safety plan that is handed to all the safety entities involved.

They have three food trucks lined up from 6:30-9 p.m. on March 12 for their “Meet the Drivers” event in Hood Park, including a coffee truck, a barbecue truck and the All-American Food Company.

Treasurer Karen Sikes presented a letter from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources about the county’s landfill account. This year, they need to keep a $38,900 in there at all times, which is higher than last year.

“Every year they send you a new letter, and you have to have a new amount in there,” Sikes said.

They went off of last year’s letter, and accidentally withdrew too much.

“So I’m just going to go ahead and move it. It’s going to be approximately $11,000,” Sikes said. “And then come Friday, we are also getting another of our CDs or bonds, I’m not sure which one it is that’s maturing.”

There is one more that has yet to mature, and then the county plans to purchase another CD through Peoples Bank.

Collector Pat Schwent had the commissioners sign off on the write-offs on uncollected taxes.

“This is something we do every couple of years, to kind of clean up our past stuff and things. Most of these uncollectibles are folks that have deceased, they’ve moved out of the state...or if someone moves out of Crawford County and goes to another county,” Schwent said.

In other business, Feb. 24 was the start day for filing and absentee voting.

Boast ended the meeting with an announcement that, due to personal matters that suddenly came up, he is unable to attend the March 3 meeting. A motion was made to cancel the meeting on March 3 with a 3-0 vote, so March 10 will be the next meeting.