• About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Pickem Terms and Conditions
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem!
    • Weekly Pickem Updates
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem!
    • Weekly Pickem Updates
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish
No Result
View All Result
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
No Result
View All Result

New aldermen will be appointed at Dearborn

Ivan Foley by Ivan Foley
October 11, 2002
in Dearborn
4
SHARES
96
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email

After getting some advice from the Missouri Municipal League, it appears the board of aldermen for the City of Dearborn will soon be able to get itself out of executive session and move on with conducting business.

Mayor Marvin Landes on Wednesday morning said next week there will be a special meeting of what’s left of his board of aldermen. At that meeting, Landes expects to be ready to appoint two new aldermen to bring the board back to its full strength of four members.

RelatedNews

Like big butts?

Northern Platte County getting a farmer’s market

REAL ID enforcement pushed back to 2023

Landes said he has talked to a couple of potential appointees and is expecting to hear back from them later this week.

The next regular meeting of the Dearborn board would normally be set for Monday, but Landes said one of the remaining aldermen has a conflict. The special meeting may be held next Thursday night, he indicated, followed by the regular meeting. More information will be available by calling city hall later this week at 992-3524.

Following a resignation a couple of months ago by Alderman Steve Counts, the normally four-member Dearborn board was down to three members. The number went down to two last month when Alderman Frank Downing, Jr. resigned in the middle of an executive session, leaving the board without a quorum and apparently stuck in closed session.

“Our city ordinance states I can’t appoint a replacement unless we’re within six months of a municipal election,” Landes said earlier this week.

But the mayor added that he and the city attorney have been in contact with the league of municipalities and have been advised that the mayor can in fact make appointments to fill the board openings.

“They told us state law supersedes these local ordinances, which are apparently outdated,” Landes said this week.

“It looks like I basically can appoint replacements to those alderman positions regardless of when the next municipal election is,” the mayor added.

“We need to get on with the business of the city,” he said.

Downing was reluctant to comment on the reasons for his resignation, which came at a recent special meeting being held for personnel decisions.

“I want the people to know I hate that I couldn’t finish out my term. The circumstances were such that I had to get out,” he said. He explained there were disagreements on issues among board members, but “no argument of any kind.”

Downing said initially Landes also submitted his resignation immediately after Downing, but that later Landes withdrew his resignation.

Counts resigned last summer during a dispute with other board members concerning retirement benefits for some employees.

Water project progress Landes said Kansas City continues to get its water line closer to Dearborn for the eventual switchover. As soon as the connection is made to Kansas City water later this year, Dearborn is expected to shut down its current water plant. Kansas City has extended its line to about a half mile south of town.

“They’re saying they’ll have water to us and ready to go by the first part of December,” the mayor said, adding that Dearborn will need to get moving on running the line from the connecting point to the city’s water tower.

He said Dearborn is currently asking the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) for permission to run the line on MoDOT right- of-way through the middle of town.

“We only need about two blocks of MoDOT right-of-way,” he said. Assuming permission is granted from MoDOT, he said the city would then need about a week or 10 days to get its lines in and get hooked up to Kansas City water.

Landes said no decision has been made as to whether Dearborn will need to increase its water rates. He said Kansas City will charge Dearborn approximately $1.70 per thousand gallons of water, which he said is cheaper than Dearborn can produce it.

  

Tags: elections
Ivan Foley

Ivan Foley

Ivan Foley, longtime owner/publisher of the Platte County Landmark, is a past winner of the national Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, presented by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky. He lives in Platte County not far from KCI Airport.

Related Posts

Crazy quilts Platte County museum

Historic ‘crazy quilt’ exhibit ready at Platte County museum

by Landmark Digital
June 26, 2025
0

FROM NOW THROUGH SEPTEMBER From now through September, the Ben Ferrel Platte County Museum in Platte City is featuring the exhibit “Crazy Quilts and the Creative and Courageous Women Who Made Them.” Twenty quilts are displayed with stories representing our...

Don’t know if you’ve heard but. . .

Protests, dinner parties and such

by Guy Speckman
June 20, 2025
0

Just reread my column from last week, I was in a dark place, you probably should have sent help. Try to be a better reader going forward. I did not make it out to any protests last week. I voiced...

Platte County Board of Services

Success stories from 50 years of PCBS

by Debbie Coleman-Topi
June 6, 2025
0

SERVING THE INTELLECTUALLY AND DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED Before his family discovered the Platte County Board of Services, Chris Ringot lived at home with his parents, working jobs such as sacking groceries and dishwashing. His mother, Mary Ringot, said while the jobs...

Letter to the Editor

Local GOP insiders have conspired to blacklist

by Landmark Digital
May 30, 2025
0

EDITOR: I write today not in anger, but in clarity—to correct the record and stand for what is right. Recently, a good man, Tom Norris, was denied the opportunity to serve on the Mid-Continent Public Library board simply for being...

Next Post

Dowd, darby square off in race for circuit clerk

Popular News

  • Golf course at Creekside

    Nine-hole golf course planned at Creekside

    73 shares
    Share 29 Tweet 18
  • Chick-fil-A coming to Metro North Crossing

    31 shares
    Share 12 Tweet 8
  • Construction worker fatally struck by vehicle on Barry Road

    51 shares
    Share 20 Tweet 13
  • Free food, drink ready for July 4th celebration

    17 shares
    Share 7 Tweet 4
  • Buffy Smith named chief of staff for Sam Graves

    18 shares
    Share 7 Tweet 5
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Pickem Terms and Conditions
Call us at 816-858-0363

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved

No Result
View All Result
  • Subscribe Online
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved