The Weekly Bulletin

October 30, 2017

Call to order:  Ed Musterman, President at 12:05

Invocation: Mary Dewey

Pledge: Phil Rodriquez

Introduction of Guests   

Debby Thomas whose family is the original owners of the DOC Clubhouse came with her granddaughter, Ashley. Her family was in the construction business and built the clubhouse. She brought album pictures to show the original use of the building: a home accessories store on the ground and living quarters on the second floor.

 

Birthdays and Anniversaries

Jim Murphy has a birthday on Sunday, November 5.

 

Mystery Person – Cyrilla Galbreath awarded the Hy-Vee Card to Steve Winters for all the work he is doing to keep the club on track with Koeze Nut sales.

 

Greeter   – Recognition and comments from Saturdays work crew at the tree lot.  John Sapp, Ken Oster, Rick McKernan, Larry Fick, Mike Russell, Jim (the hammer) Murphy, C.O. Scheffer, Tony Parisio, Travis Kempf and Nick Litteken. Scott Stager came at 10:30 only to find the grounds closed and all the work completed. “Many hands make light work.”

 

Announcements

• Sign In or Pay the Pig – Carl Scott paid the pigs and mentioned his attendance at the Tiger Hotel to view the three Salvador Dali paintings newly acquired by the owner.
• Food Bank – Larry Fick mentioned there were too many memorable event between last Monday and today to remember the routine tasks our volunteers performed last week at the Food Bank.
• E MO 1^st Qtr Convention – Moberly, Oct 27 – 28^th – Executive Cmte on Friday evening was attended by Ed Musterman and Rick McKernan,  Saturdays General Membership meeting was attended by Mary Dewey, Red and Dorcas Leighton and Ed Musterman.

An excellent meeting hosted by the Moberly Optimist Club with good attendance with some members coming as far away as 250 miles. “Optimist Strong” was the theme and presented by Certified International Trainer Bob Schilling from Michigan.  Lots of great and inspiring information.  Item of note is that Optimist are the largest service organization in the United States and the 4^th largest in the world. OI is strongly pursuing a well thought out strategy for growth and part of that is an increased emphasis on establishing JOI clubs and “Clubs within a Club”.  OI is pursuing a program of international growth with new clubs established in 8 African clubs including Uganda. (OI uses skype to communicate with the Uganda Optimist Club.) BTW the DOC dropped its first place standing in the A & A Point. We achieved second place this quarter. This is a challenge to Mary Dewey and Ken Oster to regain our first place.

• Koeze/Gift Certificates – Updates. Steve/Jake VOLUNTEERS NEEDED AT NOON, THURSDAY, NOV 2. & 5:00 pm FRIDAY. We are expecting 3 pallets of Koeze nuts and candies. Volunteers should gather at noon to unload the delivery truck. With enough volunteers the job can be completed within the noon hour.
• Help needed at the tree lot Friday night, Saturday and Sunday to pick and pack Koeze orders.  Some past help will not be available so it is important that volunteers step up.  Steve will be at the club house Friday night but won’t be able to be there until about 1:00 on Saturday. Experienced help is needed to commit to Saturday morning to work and guide any new volunteers.

• Tree Lot – John Sapp reports the Christmas trees will be delivered a week from Saturday. The truck unloading will be done by the MU Baseball team that Saturday morning, Nov 11 at 8:30 am. While the team forbids any Optimists from touching any of the trees, John Sapp recommends it wouldn’t hurt to have a few of our grey headed members show up and so the team could better appreciate the need.
• YOHO/Alternative general membership meeting. –  Group to meet 5:00 Friday at the club house to help unload Koeze’s.
• Holiday luncheon:  Dec 11^th at the Club House.
• Phil Rodriquez noted his 11 year old daughter attended the Dept. of Conservation’s Young Hunters’ Class, qualified with 6 target hits within 2 inches of the target’s bulls-eye at a range of 100 yards (None of the boys attending hit the target) and got her deer hunting license. Later she shot her first deer and will be featured on the cover of the” Conservation” magazine. Phil is very proud of his daughter and paid the pig for his family’s notoriety.
• Carl Scott mentioned MU Wrestling will hold its first outdoor meet at the MU Baseball field after the Missouri vs. Illinois football game on Saturday.

 

Today’s Speaker

Boone Co Commission, Sales tax ballot issue

Commissioner Fred Parry made the Use Tax ballot issue presentation on the upcoming (Nov. 7) election day to a standing room only crowd of Optimists. Proposition U will be on the ballot for all residents of Boone County  Separate ballot issues for the cities, Harrisburg, Ashland and Columbia, will appear for residents of those cities as well. The Use Tax is a tax on goods and services purchased from a vendor outside the State of Missouri for goods and services used inside the State of Missouri.  It would apply to items purchased online from an out of state vendor where no sales tax is applied or in the example provided on the Boone County hand-out materials to build and furnish student housing in Columbia from out of state vendors where contractors avoided payment of approximately $3,750,000 in city and county taxes on the $100 million material costs to create additional student housing.

 

Commissioner Parry mentioned several times that Amazon has agreed to pay the Use Tax for purchases within Boone County. (He omitted mentioning Amazon will collect Use Taxes from Boone County buyers until Steve Winters Questioned him.) He cited the Slice Survey that claims 43% of online purchases are made through Amazon.  He mentioned that sales taxes have not kept pace with the population growth. The educational materials provided didn’t help his argument. They showed a 68% population growth from 1984’s population of 104,531 to 2017’s population of approximately 176,000. But sales taxes were expressed in annual growth rates ranging from a high of over 10% during several years to a negative growth rate of approximately 2% in two reporting cycles The math works out to a 68% growth in population over a 31 year period or an annual average growth rate of 1.7% while the average annual average sales tax rate is considerably higher.

 

A $2,000 Use Tax exemption was mentioned. The word exemption is misleading. It refers to a requirement that any taxpayer purchasing over $2,000 of goods in a calendar year from an out-of-state vendor should self-report this to the state and presumably pay the Use Tax. If Amazon has already collected a Use Tax, there are no provisions for a refund. Businesses can expect an audit for this but there is yet to be a mechanism to audit individual taxpayers. Also, while the ballot language is ambiguous, the hand-out materials and Commissioner Parry assured his audience the Use Tax and Sales Tax are either/or taxes. No one will pay both for the same item.

 

Commissioner Parry’s argument for Proposition U (and Prop 1 for Columbia residents) was that both local government and retail businesses suffer because buyers exercise tax avoidance by using the internet for purchases. Scott Stager mentioned that buyers also purchase goods using the internet for convenience nullifying any expected local retail sales gains. We’ll see. Amazon has already created a moat to protect itself from other online vendor with Amazon Prime that give its shopper unlimited shipping for $100 per year. If tax avoidance is the motivating factor some local shopper may chose an alternative online provider that doesn’t collect Use Taxes.

 

The county expects it will gain $900,000 in general revenue while the city could reap $1 million with the Use Tax in place. The County currently runs county services for $70 million annually. Commissioner Parry described the County as “lean and mean.” However, no mention was made of what the County will do with an additional $900,000 or of the unanimous vote in mid-October by the county salary commission to continue salary increases according to a 1997 formula which amounts to an estimated $2,000 salary increase for each elected official or of the $160,000 the City and County must pay for the Nov. 7 special election. Both City and County apparently believe their odds of success are greater in a low voter turnout Nov.’17 election than one in April ’18 when the Columbia Public Schools will be requesting additional bonding authority and the City of Columbia will be requesting a tax increase for additional police. If the Use Tax is passed in November it will become effective April 1, 2018.

 

The State of Missouri already has a Use Tax in place collecting its 4.225% on out-of-state sales. Callaway County also has a Use Tax in place and collects about $30,000 a month in general revenue.

UPCOMING SPEAKERS

Nov 6- Jerry Keiling, MU Adult Day Care Program

Nov 13 – Nikki Burton, Great Circle

Nov 20 – Professor Jeanne Abbot – MU School of Journalism, Professional Standards and Cold of Ethics.

Nov 27 – TBD

Dec 4 – TBD

Dec 11 – Holiday Lunch at the Club House

Dec 18 – TBD

Dec 25 – No Meeting

Jan 1  – No Meeting

 

 

 

Adjourn with the Creed: 1:00

Optimistically Yours,

Sid Sullivan

Secretary