As legislators are gearing up for a new season in Jefferson City, so too are the citizens of Northwest Missouri. Over the past few months, the Great Northwest Day at the Capitol Steering Committee gathered and prioritized legislative issues for the region’s annual visit to the state capitol city on January 31-February 1, 2012.
At this event, approximately 350 people from the 18-county region will visit Jefferson City to make their regional voice heard in a single, cohesive message. Great Northwest Day’s legislative platform for the upcoming event includes the following priorities:
· Transportation and Infrastructure Funding: Maintain adequate funding to service and maintain our highways and lettered routes as well as support efforts to reconstruct levees in the areas affected by recent Missouri River flooding.
Consider tools to enhance the efforts of the Missouri Department of Transportation and continue support of county transportation efforts such as Bridge Replacement Off-System (BRO) and County Aid Road Trust (CART) programs. Additionally, support resolutions to encourage the Federal Government, United States Corps of Engineers to dedicate additional resources to rebuilding flood protection levees along the Missouri River.
· Statewide 9-1-1 Wireless Emergency Services: Design a complete, detailed, and integrated plan that includes a user fee on wireless devices for upgrading statewide 9-1-1 emergency services.
· Unfunded or underfunded mandates on local entities: Local governments and educational institutions are a mainstay of our society. As such we encourage State leadership to resist efforts to erode fiscal support of local city and county governments as well as our institutions of primary and higher education.
The criteria for reviewing regional issues included legislative impact, overarching regional impact, non-partisan perspective and timeliness of concern. Local issues were collected by County Coordinators and then compiled by a volunteer committee. Those issues were then regionally defined and sent back to County Coordinators and the steering committee for additional input before being established as Legislative Priorities for the event. The three priorities will be monitored as Great Northwest Day nears, and the message to legislators will be further refined during that time.
Great Northwest Day at the Capitol is an annual legislative event that includes introduction on the Missouri House and Senate floors, time with legislators, an educational luncheon, and an evening event inviting all of Missouri’s legislators and department heads to meet with citizens from the Northwest Missouri region.
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