CHARLESTON -- A former Mississippi County resident is putting together a documentary comparing East Prairie and Charleston.
Tif Graham of the University of California in Los Angeles, who was raised in Mississippi County but has been away for 15 years, asked county commissioners about the county's two largest cities during the regular County Commission meeting Thursday.
Graham said she will also be working the information into her Ph.D. dissertation about community festivals. "These festivals have been fantastic," she said, referring to Charleston's Dogwood-Azalea Festival and East Prairie's Sweetcorn Festival.
While rivalries between the two cities are likely to continue into the foreseeable future, cooperation between the two on promoting tourism for the festivals has contributed to their success, according to commissioners.
Commissioner Martin Lucas explained the growth of housing in the East Prairie area is simply because land is available there. He described Charleston as "an island" with no room to grow because surrounding land owners are not subdividing and selling property.
"There's a little bit of stagnation with the old money," Lucas said.
He predicted as the next generation takes possession of the property, Charleston will begin to grow in the same way Sikeston did when Scott Matthews began selling and developing the Matthews family property there.
While housing is increasing in the East Prairie area, "we're really a bedroom community," said Presiding Commissioner Jim Blumenberg.
He noted many of those building and buying homes in the southern part of the county drive 30-50 miles to their job.
"A lot of people my age had to leave because there's no jobs," said Graham.
Commissioners said Gates Rubber, the Southeast Correctional Center and the school systems are the biggest employers in the county.
County officials said Charleston's school population is declining while East Prairie's is flat, although Lucas predicted East Prairie's will begin to grow as the new families in the area begin to have children reach school age.
Blumenberg said housing near East Prairie is probably desirable because homeowners can save $30,000 to $40,000 over what they would pay for comparable housing in Sikeston.
Commissioners also discussed with Graham sales tax revenue which is not increasing while the county's expenses are.
Boomland was the county's greatest source of sale tax revenue before it was damaged in a fire in October and is likely to be again once the reconstruction is finished. Sales taxes are down about 2.5 percent as compared with last year at this time as a result of Boomland's fire, commissioners said.
Blumenberg said small businesses in the county don't get the local support they should.
"A small business has a hard time making it," he said. "And it's hard to get established."
Blumenberg also said a great number of the people moving in to the county do so to begin receiving government assistance. He estimated about 55 percent of the county's residents receive assistance in some form or another. County Clerk Junior DeLay agreed it is at least over 50 percent as the county has been found eligible for grants based on its low to moderate income surveys.
"Realistically, there's a lot of needs in these places," Graham said of rural areas.
In other county business Thursday:
* Commissioners awarded the bid for two recycling trailers to the sole bidder, Geneva Product Manufacturing of Valley City, N.D., which bid $15,200 for the pair.
Funds for the purchase are from a Bootheel Solid Waste Management District grant.
The county's local match will consist of moving the trailers around and taking the collected materials to the Stoddard County Sheltered Workshop.
The trailers will be placed at Anniston and Bertrand, according to commissioners.
Commissioners also are working on getting a recycling educator from the Bootheel Solid Waste Management District to visit grade schools in the county.
* Construction on the new Four Mile Pond bridge on County Road 518 should begin in August, according to Dennis Cox of Smith and Company.
Responding to a question from Cox about how the bridge construction would affect the area's farmers, commissioners advised farmers shouldn't need to use the bridge until harvest time which is October for beans and September for rice.
"If he has good weather and everything, he can get that bridge done real quick," Cox said.
Cox said the bridge will be built using precast parts like the Ten Mile Pond bridge built by the same contractor, J.W. Githens Co. of Poplar Bluff.
He said it will be a three-span bridge with two sets of interior columns.
* Commissioners are still seeking county residents interested in serving on the county's Senate Bill 40 board.