Gov. Parson visits Northwest Missouri to speak on rural infrastructure

Aug. 11—Gov. Mike Parson traveled up to the Maryville, Missouri, area to speak on the state's new investment in improving rural roads Wednesday afternoon.

MODOT Director Patrick McKenna, Northwest District Engineer Marty Liles and Terry Ecker of the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission were all in attendance.

Liles said the region is looking forward to seeing improvements on the roads.

"It's not only for the communities around Maryville but also the agricultural regions," Liles said. "This is (a) heavy agricultural region in there, and so that's great to see this actually (come to) fruition and opened up here very quickly."

Parson said the work in the region is a tremendous opportunity for the state.

"Especially for Northwest Missouri up here in this part of the state where sometimes probably in the past has been neglected somewhat ... I think we're going to put a lot of emphasis on this part of the (state's) roads," Parson said. "Everybody wants good infrastructure, no matter where you live ... in the cities or if you live in rural Missouri."

McKenna said the gas tax increase that was approved in July included a vital investment of $100 million for low-volume road improvements.

"Northern Missouri, and particularly Northwest Missouri, is blessed with a lot of roads, but that means they're blessed with a lot of poor condition roads, too," McKenna said. "The allocation of resources that was devoted here ... nearly 53% of those resources are coming here in the plan. The commission just approved 14 construction contracts last month at the commission meeting, and that's going to total about $115 million."

Ecker said that he and the community reached out to thank Parson for moving forward to improve rural roads.

"I have received numerous phone calls from citizens, taxpayers and the like, what you would expect," Ecker said. "What I didn't expect was the phone calls I've gotten from MODOT employees, these people that are doing the work every day; they are so excited about money being spent in northern Missouri that they're going to have the resources to do the job that they need to do. And that is fantastic."

There will be a special legislative session next month in Jefferson City regarding permanent income tax relief. Parson is confident that the session will breed success.

He said they are looking to make tax cuts for agriculture and everyday citizens with a paycheck.

"Those are two things we need to do right now in the state of Missouri ... we can afford to do that, and we can get that money back in our pocket starting in January," Parson said. "I have all the confidence of the world we're going to get that done. We're in a good place. We kept businesses open in the state. Our businesses are doing well in this state."

As the primary elections took place last week, Kansas voted 'no' toward the Value Them Both Amendment. Parson said that what happened during the vote in Kansas has no effect on Missouri.

"We've been at this a long time trying to make sure we're a pro-life state, trying to make sure we took everything slowly to get to where we are," Parson said. "I think we're going to stay that way. There's been a lot of political hype out there, but the reality of it is we've been a pro-life state for a long time, and we're going to continue to be a pro-life state."

Riley Funk can be reached at riley.funk@newspressnow.com.