HERMANN — Gasconade County officials are looking at yet another revenue source that has gone largely overlooked to the detriment of the county's operating budget.

“There are a lot of businesses in Gasconade County that don’t participate, as far as having a merchant’s license or a business license,” Presiding Commissioner Larry Miskel, R-Hermann, said at Thursday morning’s County Commission session at Owensville City Hall. To try to remedy that problem, Miskel said he will talk with the municipalities in the county about a way to collect the $25 for a license to do business in the county.

He said he will ask the municipalities, when processing an application for a city business license, to check the county’s data base to see if the business holds a county business license.

Miskel said businesses should not be operating if they don’t have a license from the county. “It is a requirement, but state statute,” the presiding commissioner said.

In other matters at Thursday’s session, Miskel noted that the Gasconade County Broadband Committee will be comprised primarily of high-speed Internet providers. The panel, operating under the umbrella of the Meramec Regional Planning Commission (MRPC), was formed to consider way to increase access to the Internet in the more-remote portions of the county. Miskel has been participating in the committee sessions since the panel was formed in recent months.

Because of the high cost of expanding Internet access through the installation of high-speed broadband in Central Missouri, there has been little action by the committee.

“Not a lot has transpired since the last meeting,” Miskel said. “We have to figure out how to get some of the federal and state money to the providers. If the providers can’t get a return on investment, they won’t participate,” he added.

County officials learned last week that the newly adopted use tax indeed will become effective Oct. 1. There had been some concern a week earlier about the language used in a notice from state government regarding advertising about the 1.325-cent use tax approved Aug. 3 in a woefully low turnout of voters. That amount includes .325 cents that will go to the Gasconade County Enhanced 911 program. The entire amount of the tax revenue each month will be sent to county government.

“Their money is going to come to us and we’ve got to find some way to disperse it to them,” said County Clerk Lesa Lietzow, noting that the revenue will be contained in a single amount.

“We’ll have to calculate that amount” to be forwarded to E-911, said County Treasurer Mike Feagan.

The Commission has rejected a request to lease a county-owned structure adjacent to the courthouse for a museum dedicated to the Muskrat keelboat and other Missouri River-related items. Administrators were approached a week ago by members of the Muskrat Society asking if the group could lease the Doerr Building as a site for a museum.

The original Muskrat keelboat plied the Missouri River in the era of the Lewis & Clark Expedition and during the time the West was being opened to settlement.

Miskel said he told Robert Koerber of the Muskrat Society that the Commission was “extremely reluctant”  to lease that structure because if a courthouse annex is built — which was an initial suggestion from MRPC regarding the use of some of the ARPA money — the Doerr Building likely would be demolished to make room for an annex. 

A week earlier, the presiding commissioner expressed concern about leasing county property to an outside organization while some county offices were being operated in non-county-owned buildings.