Here at the Cassville Democrat, I cover at least two, if not three, elections per year — none produced results as interesting as Barry County’s April 8 General Municipal Election.
From tax questions to city and school races, parsing through the changes for my follow-up story this week took much, much longer than usual.
In our coverage area (Barry County from Purdy south to the state line), challengers for city and school positions clearly won the day, with six incumbents ousted from their seats in seven contested races.
The city of Wheaton’s leadership now has a majority of newbies. David Shockely, mayor since 2014 who served 15 years as an alderman prior to his mayoral tenure, was defeated, and council members Casey Prewitt and Jon Brattin also got the ax from voters. Given the percentage margins of 53-47, 54-46 and 55-45, it seems the 72 people who cast ballots, for whatever reason, were itching for a change.
I hope incoming Mayor Luke Stucky and new council members Ryan Henderson and David Harris find success in their first terms.
Another major mayoral change occurred in Washburn, where Kristy Brinkman defeated 16-year mayor John Tiedeman by an 80-20 margin among 59 total votes. The challenger’s support in this race was overwhelming, and word is some immediate actions will be taken when Brinkman is sworn in this month.
In school board races, incumbent Amber Paulsen found herself outside the top two vote-getters for the Southwest School Board, upended by a pair of challengers in John Mulkey and Scotty Flippo.
The only contested race where incumbents held completely was in Purdy, where Ken Terry and Mason Roller retained their seats against one challenger.
It’s common for a city or a school board each April to see a change, but to see so many — especially the three positions out of Wheaton’s total five — is pretty much unheard of.
Maybe those results surprised me more because I heard little talk about those races. Instead, everything people asked me about related to tax issues.
The biggest stir surrounded the city of Cassville’s question to impose a 3% tax on adult-use (recreational) marijuana, a $150,000 revenue stream recently made available due to The Dispensary’s annexation into city limits.
The hullabaloo was that the tax was already being imposed by the county, and per a November 2024 Missouri Court of Appeals ruling, only one local government entity may impose the tax. Therefore, the city tax, which passed by a 73-27 margin, supersedes the county’s, and those funds previously being funneled to the Barry County Sheriff’s Office will transition to the city’s General Fund in October.
The main question about the measure was, “How can the city vote to take something away from the county?”
It’s a fair question, but let’s go back a bit. For one, the city should have handled this years ago. The Cassville Dispensary wanted to annex when it opened in 2020. Disagreements with former city leaders, however, kept the property in the county.
I very nearly wrote a story and column about the issue, but pulled both at the last minute because the former Dispensary owner did not want to ruffle any feathers.
By my estimation, the city missed out on at least half a million dollars in the last five years, and the only reason the county was able to collect the tax was because the city did not annex. Even if the city chose not to annex at that time, it could have proposed the tax and had it on the books if annexation ever did occur, or another state-licensed facility (The Cassville Dispensary is the only state-licensed marijuana business in the county) decided to open within city limits.
Alas, it did not. And, to answer the most-asked question directly: currently, that’s how the law is written.
The lawsuits related to taxing adult-use marijuana are still progressing through the court system. The Missouri Supreme Court will no doubt have the final say.
Unless it overturns the appellate court’s decision, the Sheriff’s Office budget will be $150,000 lighter each year. It is also worth noting that accounts for just 3.2% of the Office’s $4.6 million budget. The $150K is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but it isn’t making or breaking county law enforcement.
At the city level, it could have a greater impact — maybe enough for the new mayor and city administrator to allocate funding for some modicum of animal control within the Cassville Police Department (hint, hint).
The other major issue voters approved was the county’s SB190 ballot issue (senior property tax freeze), which received a whopping 91% approval among 2,550 votes. I previously reported county officials were unanimously against the measure, citing the expense to facilitate the tax credit in relation to most recipients of it saving merely tens of dollars a year.
While I am all for seniors having more money in their pockets, doing so at the expense of fire and road districts may very well come with a price. I plan to follow the implementation of the tax credit and its effects — both positive and negative — in coming years.
Overall, this election was full of winners, but the biggest winner of all in my opinion is Democracy. Whether you like the results or not, it is very clear the people spoke on April 8. Elections like this one is what our great nation is about.
To all those who voted, well done. To all those who won, congratulations. And, to those who did not — run again; that’s why we have elections.
Kyle Troutman has served as editor of the Cassville Democrat since 2014 and owner/publisher since 2023. He was named William E. James/Missouri Outstanding Young Journalist for daily newspapers in 2017, and he is a two-time ISWNE Golden Dozen award winner. He may be reached at 417-847 2610 or ktroutman@cassville- democrat.com.
