I have to agree with The Joplin Globe that someone made a decision concerning the issue of building a sewer treatment plant for the city of Duenweg. The Globe’s editorial (Feb. 4) determined that it was pretty poorly informed and lacked the necessary information for making a well-informed decision. It was not the voters and leadership in Duenweg.

Since May 18, 2009, when we learned through the media what was occurring concerning the cost of sewer treatment in our community, I set out on an extensive discovery mission to determine all the information that could be discovered about sewer treatment facilities and costs associated with them. The most important thing I discovered is the sheer cost of formal data gathering in an “official” manner. I do a lot of homework in order that I might be a very diligent and responsible steward of this community’s money and business. A rate study has been prepared. If the voters didn’t feel that this was an appropriate next step, then spending in excess of $30,000 for “proper” plans for a “comprehensive assessment” that might be of no use to anyone, THAT would be a colossal waste of precious resources for any community, let alone a very poor community.

But I digress. Consider that in the last eight months in the city of Duenweg, I have conducted 18 town hall meetings, the board of aldermen and I have met in at least eight board meetings, and the planning board has met at least nine times. All of these meetings were either wholly dedicated to this concept or included discussions of it. There were some very good meetings with very good questions and concerns brought up by the public. Let me stop and count ... naught, naught plus naught equals … 35, unless my one semester of college algebra fails me … and I didn’t even have to take my shoes off!

That number was 35 and not one single meeting was attended or even inquired of by The Joplin Globe or anyone else wanting to be informed outside the city of Duenweg. These meetings and their times and dates were published in our monthly newsletter and posted at the location at which they were held. The decision to place the question in front of the voters, and their response thereof, was not based on “backlash effect.”

This is a community that over the last 12 years has definitively decided it necessary to take a more direct ownership of its future and enhancement. We have built roughly a million dollars worth of sewer infrastructure and $2,250,000 in water infrastructure, spent in excess of $100,000 on city park development for our kids, and more than $50,000 making it easier for our kids to make it to and from school safely.

We have more than quadrupled the physical size of our city and nearly tripled our total operating budget. We have built a new municipal building (debt free) with a new facility for our Police Department, and have invested heavily in professionalizing our police officers and equipment, just to name a few of the things that we have determined to do for ourselves. This does not smack of a community that is operating without a plan or a purpose. This sounds to me like a community determined to fix its own future and its quality and security of life.

For those who say 35 separate discussions were not enough then base an opinion on attending zero meetings on this topic, that my friends, is the definition of gossip and mean-spirited “editorializing.” The editorial action taken this week by the Globe without enough information, was not made by the voters and leadership of the city of Duenweg. It was made by the poorly informed “editorial” staff of The Joplin Globe.

Shame on you for gossiping and not even signing your “work.”

If you want to discuss uninformed action, ask the voters in Joplin if they know their leaders spent what must have been at least $300,000 (let me know what the actual cost was) on a sewer lift station nearly a mile outside of their city, in the middle of a cornfield, serving no one, for the sole purpose of preventing another community from growing into the area.

Russell Olds is the mayor of Duenweg.