You may have already heard this, but City Administrator Carl Francis was proud Monday night to finally be able to announce that Webb City will be Flat Creek Restaurant’s third location.

Francis has been enticing Flat Creek for more than a year to locate next to the new Sleep Inn at the roundabout. His selling points include a good deal on land owned by the city, easy access to and visibility from what will be I-49 (MO-249 now), being next to a hotel and in a community hungry to have an upscale sit-down restaurant.

He told the council that Flat Creek officials will be here Monday, Nov. 29, for a pre-construction meeting with city staff.

Flat Creek, the James River tributary, enters Table Rock Lake near Cape Fair (west of Branson). That’s the restaurant’s original location, which is adjacent Cape Fair Lodge. The second Flat Creek Restaurant is in Republic.

POLICE OFFICER SHORTAGE

Webb City has recently been approved for a $300,000 matching COPS grant to help fund three additional police officer positions for three years.

Police Chief Don Melton applied for the grant in February 2020 when the department of 23 was close to being fully staffed.

Now, though, the department has five unfilled police officer positions. The funding is available in the city budget for those five positions if there were applicants meeting department standards.

Francis said the losses aren’t a matter of pay and benefits being below average. He added that the police and fire departments have traditionally had very low turnover.

He said a couple of the officers who have left have taken other jobs – in and outside of law enforcement. And a couple have quit because of medical issues.

Francis said he believes it’s just cyclical and not just a problem here. Last he heard, Joplin Police Department has vacancies, too.

At some point, he said he’s sure the department will be back at full strength and need to take advantage of the grant to hire those extra three officers.

In other action, the council:

• Authorized city staff to complete the application for the city to receive its share of the distribution money from the proposed legal settlement of a nationwide lawsuit against major opioid manufacturers.

• Accepted first reading of a two-year special use permit for Vanessa Stone to rent out her house at 223 W. First St. as a boarding house with three one-bedroom apartments. The Planning and Zoning Commission held a public hearing on the request and advanced it to the city council on Nov. 15.

• Authorized the fire department to purchase new reporting software from ESO for a first-year cost of $13,640. The annual renewal cost will be $8,895.