By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Northwest Missouri voters will choose between two candidates with very different viewpoints running for the 1st Missouri House District.
Farmer and small business owner Jeff Farnan of Stanberry lists three top priorities, including agriculture and small business.
“And then the final one is education,” Farnan tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “I’ve been on the Jefferson School Board for the last 15 years, currently serve as president there. I see some of the troubles that our schools are facing and I would like to be part of maybe finding some solutions to help our schools.”
Democrat Jess Piper, a former teacher from Maryville who also runs a small farm operation, lists the priorities of education, transportation, and affordable child care.
“A lot of women, and single men as well, aren’t able to work fulltime jobs or they’re having to work around child care issues,” Piper tells Birr during her time on the Hotline. “In my area, it’s a child care desert.”
Piper and Farnan are running for the seat being vacated by state Rep. Allen Andrews of Grant City due to term limits.
Piper says she would have three priorities if she wins election.
“Education, affordable and accessible child care, and taking care of our roads,” Piper says.
Piper says the Republican-led legislature was short-sighted in approving tax cuts during the recent special legislative session.
“I think that that’s going to end up harming schools eventually within the next few years,” Piper says. “It’ll just be more defunding,”
Farnan emerged from a crowded Republican field to win the primary.
“The one thing I’d like for everybody to know is that I am willing to sit down and talk with anybody,” Farnan says. “I really don’t care if they’re Republican, Democrat, independent. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m really interested in just hearing what you have to say. We may not agree, but I will respect your opinion.”
In addition to farming, Farnan owns the Spec Shoppe in Maryville and Stanberry. He says Missouri needs to cut red tape for business.
“When we sell glasses to someone that has Missouri Medicaid, we have to go through almost five websites, depending on what plan they have, before we can actually get paid on the claim,” according to Farnan.
While Farnan presents himself as a conservative, Piper proclaims herself a progressive. Piper says the state has no right to interfere with a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion.
“I’ll be frank with you; I’ve had two miscarriages and I know exactly what they look like and those were not babies,” Piper says. “But, in the state of Missouri, they could have killed me, when I had other children to take care of, because of tissue that I passed.”
Redistricting didn’t change the Missouri 1st House District much. Still, it is one of the largest state representative districts in the state, covering Atchison, Hold, Nodaway, and Gentry Counties.