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Things are running pretty smoothly the first Monday of the month of May during the city council meeting in Orrick, Missouri.

Roger Thomas is the mayor of the town, population 799, just northeast of Kansas City.

Topping the agenda is addressing the water collecting behind Nathan Claypole's house. Next, there's a unanimous vote to spring for a new computer for Dale Bosely with public works.

But all the votes don't go so smoothly. There are some fireworks when Police Chief Ray Dinwiddie asked the council to consider keeping the 11 p.m. summer curfew. If the curfew is extended until midnight, as proposed, the chief says problems of property damage and trash will get worse.

"Right now they can (stay out until) 11," he says," but if you change it to midnight, you're inviting everybody in three counties to come loiter in your town 'til midnight."

Dinwiddie has only been in Orrick for eight years. Before that, he worked as a cop in Independence, Missouri. Some might think he doesn't really know the kids of Orrick, but to Mayor Roger Thomas, these kids are everything. They're the future of the town.

Thomas wants to give them a reason to like Orrick. To stay here. He even wants to provide pizza to keep them here on weekends.

"The kids said they wanted to sit and talk on the stage, to throw the ball around," he says. " The pizza thing, that's just invitin' them up there to meet you guys."

Chief Dinwiddie responds: "They know us."
RELATED: KCUR 89.3 recently visited Orrick, Missouri for an hour-long special on Central Standard.
"You might think you know them but you don't know all those kids up there," says the Mayor.

The chief: "Go ask 'em, they know my name."

Councilman Todd Wyse speaks up to say maybe the mayor is on to something.

"Cause I'm gonna be honest. My son, he's 21 but he was 16, they would leave town because there was nothing for them to do, nowhere for them to congregate," he says.

He proposes a short term compromise to the mayor's idea.

"Can we try to move forward and let him do what he wants to do and see if works? And then if it doesn't, then we deal with what we deal with," Wyse suggests.

The proposal passes.

The government in Orrick operates close to the people. The issues may not be all that different than they are in a bigger place, but as Mayor Thomas tells me at one point, it's more about relationships.

For example, he says the budget of Orrick didn't come up in his recent election campaign, and he confessed he wasn't sure what the overall budget for the city was, even though he knows roughly how much is going to different departments.

"Running for mayor in a small town is a popularity contest," he says. "It's who likes who. I'll get to the budget; it's just that there isn't a lot of money to look at in a little bitty town.

And the money there is - it's really up to the city council to decide where it goes. Once they decide, it's city clerk Deanna Hufford's job to parcel it out.

The day I go see Deanna Hufford, she's alone at her desk at City Hall, behind a small sliding glass window.

She moved here with her husband, a native of Orrick. She started working for the city three years ago after her job with an air conditioner supply company was outsourced to Panama.

Her job entails responsibilities of a chief financial officer, city manager, and communications director rolled into one. She says it's been a steep learning curve stepping into the management of a city with a $280,000 budget.

"There's not a lot of money in the small municipalities,"she says. "Of course we don't have expenses that bigger places have ... but every dime that comes in is going back out just to keep the city running."

Today Deanna Huffford is paying bills.

In front of her are a half dozen or so plastic check books...just like the one I have in my wallet. She's got a stack of hand written invoices. She writes out the checks, staples them to the invoice and seals them into envelopes. She's got 12 accounts to balance.

Just as Hufford tells me it's a busy day at city hall because it's the last day to pay the water bill before water is turned off, her cell phone rings.

"City Hall," she says. Pause. "Oh no, you'll be fine. I'm here until 5:30," she says to the customer on the other end of the phone.

A resident is calling to make sure Hufford will be there when she brings her water bill payment to City Hall.

"We send out the bills first of the month, then they have usually about two and a half weeks," Hufford explains. "If a bill doesn't get paid by that date then I run late tickets and shut off notices."

I'm thinking, hmmm, what if this person doesn't pay her bill, and Hufford sees her the next day at Fubbler's Cove, the one diner in town? What's that going to be like?

"I may know this person really well," Hufford says. "But you have to set boundaries. And once you set that boundary they know you can't treat them differently than you do anyone else."

Being in Orrick reminds me that governing on any scale is messy, something it seems we'd all do well to remember in this time of extraordinarily messy politics.

But the end of the day, it's about the people.

The city did have to disconnect two households from their water supply last month.

And last Friday, there was pizza, and a DJ, so kids would hang out and talk on Front Street -until midnight.
Laura Ziegler is a community engagement reporter and producer. Reach her on twitter @laurazig or email lauraz@kcur.org

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Governing Happens Close To The People In The Small Missouri Town Of Orrick

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Things are running pretty smoothly the first Monday of the month of May during the city council meeting in Orrick, Missouri. Roger Thomas is the mayor of the town, population 799, just northeast of Kansas City. Topping the agenda is addressing the water collecting behind Nathan Claypole's house.

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Between natural disasters, the transformation of farming, and the widespread decline of rural America, the small town of Orrick, Missouri has dwindled to a few square blocks.

KCUR's Central Standard has been visiting the edges of our listening area, to learn about communities we don't hear from quite as often. Join us for this trip 30 miles northeast of Kansas City to Orrick, where the town, lead by a new mayor, is all about re-invention.
Guests:

Roger Thomas, mayor of Orrick, Missouri

Cindy and Scotty Cazell​, regular customers at Fubbler's Cove

Kristi and Dave Nail, residents of Orrick, Missouri

Tim Heady, owner, Fubbler's Cove

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Between natural disasters, the transformation of farming, and the widespread decline of rural America, the small town of Orrick, Missouri has dwindled to a few square blocks. KCUR's Central Standard has been visiting the edges of our listening area, to learn about communities we don't hear from quite as often.

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The tornado formed southwest of Ottawa- near Williamsburg, Kansas around 6 pm and by 7:30 pm- the killer vortex had crossed the state line into Missouri.
Forty-four deaths are officially attributed to the entire tornado's 71-mile path- 39 of those dying in Missouri.

Most of the unincorporated town of Martin City and nearly half of the homes in the fairly-new Ruskin Heights subdivision were either heavily damaged or destroyed. September -

1961 - FLOOD - FLASH FLOOD -Flash flooding caused by a dying Gulf hurricane caused record floods on the Big and Little Blue rivers and their tributaries.

The heavy damage done to one of General Motors' first Chevrolet assembly plant in the Leeds district of KC-MO. helps lead to the plant's closing by the mid 1970's.

The flood brings about planning and in the 1980's construction of 2 new flood-control reservoirs - Lake Longview and Lake Blue Springs.

This greatly reduces flooding on the Little Blue River - opening up the floodplain to development in southeastern Independence and northern Lee's Summit, MO..

Yet land in neighboring Johnson County KS. is too expensive for flood-control projects for the Big Blue River - and continued flooding of the Blue Valley over then next 30 years would help lead to it's industrial-base demise.

1964 - - -It's the first tornado outbreak in the Kansas City MetroRegion for many years.

Tornadoes cause damage southwest and west of Lawrence and in Leavenworth County and the city itself.

Other supercells produced tornadoes in Cass County MO. and around Pleasant Hill where one fatality occurred.

There were dozens of injuries all told in the affected areas with damage in the millions of dollars.

1965 - - FLASH FLOOD - Smithville, MO. is ravaged by a flash flood on the Little Platte River.

Tracy - on the Platte River a few miles downstream from the confluence of the Little Platte - also suffers major flooding as the Platte River reaches a record crest that stands early into the 21st Century.

1966 - April 19 - - A tornado forms over what was then farmland east of I-35 & 119th Street in Johnson County KS. and moves northeastward.

Within 10 minutes - the F-3-rated tornado strikes a new housing subdivision and barely misses an elementary school at West 96th St. & Knox in Overland Park.

There are several minor injuries and the tornado-bearing storm moves over highly-populated areas of southern K.C. & Independence, MO..

The official tornado warning wasn't issued by the National Weather Service or the local broadcast media until after the tornado had touched down - traveled it's roughly 4 to 5-mile-long path and lifted.

1966 - - - A weak "white" tornado touches down near 15th St. & Minnesota in KC-KS.

It's only on the ground a few minutes but wreaks F-1 destruction to buildings & car dealerships along Minnesota.

A few people suffered minor injuries.

- - - A day of tornado-producing thunderstorm supercells across eastern and northeastern Kansas.

One produced an F-3 tornado that struck Manhattan, KS. around 6 pm.

Another cell spawns the first U.S. tornado to produce 100-million-dollars worth or more of damage - the devastating F-5 tornado that struck Topeka, KS..

The wedge-shaped, multi-vortex tornado roared over legendary Burnett's Mound just after 7 pm and diagonally sliced through the entire city.

Sixteen people were killed and hundreds were injured that Wednesday evening.

Around 8:30 pm- a tornado then moved across Leavenworth County and kills one in the tiny town of Jarbalo.

A rare mid-winter thunderstorm formed on the Kansas side just after noon and became severe over southern KC-MO..

Just after 1 pm- a tornado forms southwest of Buckner. MO. - gains F-3 strength after it crosses the Missouri River - and heads for the southwestern Ray County community of Orrick.

It strikes the in-session high school on the western side of Orrick- where 2 are killed and more than a dozen are injured inside the shattered school building.

1969 - - - A tornado - rated as strong as F-3 - hits parts of southern Platte County and western Clay county MO..

Damage is reported in Riverside and northwestern Gladstone with at least 6 persons injured along the tornado's path.

- - ICE STORM - A massive ice & snowstorm -beginning around noon on the 3rd - hits Metro K.C..

Nearly a foot of snow falls on the several inches of freezing rain and sleet.

Tens of thousands of residents who lose power suffer sub-zero temperatures following the storm.

The tree & power line damage I see far and away exceeds that witnessed in the 1984 and 2002 storms.

1974 - - FLASH FLOOD - Failure of a private lake dam in the upper watershed of Line Creek in KC-MO leads to flash flooding downstream.

Floodwater inundates a mobile home park in Northmoor mobile home park where emergency rescue of residents had to be conducted.

- - TORNADO - A mini- tornado outbreak affected every part of Metro Kansas City except the northwestern areas.

There were at least 4 separate tornadoes - 3 of them F-3 or stronger.

There are 3 deaths - 2 in Pleasant Hill where an in-session high and elementary school were hit - and one near Odessa, MO..

More than 2 dozen injuries were reported.

It was the first time I got on the tail of a twister - following it into Pleasant Hill.

1977 - September 12 & 13 - FLASH FLOOD - Kansas City's worst flash flooding in terms of lives lost and damage.
Twenty-five people died.
Up to 16-inches of rain over a 2-day period on the heavily-urbanized Brush Creek watershed culminated on the night of the 13th.

Devastating flooding occurred along Brush Creek from the Kansas suburbs just west of the state line eastward to the Big Blue river.

Several of the Blue's smaller tributaries like Independence's Rock Creek suffered major flooding as well.

Four people in their cars were washed away into Round Grove creek, which was more than 10-feet out of it's banks along Raytown Road as they exited the Truman Sports Complex after the Royals baseball game was cancelled.

Most of the other victims drowned along Brush Creek between State Line and The Paseo.

The scenes I witnessed that night haunt me to this day as much as the Jan. 28, 1978 Coates House fire where 20 died.

1980 - July-August - - Kansas City's deadliest weather disaster by far: A prolonged heat wave .

More than 200 people are reported to have died from various heat-related causes from late June through August.

One July day was tinder-dry with Santa-Ana-like conditions.

Grass, brush and other fires citywide had the Fire Department down to a handful of companies in service when a grass fire spread to an apartment complex near 76th St. & Blue Ridge.

Four other fire departments - including Johnson County KS. - had to help what few KC-MO companies that made it there.

No one was injured - but several buildings were damaged.

1982 - - FLASH FLOOD - Flash flooding strikes southern & southeastern KC-MO..

One fatality was reported.

The not-yet completed Longview Lake saved the Little Blue Valley from major flooding.

1984 - - ICE STORM - A damaging ice storm affects a wide area of eastern Kansas and western Missouri - including the Kansas City Metro.

1984 - - FLASH FLOOD - Severe flash flooding affects Indian Creek from Olathe and Overland Park to it's mouth with the Blue River in KC-MO..

Hundreds of residents along Indian Creek from Olathe, Overland Park into KC, MO.. flee the record flood crests.

No one was reported hurt - but 2 young women were stranded on a traffic island by floodwaters at 103rd St. & Conser in OP-KS for more than 2 hours.

The author's 6-inch rain gauge in Olathe overflowed before it could be emptied and yet another 2.5 inches fell into it by 2 am on the 9th.

Based on this information plus flooding I was both witnessing and listening to in the Indian Creek headwaters and downstream, KCTV-CBS-5's meteorologist Mike Thompson was able to warn those downstream along Indian Creek of the danger via bulletins.

1986 - - FLASH FLOOD - Flash flooding along Rock Creek in Mission, KS. & Brush Creek sends water again lapping at the curbs in the Plaza.

The Brush Creek flood control project - undertaken in the 1990's - has greatly reduced the flood threat for the Plaza.

However middle portions of the project not yet completed would have fatal effects on Brush Creek 12 years later.

1990 - - - More than 8-inches of rain in 4 hours sends the Big Blue river into a massive flood and- at many points - flood crests exceeded records set during the 1961 flood.

By evening drive - there were only 2 routes open east or west across the Blue unless you lived south of Bannister Road: Independence Avenue ("Armco") viaduct and Interstate-70.

The Blue was channelized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the 1990's and greatly reduced flooding as would be illustrated 8 years later during the 1998 flash floods.

1993 - July 9 - FLASH FLOOD - After a slow-moving thunderstorm complex threatens Lawrence, KS with tornadoes then floods it - the complex moves into northern Johnson County KS..

Flash flooding is by far the worst on Turkey Creek - it's entire floodplain is inundated from Overland Park & Merriam into KC-KS then into Southwest Boulevard and the West Bottoms in KC-MO..

Dozens of residents have to be swiftly evacuated by police & fire departments on both sides of the state line. Several people have to be rescued from rooftops of flooded buildings along Southwest Blvd..

One man is later found dead.

Kemper Arena and the American Royal complex is also flooded and damage figures reach the tens of millions of dollars.

WDAF-NBC4's Mike Thompson stays on the air all night- relaying high water reports I was receiving by radio.

Later that day - the now-swollen Kansas River caused two boats to be torn from their moorings.

One - the sand dredge The General Mitchell - struck 4 bridges and was severely damaged before 2 tugboats could push the Mitchell onto the Missouri River levee east of the Paseo bridge.

Along with post-8 am flooding and the General Mitchell- the author also videotaped the Missouri rising in Parkville, a make-shift levee and a "conga-line" of people heaving sandbags onto an overtopping Line Creek levee in Riverside, MO..

1993 - - - Record Missouri River flood crest at Kansas City.

Squeezed into a narrow channel by levees- the Missouri River reaches an all-time highest flood crest of 48.87-feet near Downtown (old Municipal) Airport.

That surpassed the previous record 48-foot crest estimated during the legendary 1844 flood.

Downtown Parkville and most of Riverside are under water.

Passage across the Missouri is not possible between Kansas City and St. Joseph.

The water supplier for more than a million residents - the Kansas City Water Works - becomes severely threatened by the flood-swollen Missouri river.

Fortunately, there were no injuries.

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Today in History: The Orrick MO Tornado of 1967

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The tornado formed southwest of Ottawa- near Williamsburg, Kansas around 6 pm and by 7:30 pm- the killer vortex had crossed the state line into Missouri. Forty-four deaths are officially attributed to the entire tornado's 71-mile path- 39 of those dying in Missouri.