Residents, Mayor in Junkyard Battle
By: CJ Cassidy

PASCOLA, Mo. - How would you like it if someone located a junkyard next to your house?
Some folks in the small village of Pascola, near Hayti say they've lived with the problem for years.
The folks who called Heartland News say they've been appealing to local and state leaders for years with no luck, but as Brenda Prince says it's no easy task when you're going up against the mayor.
"You've got rats, possums, snakes, all of the above.  It's very uncomfortable," Prince said.
Add to that, the junkyard belongs to the Pascola mayor's father and Prince says she feels helpless in her appeals to the village.
There was no junkyard when she moved here 30 years ago.
At the very least, Prince says she'd like a fence to keep rusty cars stacked on top of each other out of sight.
Mayor Dusty Hendershot works with his father in the salvage business.
When asked about Prince's concerns, he says: "They're mostly made out of boredom and idleness."
He says he's not violating any village laws pointing to a revised ordinance adopted in 2005 that he claims makes his operation legal.
"The way the ordinance reads, the new one, you do have to have a 10-foot high fence or less than five vehicles in your yard or a Missouri state operating permit which overrides every ordinance," Hendershot said.
The Hendershots have no problem showing us their business licenses.
Still, the Mayor's father, Tyronne, says he opened the junkyard without a permit back in the 1990's.
"The town couldn't give the permit.  It's not my fault the town couldn't come up with a permit," Tyronne said.
The ordinance in place at the time also called for a screen, the kind Prince hopes to see but Tyronne admits he never put one up.
"I was taking one step at a time," he said.
Brenda Prince says she's not giving up her fight.
"The people here are upstanding like anyone else, we deserve treatment and respect other big towns get," she said.
Missouri law regulates locating junkyards near interstates and other major highways, but that doesn't apply in the Pascola case.