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Mitchell County Commisioners Meeting Monday March 13

 

Mitchell County Commissioners

 

Monday, March 13, 2017

 

By Terry Bailey

 


 

The Mitchell County Commissioners conducted their weekly meeting at the Courthouse Monday morning, March 13th. All Commissioners were present as was the County Clerk.

 

Mitchell County Sheriff Tony Perez was first on the agenda. Perez said he had been approached by Geri McCune, Director of the Jail, and asked that a raise in pay be considered for jail employee Matt McMillian. McCune said he had been performing very well and his pay was below others doing the same work. The Commissioners approved a raise from $12.39 per hour to $12.55 per hour. This would be an increase of $540 in his yearly pay.

 

Perez gave the Commissioners a new contract from Saline County for the housing of their prisoners. Perez said Saline County was very comfortable in raising the per day reimbursement for housing prisoners from $30 per day to $35 per day. Perez said his research indicates that most counties have a reimbursement rate of $35 per day.

 

Kelly Hawk, EMS Director, was present to give his monthly report to the Commissioners. The EMS conducted 34 runs in the month of February, all in Mitchell County. Thursday was the busiest day with 8 of the 34 runs being conducted on that day. The average time from when a call is received to when a unit is on the road is 1.21minutes. The average time from receiving a call until arriving on scene is 5.77 minutes. The average time of when the unit arrives at the scene until leaving the scene was 23.59 minutes. The most common average age of the patients was in the 70-79 age classification.

 

Hawk said an AED defibrillator unit has been ordered for the Hunter fire truck. Funds are being collected for second unit to be kept at the Lutheran Church. Hawk has scheduled training for CPR and the defibrillation unit in Hunter on April 6th.

 

Dale Housch, soon to be Superintendent of Public Works, gave the Commissioners an update on his department. His mechanics are tearing down the motor for the loader that quit operating. He said a valve dropped down into the piston and cylinder area. The full extent of the damage will not be known until they have the motor torn apart to examine the damage.

 

Housch said they had a signed contract with Doug Schmidt for the quarrying of gravel on his place. He is optimistic that it is of high quality and can be put to use right away. He said there was 5 to 6 feet of overburden that needed removed to get to the gravel.

 

He said a bridge is in need of repair on K Road, 5 ½ miles west of K-14. He is unsure of when to start. They want to make sure that if they start it is important to have it finished by the time of harvest. They would not want to have a detour for all the grain truck and farm equipment during harvest. They will monitor the situation and if they cannot finish by harvest, they wait until after harvest to start.

 

Housch requested a ten minute executive session to discuss non-elected personnel. No action was taken as a result of the closed session.

 

Cortney Murrow, Mitchell County Health Nurse, was present with her yearly grant applications for her department. All that was needed was the Commissioners signature. The total amount of the grants was between $87,000 and $90,000. Murrow said most likely they will not receive the total amount requested in the grants.

 

A Neighborhood Revitalization Grant was approved for Charles and Kristin Lawrence for a 24’ x 24’ addition to their house as well as residing of the entire house. The amount of the grant was $54,000. It was unanimously approved.

 

David Lake and Maura (sounds like Laura) Chambers representing the K-CAMP insurers appeared before the Commissioners for their yearly review. K-CAMP insures 66 of the Kansas counties. They have accumulated 22 million dollars in assets. Because of the strength of their assets, KCAMP is issuing dividend checks to participating counties. Luke and Chambers had a dividend check to present to the Commissioners in the amount of $12, 602. The Commissioners were very pleased to accept the check.

 

The final guest was Nolan Bristow representing ThyssenKrupp, a passenger elevator company from Wichita. Bristow was present to explain to the Commissioners his company’s bid for the repair and modernization of the Courthouse elevator. A great deal of the control system of the elevator is out of date and it is not possible to get parts should the system fail. The total amount of the bid was $67,893. Brian Streit said on a usual day, the elevator is used about 150 times and during tax season and on court days the elevator is in operation constantly throughout the day.

 

Bristow said, “All the work that would be done is internal and relates to the operating system or the brains of the system. Outside of new lights and control buttons, nobody will see the work that will be done.”

 

He went on to say, “Nobody pays attention to elevators until they stop operating. Then, everything is in a crisis. It is always best to fix elevators before they quit functioning.”

 

Bristow will return next week and the Commissioners will make a final decision on the repair bid.

 

Having addressed all the items on the agenda, the meeting was adjourned.

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