The Mitchell County Commissioners met on Monday, and a changing of the guard took place as newly elected Sheriff Tony Perez was officially sworn in.
The ceremony brought a close to the law enforcement career of longtime Mitchell County Sheriff Doug Daugherty. Sheriff Perez and former Sheriff Daughtery will be our guests on Wednesday morning, live in-studio during our Community Matters segment. It will air at around 7:40 a.m. hour during Waterside Wake-up on KD-Country 94.
Other county officials sworn in during the ceremony include Commissioners Mike Cooper and Jim Marshall as well as County Attorney Mark Noah, Register of Deeds Tami Eck and County Clerk Chris Treaster.
Carol Torkelson of the North Central Regional Planning Commission appeared at the meeting. She had a deadline approaching for a handicap accessibility grant project. The original contractor, All Phase Construction, is unsure if they will able to complete the project by the end of January. If they cannot, the project will be awarded to Jim’s Remodeling and if they cannot complete the work, the contract will fall to Kansas Sand. The original low bid from All Phase Construction was $3,820. The bid from Jim’s Remodeling was $3,838. The bid from Kansas Sand was $5,250.
Director of Public Works Larry Emerson said the Annual NCK County Highway Department Meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 5 in Clay Center. Emerson said the county hopes to have back-fill work completed and gravel laid on the deck of the new bridge on 340 Road between A and B Roads and re-opened to through traffic by Wednesday. He said work on the Victor Road is complete and they will be moving on to 230 Road.
Carl Eyman appeared before the commissioners to present a KWORCC award recognizing Mitchell County as the co-first place winner for exceptional loss ratio for 2015. Consequently, the low loss ratio will reduce the county’s workman premiums by about 24 percent.
The commissioners voted unanimously to extend an offer to Jeff Roberg to be the county’s IT technician. The proposal would have Roberg working for the county two days per week to build an IT department for the county. No further details were released at the meeting.
The commissioners then moved to name Jim Marshall Commission Chairman for 2017, and Tom Claussen as Vice-Chairman.
Jim Marshall said they are looking to have masonry work done on courthouse and clock tower. The cost would be 86,614 all at once 96,100 to do a side at a time. The clock tower alone will constitute over $30,000 of the total cost.