A water leak has sprung in the basement of the courthouse. It was leaking about 3000 gallons per month; the county usually uses 6000 gallons of water. The county will contact a certified boiler mechanic to come and make repairs.
Emergency Management Director Pat Kobbe reported that the county will be doing an ice storm exercise on October 22nd this year at the Courthouse. The county will prepare for the exercise in August.
Tentative plans are for the county to start hauling gravel by April 15th, depending on how the weather cooperates. Much of the discussion that day focused on how better to grade roads. The tax rock was not showing up in some places, especially in the eastern part of the county. There have been complaints from landowners about not getting gravel even when there was gravel delivered to the roads.
Commissioner Reggie Nonneman said that the county needed to start grading ditches and push rock back onto the road so that water would run off. Currently, he said that there were places in the county where there were no ditches in the road and the water was not draining properly, meaning that the problem was getting worse every year. He said he feared that the alternative was that the county would have a hard time keeping roads in minimal shape with 60, 80, or even 100 tons per mile. Currently, county tax rock is put on at a rate of 60 tons per mile.
One potential difficulty was increased labor, but one possible solution was having workers work 60 hours one week and then take time off when it rains. Currently, crews are waiting for weather to clear so they can start on bridge work for this year. Road 163 was reported as having a recurring problem; there is an underground spring underneath the road. Both the county and Tank Parman have put rock on the bad section of that road to no avail. Nonneman said that he wanted the county to fix it so that they wouldn't have to keep putting extra rock on that road every year.
Discussion also focused on gravel needs. Currently, the Bethany quarry offers 1 1/2" clear rock while Norris offers 1" rock.
Commissioner Davidson said that by his observation, the roads that were really good were the ones that were properly kept clear of brush as well as the soil type. "If we don't make changes, then we're never going to get a road," said Nonneman. He said that if the roads were not ditched properly, then grader crews can't push snow off the roads without pushing gravel off as well. He said that the alternative was to keep loading rock onto roads at a prohibitive cost. He said that his concern was what the roads would look like in five years.
Commissioner Ted Findley said that the current 60 tons per mile of tax rock was a bandaid for the roads. Road and Bridge Foreman Jim Fletchall estimated that an average road needed 80 tons per mile. Under the current financial situation, the county would need landowners to put 20 tons per mile of CART rock for such roads. But the question was how much the county could afford to do with the budget this year. Clerk Roberta Owens said that the budget looked fine this year, but that there were two grader payments that the county owes and that money would then get tighter. Nonneman said that he didn't want the county to get itself into a mess where the roads would be bad regardless of how much rock they put on. Road & Bridge Foreman Jim Fletchall said that he had heard several reports of roads that were in much better shape since the gravel tax levy passed. But, as Nonneman noted, there were others where the grader ditch was full.
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