FORT SCOTT — With Chairman Gregg Motley absent following a dental procedure, Vice Chairman Joe Allen presided over his first Bourbon County Commission meeting Wednesday, a session that began at 5 p.m. instead of the usual 5:30, with a work session on public works to follow. Four executive sessions took up about 45 minutes of the 78-minute meeting.

“You guys will have to bear with me. This is the first time I’ve done this,” Allen said as he opened the meeting (video, 3:32). Allen was elected vice chairman Aug. 17, the night the commission removed Samuel Tran as chairman and elected Motley. Commissioners David Beerbower, Mika Milburn-Kee and Samuel Tran took part.

Milburn-Kee amended the agenda to add two executive sessions, one of them, she said, for “Ms. Harper,” and to remove an election-deadline update from Hoyt. She also asked that the minutes of the Aug. 31 and Sept. 2 meetings be pulled and brought back Monday “pending some changes” (video, 5:34). The Aug. 24 minutes were approved. There were no accounts payable to approve; Allen said the item could have come off the agenda as well, “but maybe people want to know there’s nothing” (video, 6:30).

Four closed sessions

The commission went into executive session four times, each under the exception in K.S.A. 75-4319(b)(1) for personnel matters of non-elected employees, and each time returned to open session with no action.

The first, moved by Milburn-Kee, was for 10 minutes (video, 7:18). Allen moved the second for 15 minutes, saying “specifically, the subject will be job duties,” with the four commissioners and Janet Harper from the appraiser’s office(video, 18:51). The third and fourth, near the end of the meeting, were listed as wages and performance, 10 minutes each, with the four commissioners only (video, 52:52) (video, 64:49). After the fourth motion, Hoyt objected to its wording: “Citing the KSA does not explain what you’re doing,” he said (video, 65:34).

Training invoice paid

The commission voted to release a check for a training invoice of about $8,000 that Milburn-Kee said she had questioned. “I reached out to Murphy just because I wanted that this invoice was really vague for $8,000 in training. And from what I had heard from our director that he didn’t even know that we were going to have to pay for training, I thought it must be something real special. It didn’t sound exceptionally special, but it is what it is,” she said (video, 35:29).

“They provided a service, and if we want them to ever provide us a service again, we need to pay our bills,” she said. The motion passed on a voice vote with no opposition heard.

No public comment cards were turned in. Beerbower noted the meeting had started half an hour earlier than usual and asked whether anyone in the room wanted to speak (video, 36:50). Nobody did.

Landfill covenant signed, water tests ordered

Milburn-Kee brought the restrictive covenant for the county’s closed landfill, the property the commission decided in August to put up for sale. In an email read into the record Aug. 3, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment told the county its files showed no covenant had been filed, that the county “has been notified several times that this is required,” and set a Sept. 30 deadline.

Milburn-Kee said the document had grown from a general sample into more than a page of legal description covering several deeds. It will be notarized, filed with the Register of Deeds at $21 a page, paid from the general fund, and a copy sent to KDHE. “That should have been done years and years ago, but we’re doing it now,” she said (video, 38:04). Because the chairman was absent, the commission voted to have Allen sign it for the board.

The commission then approved a $12,990 contract with Triad Environmental for groundwater testing at the site, paid from the Public Works budget. Milburn-Kee said KDHE’s engineer for the site, Mr. Mack, had set out which samples the county needs based on its earlier results, “which we are in default on, because they were due in 2020” (video, 41:47). Asked when the testing was last done, she said 2018. A memo included with the county’s Aug. 31 agenda says KDHE’s most recent monitoring report for the site was completed in November 2017 and that the county’s consent agreement with the state required another round in 2020. The commission authorized Allen to sign the contract, and Milburn-Kee said the work should start immediately.

Asbestos inspection about $3,500

Beerbower reported that Apex Environmental had made an offer for the courthouse asbestos inspection within the $5,000 cap the commission set at its Sept. 2 special meeting, and that he was waiting to hear back from the elevator company so the inspection can be scheduled with an elevator mechanic on site (video, 45:51). Milburn-Kee said the cost “looks like about $3,500 total. And that’s with 30 samples loaded,” including air testing on every floor. She said the courts had asked her to thank everyone for accommodating their move off the third floor.

Appraiser vacancy

The commission signed the state’s notification of county appraiser change for Matt Quick, who resigned Aug. 3 with a last day of Aug. 18. Milburn-Kee said the county is required to report when an appraiser leaves and why, and that she filled in the form using Quick’s resignation letter as the reason because she could not reach the state to ask how it should be worded. “I just did the best I could because I didn’t have any guidance,” she said (video, 46:58).

Milburn-Kee then asked to schedule interviews with the four candidates as soon as they can attend, and said she would rather the county’s human resources contractor handle it. Beerbower said the candidates’ emails had been forwarded to HR. Milburn-Kee encouraged the other commissioners to call the candidates with questions of their own, which drew an objection from Tran. “Because generally, to be fair and impartial in the hiring process, everybody asks the same question of the four individuals,” he said (video, 50:32). Tran said he wanted to take part in the interviews, and the commissioners agreed all five should. Milburn-Kee said only one of the four, Allen County, had been approached by the county rather than applying on its own. On Beerbower’s motion, the commission authorized Milburn-Kee to have HR set up the interviews.

Monday’s hearing

Building the next agenda, Beerbower asked for the policy manual to be added “for the 14th,” and Tran asked to bring back the comprehensive plan and the Confluence contract, a planning and zoning agreement of about $116,500 that the commission tabled 3-2 in July (video, 76:07). Monday’s meeting is also the county’s public hearing on exceeding the revenue-neutral rate, which the county’s published notice sets for 5:30 p.m. Sept. 14 at 210 S. National Ave. “It’s going to be a long agenda,” Allen said.

Milburn-Kee asked what time the newspaper notice said the hearing would begin, and nobody at the table was certain; Beerbower said he thought it was 5:30. The commission adjourned and took a short recess before its work session on public works.