February 9, 2021                                                      Tuesday 9:00 am

 

The Bourbon County Commission met in open session with all three Commissioners, the County Counselor and the County Clerk present.

 

Also present were the following; Jason Silvers with the Fort Scott Tribune, Mr. & Mrs. Clint Walker and Susan Bancroft.

 

Clifton made a motion to approve the minutes from the February 2^nd meeting, Jim seconded and all approved and signed the minutes.

 

Eric Bailey presented two culvert permits; one for Brad Wright, Eric said the Commissioners had already approved this and the work had been completed, the second one was for Troy Albright at 195^th & Yale for a 15” x 24’ culvert installation.

 

Eric reported that Ag Engineering had done drilling at Elm Creek and had found a seam 7’ down located across from the boat ramp; Eric said they will get the County a report on this finding.

 

Eric said that Frank Young would give a recommendation on the size of the box needed at 250^th & Deer Road.

 

Eric reported they had fixed potholes last week on 125^th from 54 Highway to Mapleton and on 240^th.

 

Jim complimented the Road & Bridge crew for their work due to the inclement weather.

 

Eric said they are down to 3 trucks and said two of the spreader boxes are down.

 

Eric reported they are getting low on chips and may need to buy some.

 

Eric said they worked on the Rock Crusher on Sunday and said they hope to be crushing rock next week.

 

They are getting ready to prepare for a blast at the Beth Quarry.

 

Eric questioned the process to change a yield sign to a stop sign at an intersection; Jim said the Commissioners have to approve this change.  Clifton made a motion to change the yield sign to a stop sign for the East/West bound traffic at 195^th & Tomahawk, Jim seconded the motion and all approved.

 

Eric said 1712 Quail had been flagged for a culvert and said they are waiting on locates to be completed.

 

Eric said the Federal Exchange money for 2021 is $102,273.96 and said the exchange rate is .90 cents per $1.00.  Jim suggested that when the reimbursement comes to the County that the money is placed in the Special Machinery fund.

 

Eric reported that they had met with Jeff Spangler with Apex (windfarm) regarding the road use agreements; he said they are not ready to start at this time, but are getting close.  Eric suggested that if anyone has any questions regarding the windfarm that they contact Jeff Spangler at (620)213-4307.  Justin Meeks said they are not going to use a large amount of County roads and said Apex would be building roads on private property.

 

Bobby Reed met with the Commissioners regarding the Fair Board; he said the chuck wagon building had been turned over to the Fair Board (he said the building previously belonged to the 4-H council) and said the building needed repairs.  He said they are going to fix the roof and asked if the Commissioners would waive the C&D dump fees for the approximate 65 squares of shingles.  There was a discussion over whether the Fair Board was a profit or not-for-profit board; Bobby Reed said they were for-profit, but Justin Meeks said they were not-for-profit.  The Commissioners asked for proof that they were non-profit before they made a decision – Bobby said he would provide the proof needed.

 

Clifton made a motion to amend the agenda and remove the executive session that was scheduled with Patty Love, but to still keep the Patty Love on the agenda, Jim seconded and all approved.  Last week Jim brought up the fact that the Treasurer had stopped selling commercial vehicle tags; he said his intent of doing this was not to get involved too much in her department, but to discuss the calls he had regarding not selling the commercial vehicle tags, he asked if the Commissioners could do anything to help her to be able to sell the commercial vehicle tags.  Patty said she needed employees to do this, Clifton questioned how long it took to train an employee, Patty said it takes approximately one year to train and invited the Commissioners to come observe the work they do in the Treasurer’s office.  Patty said she had one employee working from home and had one other employee trained and said she just hired a new employee, but two of her employees hadn’t been to training (currently Topeka isn’t doing the training).  Patty said at one time she had 5 trained employees in her office and one left and at that time they thought they could operate the office on the four remaining trained employees, Patty said she offered (to the Commissioners) to try to do this, but at that time wanted to reserve the right to hire another employee if necessary.  Patty said they had collected an annual total of $68,000 for commercial vehicle tags and the County made $1,785 of this money.  Patty said the motor vehicle fund pays for three of her employees and said they had turned $20,000 back into the general fund from the motor vehicle fund.  Patty said the commercial vehicle program is a difficult system that some other counties didn’t do.  She said in the future she would like to do commercial vehicle tags again, but said there is no way right now since they are understaffed.

 

Kendell talked to the Commissioners about using the Commission room for advance voting for the March 2, 2021 special election; Shane said there was no way to move the equipment used to broadcast the Commission meetings on YouTube, but said they could broadcast them on Facebook live. Clifton made a motion to have a Commission meeting on February 17^th beginning at 3:00 pm (in the Commission room) and to not have a Commission meeting on February 16^th, Jim seconded and all approved.  The Commissioners will not have the February 24^th afternoon meeting that had previously been scheduled.  It was suggested to use the Fort Scott City Hall for the Commission meeting location for 2/23 & 3/2/2021, Lynne made a motion to move the 2/23 & 3/2/2021 meeting to City Hall beginning at 9:00 am, Clifton seconded and all approved.  Lynne made a motion to allow Kendell to use the Commission room from 2/22- 3/2/2021 for the March 2^nd, 2021 special election, Clifton seconded and all approved.

 

Lynne made a motion to approve the on & off premises cereal malt beverage license for KC Mart at 946 Highway 69, Jim seconded and all approved and Lynne signed the licenses.

 

Clifton made a motion to approve Resolution 10-21; a resolution correcting the legal description of a fence viewing from 4/16/1990, Jim seconded and all approved and signed the resolution.

 

Lora Holdridge met with the Commissioners regarding a ¼ page ad for $450 in the Chamber of Commerce directory; Jim made a motion to approve the ad for $450 (to be paid out of the general fund), Clifton seconded and all approved.  Lynne complimented the work Lora had done for the ad and Jim complimented the work Lora did in her office.

 

Justin Meeks said he had reviewed the Raymond James documents for the regulatory disclosures regarding refinancing the sewer bonds; Clifton made a motion to move forward with Raymond James, Jim seconded and all approved and Lynne signed the document.

 

Lynne made a motion that Bourbon County bid out the workers compensation insurance and the property insurance for 2022, Clifton seconded and all approved.

 

Justin Meeks said Lynne and he had a good meeting with the new Fort Scott City Manager; Lynne said everything discussed in this meeting was data driven.  Justin discussed houses for sale at this time; he said it is a seller’s market right now.

 

Justin said they are getting abstracts from the title company for the tax sale properties; he said he would get an invoice to the County to pay for the legal staff for the tax sale.  Lynne said $12,000 had been set aside in the County budget for the tax sale and said they have directed Justin Meeks to handle the tax sale, Justin said they could outsource this in the future.  Clifton made a motion to give Justin permission to move forward with the Landbank questions and answers, Jim seconded and all approved.

 

Jim made a motion to allow Clifton to attend the Rotary meeting, Lynne seconded and all approved.

 

Lynne briefly discussed BEDCO; he said it is moving forward regarding economic development and said all of the Cities in the County are on the board.

 

Clifton made a motion to allow whoever is available to sign the bills and payroll for payment, Lynne seconded and all approved.

 

At 10:04, Jim made a motion to adjourn, Clifton seconded and all approved.

 

THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

OF BOURBON COUNTY, KANSAS

(ss) Lynne Oharah, Chairman

(ss) Jim Harris, Commissioner

(ss) Clifton Beth, Commissioner

ATTEST:

 

Kendell Mason, Bourbon County Clerk

February 17, 2021, Approved Date