Commissioners also voted to seek grant funding in the amount of $50,000 to develop water and sewer plan for Hwy 79 corridor through Washington County.
by Kathy Foster
Washington County Library Director Renae Rountree met with Washington County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) Wednesday morning to discuss the possibility of the County accepting the library in Vernon in a move that would enable the County to apply for State Aid grant funding that would facilitate repairs to the facility. Rountree explained that the City of Vernon has a restricted deed to the property which does not allow them to seek grant funding. A motion by Commissioners Alan Bush and Charles Kent was approved to have the County take over the property. Commission Chair Tray Hawkins was directed to meet with the Vernon City Council at their next meeting to present the proposal.
Commissioners also approved a motion to apply for grant funding to develop a water/sewer plan for Hwy 79 south of the Washington County/Holmes County line to Ebro. Commissioners said the plan when developed would become part of the County’s Comp Plan for long-range planning.
In a separate action, the BOCC discussed working with Caryville, Ebro, Wausau, and Vernon to provide Code Enforcement, Animal Control, Building Inspections, and Planning Department services to those municipalities. County Administrator Jeff Massey was directed to develop a cost/funding formula to cover the services, along with consistent rules that would be applied countywide and report back to the BOCC at their April Workshop.
Dealing with other issues at their March 14th meeting Washington County Commissioners took the following actions:
- Approved what they were told would be the final change order on the Kirkland Road project. The change order was for an 18-day extension to the contract.
- Discussed an appointment to the Hwy 79 Corridor Authority Committee, but took no action. Commissioners said the final decision would be made after several more people were interviewed.
- Approved a Special Exception for a SHIP client. Commissioners increased the budget amount from $65,000 to $85,000. They noted that when the earlier amount was approved a few years ago construction costs were lower.
- Approved a motion to contract for one year with Detroit Diesel for maintenance of County-owned generators. Commissioners also authorized Randall Truette to negotiate a 3 to 5-year maintenance contract with the firm and bring those findings back to the next Board meeting.
- Approved a motion to establish an amnesty period for Code Enforcement Violations. Commissioners said they wanted to get the county cleaned up, not place liens on property because owners won’t clean up.
- Voted to hire a Code Enforcement Officer by July 1, 2018.
- Agreed they would do away with longevity pay raises at the end of the current budget year, but would keep merit raises.
- Agreed to enter into a contract with USDA for beaver control.
- Voted to purchase eight complete sets of bunker gear at a cost of $16,583.
- Approved issuing a Request for Proposals for audit services.
- Approved a motion to hire an IT person as quickly as possible. It was pointed out that the county is vulnerable to losing a lot of information stored on computers due to lack of an IT person.