County opens bids on new grader

With a fleet of road equipment and in order to maintain the county's 155 miles of hard surface roads, the Bourbon County Commissioners work to replace older equipment every year.

At Friday's commission meeting, Commission Chairman Allen Warren opened bids from three local banks to finance a new 12 M Caterpillar motor grader for road maintenance. The cost for the grader is $122,875.

City State Bank, Landmark Bank and UMB all submitted bids for the grader to the commission. UMB bid 3-percent interest per year, but had a balloon payment in the bid. City State Bank bid at 4.9-percent interest.

After opening the three local bids, Warren also looked at what the Caterpillar dealer would offer, which was 3.2-percent interest for nine years.

"I'm against a balloon payment," said Commissioner Barbara Albright, "We don't know what shape the county will be in, in five years."

Commissioners looked over each bid and went with Landmark Bank's bid for a nine-year lease/purchase agreement with a fixed 3.19-percent interest rate.

Commissioners also heard from Jim Harris, the county's public works director, about another equipment replacement needed. A boom lift will cost too much to repair and Harris told the commission that there are some used booms to be sold on Purple Wave. Purple Wave is an online service which sells agriculture, construction equipment and vehicles.

"We have to use them (the lifts) or we'll get a ticket," Harris said, explaining it is mandatory for safety purposes. The commission approved Harris to look for another used boom lift and also to put the current one on Purple Wave to sell.

County Treasurer reports

Rhonda Dunn, Bourbon County Treasurer, updated the commission on the 2014 budget.

"This is what you asked me to do. I'll try to do it monthly when I close the books," Dunn said. She noted that she had brought several pages of information and diluted it down to two for them to look at.

"It seems like a lot of detailing...it will evolve over time," she said.

Sales tax revenue is up six percent from this time last year, Dunn told the commission.

"I think that speaks well of our county," Warren said.

Following presentation of the budget, Dunn told the commission that she and a few in her office are going to Topeka on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week to be trained in commercial vehicle tagging. Previously commercial vehicles had to go out of Bourbon County to get a tag.

"Then we will be able to handle all our own business," Dunn said.

Commercial vehicles are any heavy truck engaged in commercial business, Dunn said.

Elm Creek Lake

The commissioners heard from Wally Maples, Elm Creek Lake caretaker, in two consecutive 10 minute executive sessions with no action taken following the meeting. Present at those sessions were the commission, Harris, Maples and Kendall Mason, county clerk.

Citizens

Jerry Simmons and Bill Hurd, local citizens, came to the commission to ask about Limestone Road, east of Fort Scott, between 240th and 250th roads. Prior to entering the meeting, Simmons told the Tribune he had heard a rumor that the road was going to be taken back to gravel.

In the meeting, Harris said that the county had patched it last fall, but did note that the road is almost all solid rock and that there is nothing on top of the rock when it rains. Simmons agreed with that summation.

Commissioner Barbara Albright said no work was planned right away.

But, she noted, she "was concerned how to get (them) a good road."

Simmons said that he understands about budgets and "right now we are happy with the road."

Warren said that the county is hoping to publish their hard surface road improvement plans for maintenance in the next couple of weeks.

Emergency Management

Emergency Management personnel, William Wallis and Shane Walker, appeared before the commission and called for a 15-minute executive session to discuss county courthouse security matters, with just the commissioners and themselves included in the session. There was no action following the session, but County Attorney Terry Johnson came to the commission meeting and said that she and Walker would review and update the current county computer use policies. That led to a short discussion on employee cell phone usage in the courthouse, with no action taken.

In other business, the commission:

* Received a weekly report of how many inmates the county has; currently 36 in-house and another 10 housed in another county.

* Noted that they would be traveling together to attend the Kansas Department of Transportation District 4 meeting next Tuesday in Chanute.