Decatur County Commissioners

The Decatur County Commissioners met on Monday. The board approved the claims.

Mark Mohr gave an update. At the last meeting they discussed a structure that they had replaced and that structure is now opened. They have opened bridge 239 on Washington Street and there will be in an inspection done soon. They are waiting on approval for a right of way acquisition from the federal highway department for bridge 236. This could end up being backed up from a 2023 letting to a 2024 letting because of this. The Westport covered bridge has not been forgotten and they are currently trying to get scaffolding pricing.

Mayor Joshua Marsh came to the commissioners to discuss the LPA Project submissions. About a year ago they had a discussion on the Park Road project and since then have had many conversations. They have now provided a number based on those conversations. These numbers have inflated due to the pandemic and they settled on a higher, but reasonable, number so that they will be prepared if anything were to go wrong. This is an inter-local agreement and the city would be responsible for most of the maintenance. Both legal committees have reviewed this agreement. The design they are submitting is not set, however is the costliest design possibility to cover all their bases in the case of problems. They will need the financial commitment letter as soon as possible, but the inter-local agreement can be approved at a later date. They do want the county involved from the start so that there will be no surprises. The commissioners approved the financial commitment letter. The Mayor gave the commissioners an update on the Make My Move with the EDC. This has been successful and they have had over 1,600 applicants. Most of these were not qualified, however the ones who did seem very good. Their goal was to get 5 qualified individuals to move to Greensburg. They are working on doing zoom call interviews with these qualified individuals. Greensburg has also been Googled more times in the last 2 weeks than in the previous history of Google.

Krista Duvall presented ordinance 2021-19 which was approved.

Kenny Buening gave an update. There have been 46 building inspections, 9 new building permits, and no red tags. They drafted a letter for the burned home to be brought to their insurance company.

Sheriff Durant came to the board to discuss longevity pay at the detention center specifically. They are now asking for less than what was originally approved for in their budget and they are not asking for any additional funding. They are one of three jails Indiana that have been at full staff twice in the last three years which is an impressive feat with the nationally high turnover rate. The council did approve their budget which the longevity pay was in and the sheriff believes this to be sustainable. The commissioners would like to see their turnover records. They were also upset as one commissioner didn’t receive the informational email on this until late last night and another didn’t receive the email at all. This means that neither of the commissioners had a chance to review this information before the meeting. This was tabled.

Adina Roberts presented the vote center ordinance. They have held a public meeting and waited the 30 day comment period. They received 2 comments, both of which were positive. They plan to run the data from each voting site after each election to eliminate those that are not being used. They do not plan to make all voting sites in Greensburg, which was the commissioners’ main concern. This was tabled.

Steve Ruble presented the contract from Wolf Contracting for the old jail demolition. This was approved.

There was a discussion on redistricting the commissioners districts. There was a recommendation to do a city/county split which would get the numbers closer to where they need to be. This was approved.

Dunn and Associates amendment #7 was approved. This was just rewording for clarification.

The Purdue Extension Contract was approved.

Morgan Schofield

WTRE News

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