By Terry Bailey
The Mitchell County Commissioners conducted their weekly meeting at the Courthouse Monday morning, March 7th. All Commissioners and the County Clerk were present.
Jason Vetter was present to submit his yearly report to the Commissioners. The Commissioner accepted his annual account on the status of noxious weeks within the borders of the County. They will forward one copy of the report to the State. This report is a mandated yearly activity.
Stuart Porter, County Engineer, updated the Commissioners on the status of Builders Insurance. There has been a lingering question about whether or not the County should buy a Builder's Insurance liability policy to cover possible problems with the building of the new County Shop Building.
Porter said, "I talked with Henry Feltzke at K-CAMP regarding the necessity of Mitchell County purchasing a separate Builders Risk insurance to cover possible things going wrong with building the Shop. He said that since Mitchell County is a member of K-CAMP, they are covered under a blanket insurance policy. There is no need for a separate insurance policy."
Commissioner Tom Claussen replied, "This good news. We will save $3,000 - $4,000 without having to buy separate insurance."
Porter then told the Commissioners he had done some preliminary thinking about how to make the parking lot and entry into the County Health Department building ADA compliant without "breaking the bank." Porter's efforts have been limited to the parking lot area to the north of the Health Department building. Some thought is being given to moving the south entrance some distance to the east to keep folks entering the parking lot crowding into folks walking in and out of the building. Old crumbling concrete would be removed, the grade to would be leveled to standards and new cement poured with hot water piping in the cement.
Porter told the Commissioners he would put pen to paper and work up preliminary estimate for their review next week.
Cortney Murrow was present to obtain Commissioner's signatures on the standard grant submissions she submits to the State ever year. All told, Murrow is submitting grant applications for about $89,000.
Emily Benedick, Economic Director, gave the Commissioners a report on what she has been up to. She told them all the necessary paperwork has been submitted to the State to renew the Neighborhood Revitalization Grant program. "We are just waiting for the paperwork to clear the necessary bureaucrats in Topeka."
She said the idea of mural painting has a lot of support. Clay Center has over twenty murals painted within their City limits. She said that choosing a topic and deciding where to put it is 99% in the hands of the property owner.
Finally, she said they are working on low and medium income housing options. There is not much available in and around the City of Beloit.
Having addressed all the items on the printed agenda, the meeting was adjourned.