By Terry Bailey
The Mitchell County Commissioners conducted their regular weekly meeting at the Courthouse Monday morning, December 9. Commissioners Jim Marshall and Tom Claussen were present as well as the County Clerk Heather Weston. Commissioner Mike Cooper was absent.
Brian Streit, Courthouse Maintenance Supervisor, presented the Commissioner with an artifact that has rarely seen the light of day in the past 125 years, give or take a decade.
Streit has located the original blueprints for the construction of the courthouse in 1898-99. He had been trying to determine where a courthouse drain was located so it could be excavated and repaired so that it would work as originally designed.
When asked where he found them, Streit replied, "At the top of Kitty Waggoner's vault."
Streit admitted he was reluctant to unfold the documents, so he did not do so, stating, "They are very brittle and could fall apart into dust very easily." He estimated there are 40 to 45 blueprints in the collection. Each page is 3 feet by 3 or 4 feet.
Streit investigated the possibility of having the old documents scanned and reprinted. Salina Blue does such work for governments all over Kansas and has considerable experience with jobs such as this. He was given estimates of $40 per page to scan and $40 to $45 per sheet to print.
The Commissioners were positively impressed with the possibility of recreating the blueprints for posterity. They authorized an expenditure of $4,000 to pay for the job.
Referring to last week's action to authorize one-time cash bonuses to employees, the Commissioners voted to authorize bonuses for part-time employees. Depending upon the number of hours worked per week, the Commissioners approved $500 bonuses for three employees, $250 bonuses for six employees, and $100 bonuses for four employees.
In related action, the Commissioners voted to extent full-time bonuses for the three Commissioners because they were also full-time employees of the Countty.
Terrence Silvia, Mitchell County Communications Director, requested a 15 minute executive session to discuss non-elected personnel. No actions were taken as a result of that closed session.
Missy McGinnis, Emergency Medical Services Director, reported that ambulances #1 and #4 were out of service and in the shop awaiting technical repair assistance.
Jessy Bliss, IT Coordinator, requested a 15 minute executive session to discuss confidential software concerns. No action was taken as a result of that closed session.
Having addressed al the items on the printed agenda, the meeting was adjourned.