BENTON – [VIDEO FOLLOWS REPORT] Marshall County Fiscal Court met in regular session Tuesday, June 30, 2015, hearing from several guests and wrapping up items before the beginning of the 2015-2016 Fiscal Year.
GUESTS
Bobby Gifford, North Marshall Water District, issued an invitation for bids on a booster station for the Oak Level tank. The low bid from Straffer Pump and Supply of $61,995 was accepted by the court. No bids were received for the housing building for the pump and the court gave Gifford approval to have the building constructed by the county’s special projects department.
Gifford also updated the court on Sanitation District #2 and has evaluated their financials and met with each board member. The District needs approximately $200,000 and have asked Gifford to help them pursue funding options for them to cover this expense.
Ken Weber with Reach Alert, along with Benton council member Rita Murray, spoke to the court about the system which alerts the citizens of the county about emergencies, community events, road closures and many other things that could affect the citizens of the county.
Reach Alert can communicate with large amounts of people in a very short amount of time by typing a message that can be received via voice mail, email or text message at a cost to the county of 75 cents per household.
This type of alert system reaches a larger amount of people as opposed to television or radio, according to Weber.
Reach Alert registration would be at the discretion of each individual household as to whether they want to register their phones for the service, which will not be mandatory.
The City of Benton plans to vote at their next meeting to adopt Reach Alert and with the addition of the county, could share in the expense.The court will consider the Reach Alert program and make a decision at the next Fiscal Court meeting.
Jewell Webster, representing the Pirates Cove Beautification Committee, brought before the court concerns of the residents of Pirates Cove, about a house on the corner of Murphy and Beasley roads. Webster said she has sent in six nuisance complaints on this property, which she said has been vacated and cleaned out by the owner.
“The resident of this property is in jail for selling heroin in our neighborhood”, Webster said. “He’s been in jail for over a year. This property has been in a state of dis-repair since 2010 with piles of junk.”
Webster said each corner of the property is loaded with junk, which hundreds of people pass each day.
“We are tired of it”, Webster said. “The Sheriff said that property could not be addressed by the nuisance law because it is a crime scene.”
Webster had several poster boards with photos of that house and others that are eye sores in their community filled with junk, hazardous items and overgrown and spoke about homes that are for sale that have had to drastically drop their prices as well as dropping the value of all of their homes due to the nuisance properties.
Webster feels that the Sheriff should not be in charge of the nuisance issues and would like to see another county entity or board be responsible. Currently, when a complaint is filed, the Sheriff issues a notice to the property owner and they have 10 days to respond before any action is taken.
According to Webster’s research, the state nuisance law applies to this property. Webster said children sometimes play around the hazards on the property saying, “how can this be a crime scene, it’s readily accessible by anyone”.
Due to no zoning ordinance in the county, it makes things like this more difficult to enforce according to County Attorney Jeff Edwards.
“There is a big difference in a community with zoning and one without zoning”, Edwards said.
The court will look into options for this neighborhood, to see if it can be resolved due the to safety issue as well.
Josh Tubbs, Economic Development Director, reported to the court about a new project that plans to locate in Calvert City and has filed their application. The project will create an average of 84 jobs at an average pay of $31 an hour.
The investment from the project over the next 15 years will be close to $27 million. Due to confidentially issues, Tubbs cannot name the company at this time or talk about the details.
As an added incentive, the company has requested an portion of the state and local occupational tax and Tubbs asked the court to commit to a ½ percent of their occupational tax for the 84 jobs created over the next 10 years of this project.
Tubbs is collecting support letters for the application, requesting the support of the Fiscal Court, which the court approved as well as approving the ½ percent occupational tax incentive.
“The county is not losing anything by committing to the occupational tax incentive”, Tubbs said.
OLD BUSINESS
Kentucky Lake Subdivision
The second reading Ordinance #2015-03 that sets the speed limit at 25 mph on all county maintained Kentucky Lake Subdivision roads was approved and passed by the court.
Denzel Martin Road
James Knoth of Knoth Surveying, at the request of the Fiscal Court, land surveyed Denzel Martin Road to determine county right-of-ways and ownership areas due to a dispute between the Silvernail family and the Davis family over whether the Silvernails could request access to the county right of way to run a water line to their property to replace the existing line that is leaking thousands of gallons of water, and to avoid going through property of current residents on the road.
The issue in question was whether the road is actually a county road. Knoth determined that the paved part of the road does belong to the county along with pertinent drainage ditches along the road with no authority past that.
Knoth ran the deeds back to 1917 in his survey to determine right of ways and ownership. Jamie Silvernail expressed their desire to use a simple trencher to run a new line along the right of way, which would be much less invasive to property owners.
“So we were sold a house that has no rights to the water meter at the front”, Silvernail said. “Our water line at this point has several places where it is currently under the blacktop.”
“Now, what we are looking at is to go through three people’s property or spend $18,000 to have a well dug and hope its potable water”, Silvernail said.
“In a rural county like this, when these properties were developed, the owner chose how they got their water”, County Attorney Jeff Edwards said speaking to the process 18 years ago and earlier. “The local government had no control.”
“I hope something can be worked out with your neighbors”, Judge Chyrill Miller said. “We can’t do anything about that right of way.”
Silvernail had hoped that the county had the authority to grant her permission to use the right of way to dig a trench for a new water line to their home, which was determined by the survey, the county does not.
Telecom Audit Report
Emily Martin, County Treasurer, gave a report of what the Telecom Audit Group found in their research that needed to be adjusted on future telephone bills.
Carl Overton with Telecom Audit Group, appeared before the court on May 5th to discuss his company’s process of recovering funds owed to entities from overcharges by the phone company.
Several items were found which will amount in a savings to the county of approximately $2,500 of which Telecom will bill the county $1,250 for 18 months for finding and correcting these issues. After 18 months, the county will save almost $3,000 a month on the phone bills. Telecom will not bill the county until after they begin to see the savings.
Kalleo-Smartpath Contract
After going over the contract with Kalleo and Smartpath for the county’s new IT system, Assistant County Attorney Jason Darnall found a few items in which he felt the wording needed to be changed before the contract can be signed.
Judge Miller will send a letter to them, asking to make the changes to the contract.
IT Server Agreement
Andy Lepisto explained the agreement, which allows space to be used to house a server at the Judicial Building as well as one that is housed at the Library.
NEW BUSINESS
FEMA
The county has been asked by FEMA to do a Designation of Applicant Agent concerning the plan with FEMA on the recent winter Storms. The court appointed Darlene Lynn as the Applicant Agent.
Palma-Briensburg Board Appointments
Nick Darnell was re-appointed to the board as Treasurer and Danny Coursey to fill a fire fighter trustee vacancy.
Resolutions
The court approved the resolution to dissolve Action, Inc. and an Office of Emergency Management and GIS accounts with CFSB.
Treasury Reports
The court approved an Appropriation Transfer, Intrafund Transfer and to compensate salaried county employees time earned during winter storm 2015. Also approved was a training re-certification incentive for County Treasurer Emily Martin.
The Marshall County Courthouse will celebrate 100 years on July 18, 2015.
The next meeting of the Fiscal Court will be July 21, 2015.