Hancock County Fiscal Court; new road grader, county improvements
Hancock County Fiscal Court addressed replacing an old grader making it difficult for road crewmen to complete grading work in the county.
The meeting was held on Monday, August 14th at 9 a.m.
Road Dept. Report
Dave Tindle, Supervisor of the Hancock County Road Department said the mowing work they’ve contracted out (due to 2 county mowing tractors being lost to fire) is going well.
Road department crewman John Marvel added, “It looks like in 5 days, with the way they’re taking both sides of the road as they go, they’ll have a 6-week route done in like 10 days. That shows the difference by them being able to take both sides. Plus, they’re taking 12 feet at a swipe, where we can’t.
If you go by the airport (Greathouse Rd.), we asked them to get all the way to the fence, as close as they could. It looks good. Even Lewisport, the only place they couldn’t get was in the city by the mailboxes (and railroad tracks). They tried to do it, but traffic was so much that they thought to let the homeowners take care of around the mailboxes.”
Marvel explained the process and time it takes for crewmen to do the road grading.
“If you go out South Hopewell Church Road,” he said, “when you start grading on it, by the time you cut-in and cut back out, spread-in and spread back out, it’s a little over 4 hours to do that road by itself. We’ve been having trouble with the grader. What you have in front of you is the bid from Diamond Equipment on this 65ET (motor grader), which is what Owensboro Paving uses. It’s about a fourth of the size of what we have at the shop.”
The grader the county currently has is 28-years-old, was purchased used in 2004 and they can’t find parts for it. “We’ve called 3 different outfits to see if they would consider working on it,” he said, “and they all said no. They told us to get a new grader.”
Judge-Executive Johnny “Chic” Roberts asked how many times they grade per year in the county, and Marvel answered 3 times.
“You had asked about whether or not we could use a grader blade on some of these roads,” Marvel added. “You can switch the cylinders out on the back of the tractor and have down force, but unlike the grader weighing 20,000 pounds, you’ve got the tractor that’s only weighing about 7,000, so you’re not going to be able to cut as hard to cut out the potholes.”
Marvel presented the price to the court for a brand new John Deere tractor.
Marvel presented the price to the court for a brand new John Deere tractor with a cab, front-end loader, and same attached hook-up for all of the department’s equipment as well. “If we had that and the land leveler,” he said, “it could be delivered next week for $60,000 and every bit of it’s on state contract. It is pretty unreal that we could get this by next week delivered, but we can’t get a mowing tractor for 18 months. They said it’s because it is a utility tractor instead of a mowing tractor. The frames are completely different. You have to wait for the tractor to be built, where this one they actually have sitting on the lot.
They wanted to make sure we knew that the land leveler does exactly what it says. It moves it around, fills-in the low spots and makes it smooth as silk, but they said it won’t cut a pothole; it’ll just fill it up. If that’s what we’re wanting on these smaller roads, then that would be fine, but I don’t think the land leveler would work on Hopewell, Bud Gray, and Huff Lane, etc., but it would cut down on the amount of rental time.
We have 24 gravel roads we take care of and half of them, probably, we could use the leveler on. If we rented a grader, it would take almost 14 days [to grade the roads that can’t be done with the land leveler]. We also have a crew weed eating a 10-foot circle around everything. Damian (Rice) is going to get me a list of every fire hydrant. Once we get the list, we’ll be hitting every one of those.”
Tindle said, “Why don’t we just contract somebody out to do the grade work? It would be the cheapest route.”
Roberts said he’d get some quotes to see what the price would be to contract it, compared to rentals or purchasing a grader, and that the court needs time to evaluate the prices before making the best decision on all of the above.
Concession Stand at South Hancock Park
The county’s flex funds are right at $150,000, and the court is looking at applying some of those dollars to the project of constructing a new concession stand at South Hancock Park, as part of the much needed upgrades they’ve been making there over the last year.
GN Excavating had the lowest bid on the concrete at $9,020, along with plumbing work by Johnson Plumbing at $14,450, and electrical work with Jesse Boling at $5,182, Roberts stated.
Gary Nugent, owner of GN Excavating, attended the meeting and discussed with the court how he would like to also raise the elevation. “I would hate to spend 80 something thousand dollars and we just have a few more thousand to spend to raise the elevation up on the building,” he said. “I’d rather go in there and do it the correct way the first time.”
The court is reviewing the additional costs with raising the elevation and the price of added concrete work that would entail. The total project amount without the extra work is estimated at nearly $105K.
Sirens
There are 2 different vendors the court is considering signing a contract with for the maintenance of the 14 weather sirens in the county – Ohio Valley 2-Way Radio and Better Communications. Those are being compared by the court regarding pricing and the services they offer before a decision is made. Next year, there will be one more siren added at Commonwealth, to equal 15 total.
Senior Services Report
Senior Services Program Director Lona Morton said they have been cleaning and preparing for new flooring to be installed. “We’ve taken almost 3 truck loads off to the dumpster,” she said.
Lona added that Connie Duncan will be switching over to part-time and out of the AmeriCorps position. Connie will be working 2 days a week now at the senior nutrition site at South Hancock Fire Department.
“Stacy Roach, who is currently one of our transportation drivers, is interested in the AmeriCorps position,” Lona said, “which would take her from a part-time county employee to an AmeriCorps person who would be full-time hours, but we’d just pay the flat rate to AmeriCorps, so her having the full-time hours doesn’t affect anything. Everything stays the same, we’re just switching around hours.” That arrangement was approved by the court.
Animal Shelter Report
Ronnie York, Director of the Hancock County Animal Shelter, told the court he’d like to change shelter hours from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. to 7 a.m.-3 p.m. “We have a lot of vet appointments and they want them there at 7:30 a.m.,” he said. “I’d just like to change it to make it easier on me. With that being so booked-up, if I take them in later then they have to go back to the shelter later. He wants them to wake up (from anesthesia) before he sends them back.”
York added, “I have some good news for you guys. We were averaging about $250 a month in fuel, and with the new vehicle it’s right around $80.”
Occupational Tax Report
Judge Roberts stated, “We started the new year at $532,493,034. That’s up $210,457,040 from last year.”
Treasurer’s Report
“We have a revised report for May,” Roberts said. “That was up from $8,847,000 from the year prior.”
Those reports were approved after being reviewed by the court, as well as the fiscal year-end reports provided by County Treasurer Melissa Johnson.
Economic Report
Roberts read the economic report in Mike Baker’s absence. “The big plants are doing well,” he said. “Southwire continues to have strong business. The Coleman site has been re-activated with the state cabinet website. The Skillman’s Bottoms site remains under solar farm company option (Rolling Hills Solar, LLC). A 1,200-acre solar farm was announced in Sebree to supply power to the Newport plant in Meade County. Newport is requiring Big Rivers to supply a portion of their power as renewable – I think that’s 30 percent. Green River Distillery continues to hire at the rickhouses – $17 per hour with benefits. The unemployment rate for June was 4.8 percent.”
By Jennifer Wimmer
