Commission looks at applicants for EMS director's job
Marion County commissioners, in a one-hour executive session Monday, looked at 12 applications for the post of Marion County Emergency Medical Service director.
Commissioners will interview some finalists for the job Friday afternoon in closed sessions. JoAnn Knak, longtime EMS director, will retire from that post at the end of this year.
Commissioners later conducted another closed session, lasting only five minutes, to discuss a personnel matter.
County Clerk Carol Maggard said the State of Kansas is now reimbursing employees of the clerk of the district court's office 36 cents per mile driven on job-related business in their personal vehicles.
The county currently pays 33 cents per mile to those in other departments when they use their own vehicles. Commission Chairman Howard Collett said he wanted to hold the line on expenses. The matter was tabled indefinitely.
Commissioners approved a request from County Attorney Susan Robson for permission to hire a special prosecutor for a criminal case. Maggard made the request on Robson's behalf.
Commissioners approved purchase of 80 cases of 8 1/2 by 11-inch copy paper, No. 20 bond, for $1,787, from McCune Paper Co., Salina.
Michele Abbott-Becker, director of communications and emergency management, presented commissioners with copies of the new, updated emergency operations plan for the county.
The thick manual includes a list of facilities in this county that have or work with hazardous materials. When signed by commissioners, the plan will become a county resolution.
Commissioners took under advisement a complaint from Carl Stovall about a lagoon in the middle of a road (Ulysses Street) that somewhat impedes Stovall's access to his property.
The problem is near Ulysses's intersection with 250th, just west of U.S. 77. Stovall would like to have the lagoon moved, or removed.
He said Ulysses, a north-south street, was closed, but not abandoned, in 1991. He offered to pay half of the estimated $1,000 cost to move the pond onto the owner's property, to "put it (road) back like it was."
Stovall said he and his wife use the road some, as does a renter of theirs.
Commissioner Leroy Wetta asked why the easement could not be moved, adjusted, instead of moving the lagoon. Then the road could be moved, rerouted around the pond.
The owner's fence also will have to be moved, Stovall said. Gerald Kelsey, county superintendent of roads and bridges, said the area may need to be resurveyed so that both parties know where their property is.
Collett said, "We've been had by mistaken boundary lines, I remember thinking last spring
Commissioners decided to "work on it," in the words of Commissioner Bob Hein, and ask for the county attorney's advice in the matter.
Kelsey's department has a new secretary, Kerry Maag, who takes the place of Bonnie Schmidt.
