County receives grant for 78 safety seats years ago
About 80 child safety seats will be sent to Marion County Health Department for distribution to groups that work with infants and young children, county commissioners learned Monday.
The health department received a $5,500 grant from the state for the project, reported Jan Moffitt, department head.
It includes 78 safety seats and promotional materials. They will be provided to agencies such as the local SRS office, all law enforcement agencies, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Marion County, and similar organizations.
The need exists because these organizations sometimes work with children too small for a regular seatbelt. Most groups don't have proper safety seats.
Information will be provided on proper installation. Also, additional officers will be trained as car seat installers and inspectors, Moffitt said.
She added that car seat safety check lanes will be conducted Sunday at Spring Fling in Florence and June 1 at Chingawassa Days in Marion.
Health department officials also will present a bicycle helmet safety April 24 at Peabody Elementary School, and will assist with a bicycle rodeo May 10 at Marion Elementary School.
Transfer station
Commissioners will receive a report at their meeting Monday on financing options to buy the transfer station in Marion.
The county has signed a letter of intent to buy the station for $825,000.
A bond attorney will review options Monday, tentatively scheduled for 1 p.m.
As part of the letter of intent, the transfer station will be surveyed for environmental problems. Commissioners don't want the property if it carries liability for pollution.
The concern isn't from the transfer station, which packs solid waste into trucks and ships them to a landfill near Topeka. But the site is a former power plant. Transformers and other materials known to contain carcinogens were stored at the plant for decades.
The inspection will be by Geotechnical Services, Inc., Wichita. They will perform an on-site inspection, review records, and interview past and present owners. The company then may make a recommendation for further study, including testing soil samples.
Cost of the preliminary study is $1,800 to $2,000.
Sheriff
"It's been business as usual," Sheriff Lee Becker told commissioners.
In March, officers drove 25,250 miles on patrol.
Officers issued 141 traffic tickets and 117 warning tickets; investigated 26 accidents; conducted 61 criminal investigations; made 20 arrests; booked or released 88 individuals; made 86 patrols of rural towns; and served 310 civil papers.
Becker noted the K-9 team conducted 16 hours of training, made two school searches, assisted with nine car stops which resulted in one arrest, tracked scents in three cases, and assisted in issuing one search warrant.
A $500 donation to the dog fund was given by a women's group, Becker said.
Communications
Commissioners approved a plan to move a part-time dispatcher to full time, as well as fill a vacant position.
This means two dispatchers will be on duty during busy times.
Shelly Abbott-Becker, communications director, said dispatchers have received or made 12,621 calls in the first quarter of this year, compared to 9,939 in the same time in 2001.
"That's a one-third increase in calls," said Commissioner Leroy Wetta. "I know what that would do to me on my job."
Commissioner Howard Collett agreed that the need existed, but said commissioners need to be aware that state aid to the county was expected to decline significantly.
The commission voted unanimously to approve the new full-time position, which will require between $12,000 and $15,000 more in salary and benefits. However, overtime and training costs should be reduced significantly, she said.
Abbott-Becker said evenings and Mondays are the busiest times in dispatch.
In the past month, there were 487 calls related to controlled burns. Of those, 34 were fires that went out of control, Abbott-Becker said. Another 22 fires that were not related to controlled burns also required a fire department response.
EMS
Commissioners approved paying city utilities for a rental property in Hillsboro.
It will be used by emergency medical responders who live outside city limits but are on call, explained JoAnn Knak, Marion County EMS director.
Knak said the ambulance garage in Hillsboro has no restroom or dining area. Responders who are on call at night have to set up a chaise lounge with a sleeping bag behind the ambulance. Occasionally, they have to sleep in the back of the ambulance itself while awaiting a call.
The Hillsboro crew decided to rent a studio apartment if the county would help with utilities. Commissioners agreed to the proposal.
In other reports, county ambulances responded to 54 calls. Of these, 23 were answered by Marion-based units, 17, Hillsboro-based; 11, Peabody-based; and three, Tampa-based. There were six first responder calls, three by Goessel-based volunteers, two, Lincolnville-based; and one, Burns-based.
In other reports:
Sanitarian David Brazil will assist Dickinson County with sanitary system inspections since they are without an inspector, he said. Most of the work will be evenings or Saturdays, he said.
About $408 in outstanding checks were removed from the books. They were at least three years old and had never been cashed, it was reported. Most were property tax refunds.
A team from the county will attend "Prairie Plague 2002," a training seminar dealing with terrorist strikes in Kansas. Each county has been asked to send an eight-member team to Topeka in June to learn about proper response to such incidents.
Mike Benda, Lincolnville, has been hired to work part-time at the county lake.
Special meeting
Commissioners met Friday to canvass ballots from the spring elections in Hillsboro and Marion.
Two provisional ballots were not reviewed since the voters were not registered properly. One advance ballot arrived too late to be counted, and another was returned as undeliverable.
Maggard noted that a new state law allows commissioners to canvass ballots the following Monday as part of their regular commission meeting.
