County Board 4NOV2019: New hires, old phones & election

By:

J. Lynn West, Editor

The meeting of the Union County Board of Supervisors was typically brief Monday, despite having to deal with routine first-of-the-month business such as minutes, claims and work schedules.

This, at least, allowed the county officials who are still facing election Tuesday to get out and engage in some last-minute campaigning.

Hiring dispatchers for two county departments

In action items the board did hire Jarred Brooks Sneed as dispatcher for the sheriff’s department and Dakota Hatfield for the county road department.

Emergency Management Director Curt Clayton had said at a previous meeting that more part-time dispatchers were needed. The position requires being 18 or older, having a valid driver’s license, high school diploma or GED, no criminal record and being prepared to work 12-hour shifts that could be anytime, with essentially no notice. The job pays $10 per hour.

Circuit Clerk Phyllis Stanford providing information to election precinct officers.

Dealing with old equipment

The board had advertised for sale a fire truck used by the Ingomar volunteer department. They received only one bid: $2,200 from Barry Harrison. After brief discussion, supervisors decided that they might like to get the truck and use it as a service vehicle. As a result, the board voted to reject the bid and purchase the truck from the Ingomar department for $2,201.

In a somewhat unusual inventory deletion, the board voted to get rid of eight iPhones the sheriff’s department has. The phones are not defective, but are obsolete insofar as being able to use the FirstNet emergency system. FirstNet is a phone system that gives selected phones priority in times of emergency. It requires more sophisticated circuitry than older phones contain.

Advertising annual bids

The board also voted to advertise for annual bids on some county materials. The bids used to include items such as bridge timber and fuel, but fuel prices in particular became so volatile that no one would submit a bid good for a year. Now, the annual bids that do come in include mostly rock and paving materials.

County offices will be closed next Monday, Nov. 11, in observance of Veterans Day. Solid waste collection in the county will proceed as usual.

The next board meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday, Nov. 18 .