FIscal Court

by Matt Hughes

J-E News Editor

The Webster County Fiscal Court met on Tuesday morning at the courthouse in Dixon. The magistrates handled a short agenda very quickly.

Linda Wilson with the Webster County Road Department reported that material that will be used in construction of the Blackford Bridge has begun to arrive.

“Three trucks have came in already, and there are two more to come,” she said. “But it’s just lumber. It’s not put together in sections as we had expected. They are precut, they just haven’t been assembled.”

Judge Executive Jim Townsend wasn’t too worried about that. He said that L.T. Black, the contractor hired by the county to demolish the old bridge and construct the new one, have worked with this supplier before and should be prepared for that.

During the bidding phase of the project, L.T. Black said that due to the length of the bridge and the limitations of the equipment, demolition and construction would be handled simultaneously.

In other business, Judge Townsend presented the court with an executive order he had issued for the purchase of a John Deere tractor and mower for the road department. Magistrates approved the order for $57,770.27.

The court was due to issue a call for bids for construction of the county’s new animal shelter, but Judge Townsend reported that the bid was not ready yet.

“We will advertise in two weeks after our next meeting,” he said, stating that the court wanted to meet with Mike Duncan, a consultant with the Hopkins County Fiscal court who had researched various blueprints and designs for other dog pounds. The meeting is scheduled to take place on Friday.

The court handled two proclamations on Tuesday. The first named November 15, 2013 as America Recycles Day in Webster County, and its designed to help spread the word about recycling programs in the area.

The other was a proclamation presented to the court by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) that named November as American Indian Heritage Month. At the urging of council, the court changed the name to Native American Heritage Month but otherwise approved the proclamation.

The meeting ended with a discussion of the county’s solid waste disposal program. Linda Wilson reported that the county was having an issue with non-Webster County residents taking trash to the centers, specifically the one near Sebree.

“Solid waste is only suppose to take trash from county residents,” Wilson said. “We have to report our trash collection amounts to the state. If we don’t reduce our amount of trash, we could lose state funding.”

Judge Townsend mentioned a recycling center in Hopkins County that used to require anyone who wanted to use it to display a sticker in the windshield. He said he would look into the possibility of doing something similar.