The Custer County Board of Supervisors met in regular session Tuesday morning. All supervisors were present.
In Board of Equalization talks resolution #19-2023, which is approval of levy allocation requests for 2023 to 2024, saw some changes voted on by the board. One amendment made was to the request from the Custer County Ag Society. The board voted to amend the allocation to $178,000 from the ask of $184,853 from the Ag Society. The lone vote of “no” was from District 1 supervisor Anne Gibbons. The only other allocation amendment was to the Cliff Township, with a decrease from $182,160 to $180,000 being approved.
Colonial Insurance appeared before the board regarding a group term life insurance offering with guaranteed issue and portability should a county employee leave and wish to keep their coverage. The policy would be $10,000 per employee and require no health questions, with the availability for employees to add $75,000 themselves. The cost for the county would be $2 per employee per month. A motion to accept the plan was unanimously approved.
The Board was visited by Clay Mohr on behalf of the Sandhills Open Road Challenge regarding road closures. They approved closures on the Cozad-Callaway road for August 9th, 2024 and the Arnold-Dunning road for August 10th, 2024.
After being referred to the roads committee at the previous meeting, the board revisited the issue regarding armor coating. The committee had made the recommendation that the project be done by the county department instead. The board followed that recommendation and passed a motion to reject all bids on the project.
Dwain Bryner gave an update on the Courthouse steps project and said that in conversations with JEO the proposal dropped $1,600 to be $9,720, also being a maximum hourly cost to not be exceeded. A motion by Bryner and second by Longmore passed four votes to two.
Discussions regarding the property behind DHHS and Ag-Land ATV continued. Larry Coleman with Vet Care appeared and the board modified a lease agreement which was stated to be temporary until their decision on auctioning off or selling the land. The lease was agreed at $250 a month for one year. Immediately following that discussion the board set a market value on the property at $1.70 per square foot, a price that had not passed as a motion previously. The $96,712 valuation on the 56,890 square foot property was approved unanimously. A public hearing will be on the schedule for September 26th, with purchase to the highest bidder to occur two months after that.
Emergency Manager Mark Rempe came before the board to discuss the replacement of the dispatch console. He stated that the current console was no longer being produced or supported with new parts production, and that replacement parts are being bought up as often as they can on eBay to be prepared should they run into issues. Rempe said he had received information from Motorola regarding a similar system that had been put in place in Cheyenne county which was a 5 position console at the cost of $195,000 per position. He went on to say that a 3 position console would be the minimum requirement for Custer County to operate. After a discussion that touched on the need for grant writing, deeper research, and a possible new home for dispatch, the issue was tabled.
Kelly Flynn made his quarterly inventory and sales report to the board, stating that prices are up a little bit and that he hopes to get closer to the 360 ton number reached the last couple of years.
The board also approved the Interlocal Agreement and bylaw updates with the Lexington Area Solid Waste Agency.
