County roads damaged by detour traffic around a highway construction project at Moran will get a financial boost from the state.
The Kansas Department of Transportation agreed to pay for road repairs to several rural roads in the vicinity, in particular Nebraska Road and 4200th Street.
Mitch Garner, the county’s Public Works director, updated commissioners on a recent meeting with representatives of KDOT. The state agreed to pay $3,401 for patching work on a section of Nebraska Road, and another $11,316 for repairs to 4200 Street from Nebraska to New Hampshire roads.
Then, the state will give the county a little more than $50,000 to chip seal a long stretch of Nebraska Road, but that won’t happen until next year.
Commissioners were pleased with the state’s agreement, and asked if there had been discussion about repairs to county roads in the Humboldt area. A construction project between Delaware Road south to Chanute has forced large truck traffic to travel on county roads, creating a great deal of damage.
Garner and Mark Griffith, road and bridge director, said there had been preliminary discussion and they expected the state would contribute once that project was completed this winter.
Commissioners also asked Griffith about equipment, as he’s been looking into machines that could improve road work. He found a refurbished patching machine in Texas for about half the cost of a new one; commissioners wanted him to do more research, and he informed them on Tuesday that he’d been unable to find a better deal.
He also said insurance had confirmed a payment of $104,000 to replace a boom mower that was destroyed by fire this summer. He’s looking into either replacing that with a similar, new mower, but would prefer to buy a much more advanced MowerMax industrial boom mower.
He also told commissioners he plans to refurbish a distributor truck that needed repairs this summer and briefly delayed chip and seal work in Humboldt. That would be much cheaper than replacing it, which he said could cost more than $300,000.
A COUNTYWIDE burn ban will remain in effect until further notice, in spite of a small amount of rain that fell last week.
Sheriff Bryan Murphy, who was not in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting, relayed his desire to continue the ban because of continued drought and dry conditions.
The storms on Thursday dropped only .33 inches of rain, bringing the total rainfall for September to just .40 inches. Typically, about 4.48 inches of precipitation is recorded in a normal September.
The county is 6.27 inches short of rain compared to what is typical for this time of year.
COMMISSIONERS plan to ask the City of Iola, and its fire and EMS director in particular, for an in-person report about the ambulance service.
Last year, the county reluctantly agreed to a new contract with the city for EMS services after examining options for a different provider. They said they’ve been disappointed by the lack of communication with the local department.
They asked County Clerk Sherrie Riebel to run a report about the number of county ambulance runs and revenue, and were disappointed to see the number of runs have increased this year but revenue is about $400,000 less.
