McCook Daily Gazette: Local News: Two voting districts to be combined (02/06/08)

Red Willow County commissioners were a little surprised that no one appeared at their meeting Monday morning to comment on a proposal to combine the Lebanon and Beaver voting districts in southeast Red Willow County.

Without public comment, commissioners adopted a resolution to combine the Lebanon voting district (the townships of Lebanon and Tyrone) with the Beaver voting district (the townships of Danbury, Beaver and Missouri Ridge), effective with the May election. The polling place is in the community center in Danbury.

The Lebanon district has 105 registered voters, said county clerk and election official Pauletta Gerver, and the Beaver district has 192. The new district will have 297 registered voters. The combination is a move recommended by the secretary of state for several years, Gerver wrote in a letter to registered voters mailed before the commissioners' meeting.

Gerver told commissioners that several election workers told her they were concerned they would no longer be needed. Commissioner Leigh Hoyt suggested that five work in the morning and five in the afternoon, although Gerver said that would involve training for ten workers rather than the five needed to man the polling place on election day.

Gerver said election workers will get a 70-cent raise, to $5.85, in May, and another 70-cent raise, to $6.55, in November.

Commissioners approved a $12,000 contribution to Lutheran Family Services to coordinate the county's juvenile diversion program for 2008-09.

The funding approval and the county's approval of a memorandum of understanding (explaining that LFS operates the county's juvenile diversion program) are required for grant applications to the Nebraska Crime Commission.

Representing LFS, Chris Berry of McCook told commissioners that the program offers drug and alcohol awareness and responsible decision-making classes for offenders 20 and younger.

Commissioner Leigh Hoyt asked Berry, as he did former director Michelle Orton a year ago, if the McCook Ministerial Association could be involved in counseling. Berry said that she would check into it, but suggested that federal and state funding may prohibit the direct involvement of ministers. Berry said information on the benefits of church and youth group involvement is included in information packets given to youths and parents.

Hoyt called it "discouraging" that offenders can be referred to psychologists, but not to pastors. "It's disturbing to me," he said.

Red Willow County will not be allowed to use its own roads superintendent on the federal-aid Driftwood Creek bridge project southwest of McCook without going through the state's bidding process.

Roads superintendent Gary Dicenta gave commissioners a 14-page list of qualified engineers approved by the State of Nebraska to do the inspection, staking and project management on the bridge project. The list includes Miller and Associates, with which the county contracts for its road/bridge superintendent services and for whom Dicenta works.

Commissioners will advertise and mail requests for proposals (RFPs) to four or five engineering companies, select an engineer from those responding and inform the state of its selection. Dicenta said the engineer should be selected on merit and qualifications; the state will use its formula to determine fees.

The fee for inspection, staking and project management on the Driftwood project is estimated at $27,000, and the county will be responsible for 20 percent, or $5,400.

Dicenta said that the state will let bids on the bridge project in April.

The bridge is expected to cost about $376,000; the county's share will be about $66,000, which is $21,000 more than commissioners have stashed away in the budget for the project.

Commission chairman Earl McNutt reminisced: "Twenty years ago, the county paid $5-6,000 to get these projects done." Hoyt added, "We should have put in two big tubes, and been done with it."

"We're in the midst of it all now. We can't turn around," McNutt said. Dicenta told him, however that the county does have the option to back out if the costs look too high, but that the state frowns on pulling out of federal-aid projects that have been in the works for years.

One commissioner mumbled that the "costs have been too high forever." Another added, all this for "a 'crick' bridge."

A report from the county treasurer indicates that Pawnee Aviation is the only account not current on payments to the county's revolving loan fund. Pawnee is delinquent on one loan since February 2007 and on a second loan since August 2007.