Commissioners table phone bids

McCOOK, Neb. -- During their weekly meeting Monday morning, Red Willow County commissioners tabled for two weeks the setting of dates to seek bids for the work and equipment needed to replace the existing 25-year-old telephone system in the courthouse.

Greg Fyn of Prairie Wind PC's, McCook, presented commissioners with two sets of bid specs that they can use when they advertise for someone to install a new system. Fyn said the specs actually cover four aspects of the project: long distance phone service, internet connectivity, network cabling and phone system.

He said that the project cannot be started until the State of Nebraska replaces up to 15 existing cables that it uses for state-owned equipment within the courthouse, thus creating a state network completely separate from the county network. This work will be done at no cost to the county, Fyn said.

The county must also select a long distance provider before the project can get started.

Commissioner Earl McNutt said he wanted a couple weeks to study the specs before setting a date to seek bids, which the board will do at their Nov. 2 meeting, at 9:30 a.m.

Chris Berry of Lutheran Family Services told commissioners that the 2015-2016 Nebraska Crime Commission Community-Based Juvenile Services grant request will increase from $69,000 to $102,000. The grant area covers Red Willow, Furnas, Hayes, Hitchcock, Dundy and Chase counties.

Berry said that the additional $33,000 will be used to continue the diversion program, increase the hours of the diversion program specialist from 8 hours a week to 30, to start truancy and early intervention/referral programs, and to offer co-pay assistance for counseling and mental health/substance abuse treatment.

Gary Dicenta, Red Willow County's roads superintendent, told commissioners that two roads or portions of roads that they recently upgraded from minimum maintenance to local will now need to be maintained at the higher standard.

A one-mile stretch of road northwest of McCook, into a building site for the McConvilles, and a quarter-mile section of road southwest of McCook, into the Mathies building site, will now need gravel, Dicenta said.

Dicenta also reported that the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources has indicated that the county can once again hold water in the Schlegel storage dam northwest of McCook -- the latest of numerous flip-flops of "yes, you can" "no, you can't" hold water.