Commission hires clerk's husband for zoning post

By Charlene Sims, info@linncountyjournal.com

MOUND CITY – After a seven minute executive session with members of the Linn County Commission, Public Works Administrator Jesse Walton and County Clerk Danielle Souza, the commissioners approved Walton’s recommendation to hire Ben Souza, Danielle Souza’s husband, as planning and zoning director with a starting annual salary of just over $53,100.

Commissioners also approved of hiring Mark Collier per Walton's recommendation as an Equipment Operator II with a Class A CDL at $18.77 hour.

In other business, the commission:

• Learned that there will be an workshop about automatic aide agreements with Linn County Fire Chief Randy Hegwald and the fire chiefs from La Cygne, Linn Valley, and Pleasanton. Linn County Counselor Jacklyn Paletta is contacting the fire chiefs about the meeting that is being held after the business meeting. 

•  Learned from GIS/Mapping Administrator Jason Parker that there will be a Lunch and Learn workshop for any Linn County employee who can benefit from learning  about mapping. The workshop will be held on June 4 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Commissioner Jason Hightower will attend.

Parker also reported that new employee Jessica Brown, who is being trained by Carol Klopfenstein, is doing an amazing job.

• Went into executive session with Linn County Economic Development Director Chasity Ware, the three commissioners, interim Public Works Director Jesse Walton and the county counselor Paletta for 15 minutes to discuss legal matters.

• Agreed that Walton could move forward with repairs for the American Medical Response (AMR) building in Pleasanton. He told the commissioners that it had a roof leak that is starting to cause some ceiling damage and he would like to get a couple of contractors over there to look at it. He said he would also like to put gutters on that building. 

• Learned that a couple of compactors had gone down but were now back up and running.

• Approved overtime for road employees after Walton requested permission to offer overtime to employees for the purpose of getting the roads back to where they need to be after the rainstorms over the past few weeks.

The motion approved to allow public works to authorize overtime for this week.

• Went into a five minute executive session with the three commissioners, Walton, the county clerk for job performance.

• Appointed Connie Gore from rural La Cygne as a planning board member for Commission District 1.

 • Heard from Matthew Winfrey from Sugar Valley about not being able to put a road to his property from 600 Road. Commissioners went into a 10 minute legal  executive session with Walton and Paletta about this issue. Hamilton asked for this so that all commissioners could be brought up to speed on the situation. She and Hightower said they knew nothing about it but Johnson had said that the attorney had been involved several times.

• Went into executive session for five minutes with Paletta for attorney-client privilege regarding potential litigation.