Commission hires part-time staff for Rural Champions grant

MOUND CITY – The Linn County Commission on Tuesday, Oct. 11, approved a request from Economic Development Director Jessica Hightower to hire Darcy Wilson for the Rural Champions grant at $20 per hour for 20 hours a week for one year.

The hiring is based on the stipulation that the Rural Champions grant from the Office of Rural Prosperity under the Kansas Department of Commerce is received. If the grant is received, Wilson will work on community needs in Linn County.

The grant application process indicated that having a person hired before receiving the grant would help tilt the state toward approving the application.

In other business, the commission:

• Approved cancelling next week’s meeting due to many county officials attending the Kansas Association of Counties (KAC) yearly meeting Monday through Wednesday.

• Learned what projects the road shops were working on this week. The south shop is doing a rock project at the Justice Center for parking and a recycling trailer for cardboard from the jail’s kitchen. As soon as they finish their road project, the north shop workers will be clearing for boring around the Hell’s Bend project.

• Accepted the resignations of Tammy Grimes and John Marsh. The county will pay out two week’s salary to them for their two-week notice.

• Heard the Linn County Park report. September’s receipts were $28,817.49, for a year to date total of $245,092.87. Expenditures for September were $26,848.07 for a yearly total of $208,455.66 net income of $36,637.21 not including salaries.

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• Discussed the recycling of tires. Commissioner Rick James asked if the county was still using the machine to cut the sidewalls out of tires so they could be put in the landfill. West said that because of a lack of manpower, the county is sending the tires to a recycling facility.