County to seek refund from mowing contractor

MOUND CITY – Linn County Economic Development Director Jessica Hightower updated the commissioners on several pending issues on Monday, July 17.

Jessica Hightower reported to the commissioners that she had heard back from Scarecrow Farm Lawn Care and they were willing to credit $315 to Linn County on their next month’s billing to make a refund for not mowing the area around the Prescott Fire Station last year. The total bill from Scarecrow for mowing the Prescott Fire Station was $945.

At the June 19 meeting, Fire Chief Randy Hegwald had reported that the grass around the Prescott Fire Station had not been mowed last year and the city ended up doing it. Apparently Scarecrow Farms had mowed the area around the Prescott City Hall instead.

Jessica Hightower said that because the company drove down there every week to check that it was mowed (the city mowed it) they are willing to refund $315 to the county. At the June 19 meeting, it had been mentioned that the employee who did the mowing last year was not with the company any more.

Commissioner Jim Johnson asked if there was anybody in charge this year to verify if the county is receiving the mowing service.

Jessica Hightower said that each fire station will notify her if the grass is mowed.

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Johnson said he did not think that getting about one-third back from what the county paid was not enough refund.

Johnson said, “I can see paying them for a time or two but if it continued all summer long, I don’t know why we have to pay for it.”

Commission Chair Danny McCullough and Commissioner Jason Hightower agreed that it should be more.

County Counselor Gary Thompson will reach out to Scarecrow Farms with the counter offer.

McCullough asked Jessica Hightower about KwiKom’s progress with installing fiber on the west side of the county.

She said that she had just received and email from John Terry at KwiKom reporting that Parker was completely roughed in – all of the fiber ducts, handholds and splice boxes were in place. Terry reported that, if the crew doesn’t hit rock, the backbone from Greeley to Parker will be completed by the middle of next week.

Once that is complete crews will begin pulling optic fiber and preparing the Parker line. After that, they will begin phase two from Centerville to Blue Mound.

In other business, the commissioners:

• Learned from County Counselor Gary Thompson that the firm investigating the Tanglewood Lake incident was going to be conducting interviews this week.

• Approved a right-of-way extension of time on a burial permit requested by Evergy for optic cable and waived the fees. This will be the second extension for the burial at Young Road. Evergy has been waiting on a right of way approval from the railroad.

• Approved a memorandum of understanding with Bates County, Mo. for repairs of a portion of State Line Road between east 400 road and east 600 road.

• Appointed David Fisher to the planning board for Commission District 3 to replace Fred Kautt and Daniel Earnest to the District 2 position to replace Dave Berglund.

• Approved rezoning land from Agricultural to Agricultural/Residential for Cole Campbell at Section 30, Township 22, Range 23.

• Rezoned a tract of land at Section 35, Township 2, Range 25 from Agricultural to Residential for Eric Thies.

• Reviewed the findings of the planning commission and approved the renewal of s conditional-use permits for Hamm Construction for rock quarries at Kansas Highway 7 at Cadmus, commonly known address 11238 West 2200 Road for a period of five years.

• Heard from Public Works Director Shaun West that County Road 1095 north of Kansas Highway 152 was being chip-and-sealed.

• Discussed with West where to spread the sludge from the cleaning of the sewage lagoon at Linn County Park. He said that 40 acres is needed, and the county does have that. He said that the county does have the ground at the park, but it would need to be disked and reseeded.

He said if that was not an option, Jessica Hightower had prepared a list of landowners within five miles that the county could start contacting. It needs to be crop ground that will be vacant around September.

Commissioner Hightower will work with West to contact landowners.

• Learned from West that two compactor containers had been repaired at the cost of $5,000 each. The cost of a new container is $10,000.

• Learned that West is working on getting agreements prepared between the county and city compactor sites. West said that the path that he wanted to take was to provide training and then hand the sites out to the cities to take ownership of and permit themselves.