A mild February led Jesse Hamm, interim superintendent for Road and Bridges, to talk with Marion County commissioners Monday about moving into work for the 2016 spring season.
He said work likely will begin this week on a co-financing road signs with Menno Township in the southwestern part of the county.
The commissioners approved higher-priced signs that will be mounted on posts 12 feet tall with no easily removable bolts.
The commissioners also approved a road and bridge road surfacing bid of $64 a ton for 4,000 tons of cold mix for a summer supply from APAC over a bid $69.92 from High Plains.
Bud Druse, director of Weed, Recycling and Transfer Station, said he has been contacted by an official of the city of Hillsboro about the possibility of the county taking over the city?s recyclables program and add it to the county?s single stream program.
Druse said the addition of a program the size of Hillsboro?s would likely increase the need for more county recyclables trailers, turn the trip to Hutchinson to deliver recyclables to a daily event, and put more pressure on limited room at the transfer station.
Commissioner Dan Holub said the county also needs to consider that the program seems ?to grow like mad? when patrons learn to leave waste in a single stream instead of separating it into components.
Commission Chairman Randy Dallke said that such a move could hasten the day when the county has to move the existing trash transfer station and recycling enter from the old Marion electricity generating plant into a new facility south of the city, which he had been thinking would still be 10 to 15 years into the future.
The commissioners told Teresa Huffman, director of Economic Development, that she may expect next week to have an extended discussion of the results of a meeting held this week at Marion County Lake.
The commissioners expected to spend the rest of the session in executive session for personnel to begin the process of hiring a new emergency management director to supervise the ambulance program.
Larry Larson was restored as an emergency medical technician to the Peabody ambulance crew at the Feb. 16 commission meeting on a 2-1 commission vote. Dallke and Lori Lalouette voted for while Holub against, which followed 30 minutes of executive sessions.
No explanations for the vote were offered. They went into executive session with County Clerk Tina Spencer for 10 minutes.
