Drop box installed at courthouse

A drop box was installed in front of the Union County Courthouse Wednesday. Customers who do not wish to enter the courthouse can drop off tax payments, absentee ballots, ballot request forms and items for the recorder’s office.

“Anything that you would normally stand at the window to do,” said Union County Auditor Sandy Hysell.

The box is bolted to the cement and is under 24 hour surveillance by the Law Enforcement Center for security. It will be emptied several times a day by the courthouse staff.

“People are using it and we think that’s great,” Hysell said. “We know with COVID, people may not feel comfortable coming in the courthouse.”

Kent

The offers given by Dale and Sharon Cline and Daniel and Brianna Schaffer Aug. 27 to purchase county-owned property in the unincorporated town of Kent were declined Monday during the weekly Union County Board of Supervisor meeting in order for the supervisors to more carefully identify the parcels for sale.

“I don’t know if we had it listed as specifically as we could have,” Union County Attorney Tim Kenyon said.

Kenyon explained that because the parcels include alleys and streets the county may wish to vacate more specificity is needed.

“We need to figure this in terms of who’s going to be interested and pure consistency,” Kenyon said. “If I were a property owner, I don’t know if I want to bid on the part across the alley that could be separated if there is potentially another land owner in the middle.”

Kenyon will work with the assessor’s office to ensure the parcels are correctly identified and listed before notices are sent out and the sale can resume.

“The notices that go with the alleyways and streets is a little bit different. I would say it’s a higher standard,” he said. “It will make the abstracting and the records better for the assessor’s office.”

Communications

Union County Emergency Management Director Jo Duckworth said some issues have been resolved surrounding the reprogramming of radios for the new emergency communication system.

Motorola has agreed to pay the $11,000 cost for reprogramming due to talk groups not being named consistently.

“It’s kind of hard to tell someone to go to ‘fire aid’ if fire aid is labeled 16 different ways throughout the system,” Duckworth said.

Reprogramming of the approximately 67 radios will be completed this week and they will begin installing them Nov. 4.

“I think we are finally going to get there,” Duckworth said.

Secondary roads

The board approved a pay increase of for secondary roads superintendent Al Hysell for $10 per hour and $5 per hour for Brenda Mahan, the secondary roads office manager, until an engineer is hired due to the extra demands while there is no certified engineer.

“They are both taking on extra duties,” Sandy Hysell said.