By Don Rutledge
FPS Associate Editor
April 14, 2009
The Carroll County Board of Commissioners meeting started off routinely Monday morning - but ended on a sour note!
Following the approval of agenda items, which included a Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant for the sheriff’s department and rejection of a bid notice which was accepted later in the day, Commissioners Tom Wheaton and Larry Garner got into an exchange of words.
It started when Commissioner Wheaton said: “I’m tired of Larry being absent”, referring to meetings Wheaton said he (Garner) has not been attending and his daily absence from the commissioner’s office.
Garner shot back with “You’re just trying to pick a fight”.
Wheaton countered by noting Garner does not check his e-mails, referring to an e-mail Wheaton sent Garner briefing him about the Sheriff’s department grant which they just approved.
Garner countered by saying “you and everybody else knows I am not computer-oriented and I don’t do e-mails. There’s a lot of people my age who are not computer literate,” he added.
Wheaton then responded: “Unless it changes, I will bring it up again,” and handed Garner a copy of rules which he and Commissioner Doyle Hawk and the two clerks in the Commissioner’s office came up with at a meeting held Feb. 27 which Garner did not attend.
Those rules include sharing leadership meetings on a rotating basis, checking into the office daily and accepting e-mail as the mode of communication for the county.
In other business, commissioners:
-HEARD a presentation by Jean Kohler of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department, about a three-year COPS grant with no matching money to provide base salaries of $31,138 plus benefits for three full-time officers. Kohler said the projected grant is for $481,914 and will provide salaries for a three-year period. The county is required to pay the salaries for one year after the grant ends. “We plan to bring back a person from the jail division who was laid off plus two new employees, “ she said.
-RECEIVED the weekly dog pound report for the period of April 6-11 showing 19 impounded, 16 adopted, 2 redeemed and 15 citations for no license.
Garner noted dog owners can purchase a dog license in the Carroll County auditor’s office for $10 of $20 if you missed the Jan. 31 deadline, or face a fine of $95 for one dog in Carroll County Municipal Court.
In final action, the Commissioners rejected a bid from B. A. Widder Architectural Services LLC of New Philadelphia for RFQ Consulting Engineering Services for Carroll County Transit which reportedly was received late. However, the Commissioners later in the day voted to include the bid among the seven received by the April 9 deadline. |
