Monday, July 20, 2020

COMMISSIONER’S CORNER - June 2020

It seems that Darke County has made it through the first half of 2020 in relatively good shape. It has been a unique year for all of us, but slowly, very slowly, things may get back to normal. The Covid-19 virus has taken its toll on everyone, but here in the western part of the state we have been most fortunate to have a lesser effect on us with fatalities and infections. Ours being one of the larger counties surface wise has helped with social distancing, and been a blessing for us!

Our office has seen a difference in the way we do meetings. Now, we are doing more video conferences and a lot less traveling. Commissioners Aultman and Stegall did attend a solar power meeting in Sidney with their commissioners, and social distancing and temperature checks were the order of the day. Commissioner Stegall has had several video conferences with CEBCO (our employee insurance) in Columbus. All three Commissioners have done phone conferences with Miami County on Ditch projects, and as we do more of these, it seems it will become the main method of communication for us, and our fellow commissioners. It does save travel expense, and when it works without technical interruptions (seems someone always has a problem connecting, hearing, or seeing), it is a time and money saver for the tax payer. There are several platforms out there for video and voice conferencing, Zoom, Go To Meeting, and Webex are three we have seen. We have used Webex and Go To Meeting, and we think Go To Meeting is the better of the two.

Things seem to be running smoothly in the county, and of course the airport is the big project right now. In May, we received the grant from the FAA to do a new taxiway, and part of that grant involved us having to move two of our hangars out of the way. On the 24th, Merkle Heavy Moving moved the first hangar without incident to its new location. The other hangar should be moved sometime in the next week or so. The hangars will be set up towards the front of the airport, and we have them rented to someone already. The taxiway should be started in September with dirt moving being completed before the weather gets bad. Paving is to be done next spring, and we have insisted that the project be done completely in time for spring spraying. We have several planes that do spraying, so it is important to have the airport operational for our farmers.

In other news, we are working with the CCAO energy committee and Palmer energy, their consultant, on solar power purchases for our county buildings. This is in the very early stages, and more will be explained as we learn all the details. As of now, there will be some form of the Darke County fair, as that is also a work in progress.

As things get back to normal, we hope that you can come to one of our public meetings. We meet every Monday and Wednesday at 1:30 in the Administration Building, 520 South Broadway, south of the courthouse in Greenville. See you there!!

The Darke County Commissioners

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