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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 taxpayer. 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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