|
|
 |
|
The
views expressed
on this page are soley those of the author and do not
necessarily
represent the views of County News Online
|
 |
Commissioners Corner
Summer’s over…
enjoy the fall weather and events
As the month of September comes to a close, we are reminded that colder
weather is just around the corner. This has certainly been a nice cool
spring and summer, and if the Farmer’s Almanac is correct, we are in
for a cold, snowy winter. But for now, let’s enjoy the fall
colors, the cooler weather, all the High School sports, First Fridays,
First Mondays, and all the remaining festivals in the
county. Darke County is one of the prettiest places in the
fall.
September has been busy here in the Commissioner’s office. As the
State and Federal budget times come closer to being due, a lot of the
paperwork we have sent to them is now coming back to us to be signed,
approved, reworked, etc. before the deadlines. The problem we
incur mostly is they wait until the last minute to send us the
documents that they want back yesterday! However, with the help
of our people, we are getting it done on time. One example is the
Darke County Airport. On Monday, September 22nd, we received our
grant paperwork to purchase the land at the Airport. This grant
from the F.A.A. for $822,465.00 was announced the week before.
When we received the paperwork, we discovered it had to be back at our
Regional office, which is Romulus, Michigan, by TUESDAY the 23rd at
1:00 p.m.! The choices for us became, send by e-mail, next day
air, or take it up ourselves. After a short discussion, we
decided to take it up and hand-present it to make sure they got it on
time. Thanks to Commissioner Delaplane and Jeff Marshall for
leaving on short notice and taking it to the Regional office and making
sure our grant acceptance paperwork got there on time. Jeff really did
a lot of work to get the paperwork ready to take up to
Michigan. As we have stated before, our people do great
work in all departments. They work hard with little recognition,
and a lot of times our Elected Officials work very late with no extra
pay. All of our people need to know how much they are
appreciated, so if you see one of our County employees, please take the
time to thank them for the oftentimes thankless job they do.
One of our departments doing an excellent job this year is Ditch
Maintenance. Jeff McMiller and his crew, Joseph Bruening, Kenneth
Forsythe, Donna Schilling, and John Schrader, have done a tremendous
job of cleaning up ditches this year. In 2012, the
department cleaned and maintained 55 ditches. This year, as
of September, they have worked on 92 ditches! This is one of the
departments that people know little about, and do not appreciate as
much as they should. Our Ditch Maintenance department takes care
of 261.56 miles of open and tiled ditches in the County. They
mow, spray, and clean out the silt on our ditches to make sure our
valuable land drains properly. Thank You to these fine
individuals for a much needed job well done!
Besides all of the last minute paperwork, Darke County continues to be
a leader in the State in job growth, retention and
expansion. Almost 1600 jobs have been retained or created
in the last 3 years, and with the massive expansion of Whirlpool, the
Greenville K-8 School, Koenig Equipment, JAFE Glass, Reid Hospital and
others, the future looks bright for the County. We continually
talk about workforce development, and as we continue to grow, it
becomes vital to our companies to have qualified workers. This
effort will continue to be paramount for us. We are in contact
with the State of Ohio and others to come and see our efforts, and to
help us with grants to grow this area. So far, the State
Treasurer’s office has been very receptive of our efforts, and we await
a decision from them on their help. We recently had our 22nd
graduation of the “Take Charge Of Your Life” class. This
introduction, and in some cases, reintroduction to the workforce, has a
success rate of over 70% in finding employment for people or advancing
them on to more education. Thanks to Lori Simpson, the
instructor, John Hefner, and the Economic Development office for this
highly successful program.
September is the official end of summer. As we close out the last
few months of the year, make a note to come to one of our weekly open
sessions. We meet every Monday and Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. in the
Commissioner’s office located at 520 South Broadway in Greenville, just
south of the courthouse. Hope to see you there!
The Darke County Commissioners
|
|
|
|
