WAYNE – After approving a motion in the Wayne County Courthouse Exterior Renovation Project, the Wayne County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday morning to take the next step during their regularly scheduled meeting.
From the Wayne County Courthouse courtroom, board members were set to take action on an agreement between Wayne County and Kingery Construction. But, there were a few more bumps in the road as another document was received the morning of the meeting, which commissioners stated several times they were unhappy with throughout the past meetings.
The document had some numbers but not all broken down. Included was the total cost of the project being $2 million as board members wanted to make sure that stated “Not to Exceed”.
Outgoing Wayne County Attorney, Michael Pieper was not in attendance as Deb Finn had previously contacted the attorney. Pieper recommended and idea on waiting until the new county commissioner and new attorney were sworn into office before continuing with the project, but the document received Tuesday morning had a December 31, 2018 deadline.
Incoming attorney, Amy Miller was in the courtroom and stated she would contact Deputy County Attorney, Eric Knutson to look over the documents for the board to have legal counsel view it.
The board then accepted the agreement subject to attorney approval while also hearing more information on one, possibly two masonry workshops being held in Wayne. The tentative dates would be May 7-10, 2019 as the classroom setting would be held at the Wayne Fire Hall with on-site work being done at the courthouse.
Dean Burbach (District #2) chose an articulated motor grader for his district being a 2019 CAT140 AWD from Nebraska Machinery with a trade-in value of $247,050 along with a credit of $14,000 for parts.
Wayne County Emergency Manager (EM), Nic Kemnitz also provided the board with information that he completed his Type 3 All-Hazards Planning Section Chief Certification. Kemnitz received this recognition on December 13 from the Nebraska EM Agency. The process required successfully completing 70 different tasks under evaluation in the FEMA All-Hazards Planning Section Chief Task Book while working on Type 3 incidents or planned events. Kemnitz started this process on April 1, 2016 and had three years to complete all tasks. He’ll have another three years to complete them again from 12/13/18.
Following Tuesday’s meeting, staff in the courthouse hosted a surprise coffee for Deb Finn, Wayne County Clerk as she celebrated her 40th year with the county.
Since the next regularly scheduled meeting falls on New Year’s Day, the Wayne County Board of Commissioners moved their meeting date up to Monday, December 31 at 9 a.m. The swearing-in of the commissioners and other county members will then take place on Thursday, January 3 at 9 a.m. Both events will take place in the courtroom of the courthouse.