Commissioners get updates from county departments

Commissioners Deb Craft, Bruce Jolley and Deb Neves met on Sept. 3 for their regular commissioner’s meeting. 

During this meeting they heard from two U.S. Extension staffers. First up was Gretchen Gasvoda, the 4-H and youth development extension educator, who gave a pat on the back to the County Fair Manager Cash Duncan and County Facilities Manager Jeremy Pouska for this year’s fair: “Fair went great and I appreciate all the hard work. The boys worked together to put on a great fair.” 

She received many positive comments about the fair from the public.

The second UW employee to update the commission was Melissa Cook, the vitality and health educator. Cook sent a written report to the commissioners prior to the meeting and discussed her findings on a needs assessment for the community. 

She found that “people in the Spanish-speaking community in Greybull would like English as a second language class.” She added this is not something she can do, but she did talk to Greybull BOCES to see if they could. She added there are also people wanting “English classes to be able to speak to Spanish speakers.” 

Neves said the church in Burlington is doing a class like this. 

Cook asked the commissioners about their vision for the community in the next five years is and how can UW help reach their goals. She also asked what they believe are the most pressing issues in the county and if any populations are underserved.

UW has an Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN) which is designed to help communities become more disaster resilient. Cook explained their role is to figure out what kind of educational programs they can develop once they find out a community’s needs. 

Neves asked how this program works with the county’s emergency management team — would UW work independent of the county’s emergency management teams or with them? Cook explained UW is trying to figure out what the Emergency Management people need and Neves said the county will be going to the county’s Emergency Management team, not UW. Cook replied that all those teams are being asked to fill a list of questions to help extension plan. They are not required to take the extension’s programs. She noted that the Burlington Fire Department expressed a need to learn how to check for gas leaks, something not taught in fire schools.

Cook added that canning and arborist classes will begin again soon. 

OTHER BUSINESS 

• County Treasurer Niki Vigil discussed the process for Tax Sale Property Removal. 

• Gina Anderson, the county assessor, presented Irrigation Resolution #4.

• Linda Harp requested for a resolution of support from the county for a SLIB grant for BHC Fire District #2’s Fire Hall grant request. 

• Road and Bridge Supervisors Shannan Hovey and Eric Mann gave their department reports.  

• Felix Carrizales and Louise Card raised a concern with the commissioners about Lane 38. The commissioners agreed to investigate and address the concern, and added that next summer the county plans to chip and seal Lane 38 from the Burlington town limit to U.S. Highway 14/16/20.    

• An executive session was held during the Facilities Management portion of the meeting. The reason was listed as potential litigation. 

• Paul Thur and Stephanie May gave reports for Land Planning and Airports. An executive session was held for personnel.