The Greene County Board of Supervisors met Monday in regular session.
During open forum, Greene County Farmers Market Organizer Chris Henning announced the farmers market would be open for the season on Tuesday, June 29th and run until August 31st.
Next, the Board heard an update from Jefferson City Administrator Mike Palmer. He talked about the downtown buildings, with the Funky Zebra now open at 205 North Wilson Avenue, the Stitch will be moving into the former Pizza Ranch building by August and the former Angie’s Tea Garden will have a new restaurant, but keep the same feel as when it was Angie’s Tea Garden. He mentioned the airport runway extension project is having new pavement installed, and the parking lot west of City Hall is nearly complete. Palmer discussed the formal action the City of Grand Junction took to terminate its agreement with the Greene County Recycling Program.
Palmer said the City will have to pay its annual fee of $11,000 next year before it can officially be terminated from the program. He pointed out the funding from the City would have to be separated to the other entities involved in the program, including the county.
The Board then approved to set June 28th as the public hearing date for a hog confinement in Franklin Township, with the review of the master matrix to be done on June 21st. Additionally, the Board approved the amendment to the 2021 fiscal year grant, the 2022 fiscal year grant and assigned Deputy Auditor Billie Hoskins as the signatory for the county’s substance abuse prevention program as presented. They also approved a recommendation from the Group Benefits Partners to amend the health care plan to no longer limit the applied behavior analysis therapy benefit.
Next, the Board held a discussion about a new county jail. Representatives with ISG, a design and engineering firm, has been involved in discussions about a new jail since 2017. The plans initially called for a new sheriff’s office, police and fire departments, as well as a new jail, but now are focusing solely on a new jail facility, with land that will be available when the county closes on the Midland Power Cooperative site in Jefferson.
Sheriff Jack Williams said the new jail facility would have about 30 cells and the preliminary cost estimate of less than $10 million. He said there needs to be a new jail, due to 120 people waiting to serve their jail sentence and another 150 arrest warrants waiting to be executed, but those can’t happen due to the current facility always being at capacity. The initial proposal from ISG to do site and conceptual work was $8,250. The Board agreed to review a formal contract at a future meeting.
Finally, the Board went into closed session for disciplinary action against a county employee. Following the closed session, the Board approved the action against the employee, as discussed in the closed session.