The Greene County Board of Supervisors met Monday in regular session.

During reports, County Zoning Administrator Chuck Wenthold reminded the Board about the County Board of Adjustment meeting that is scheduled for Thursday at 5pm in the courtroom of the courthouse. He said the Board of Adjustment will consider the re-submitted conditional use permit for NationalGrid Renewables for a solar panel project near Grand Junction and a substation replacement for Hardin Hilltop Wind Farm.

County Attorney Thomas Laehn spoke about the 28E agreement with the City of Jefferson regarding the new animal shelter. He said a couple of years ago the Supervisors intended to pay more of their contribution once a new shelter was built. However, no action was taken by the Board and Laehn mentioned to the new Jefferson City Administrator Scott Peterson, who was at the Supervisors meeting, that negotiations needed to continue to finalize the issue. Peterson agreed to continue those discussions.

County Engineer Wade Weiss said a proposal from Tim Verdin of the Verdin Company that installed the bells on the Mahanay Memorial Carillon Tower was made to move the outside bells lower for easier maintenance. However, Weiss said the proposal was not favorable and he will continue to have discussions about that. He pointed out one main issue was the cost of renting a crane to do the maintenance was $10,000. He added four bells are currently not functioning. 

Laehn then brought up two proposals from the Bell Tower Community Foundation. One of the requests was to illuminate the bell tower with colored lights, other than just on county designated holidays. Laehn mentioned that would be doable, with a change in the current policy. The other request was to use a new thematic song of the “Jefferson Chimes,” which would play to alert people about a special event happening in Jefferson. Laehn said this was a more complicated issue from the entity that would designate when those special events would be, and Laehn had a concern with allowing the community foundation to decide that. He said if that happens, the Supervisors would need to allow other entities the ability to do the same. The Board took no action on either topic, due to further discussion needed for both.

The Board then approved the June 30th cash count as presented.

Finally, the Board heard a mid-year update of its health insurance with Assured Partners. Representative Ryan Berven told the Board he didn’t anticipate more than a minimal change in the premiums going into next year, if the trend continues with what is happening this year. He said there’s been only one of the approximate 88 employees that are covered under the county health insurance plan that has either met or exceeded $50,000 in claims this year. He also mentioned that the county has $1.6 million in reserves as well.