Sheriff’s office to buy vehicles

The Jay County Sheriff’s Office will be getting two new Ford Explorers.
Jay County Commissioners Monday authorized Sheriff Dwane Ford to purchase the SUVs from Moser Motors of Berne at a cost not to exceed $23,740 each after trade-ins.
Ford told the commissioners he expects the price to be somewhat lower because he prefers the administrative police package to the pursuit package that had been quoted. The pursuit package is not only more expensive, it also provides less clearance, which can be important during times of heavy snow.
Acting as the county drainage board, Faron Parr, Jim Zimmerman and Doug Inman approved a one-year variance on the drainage plan for land behind the Sonoco Protective Packaging Solutions plant in Portland.
Currently, the plant, formerly Createc, uses the parking lot at the former Wal-Mart building on Meridian Street to park semi trailers.
Mike Swinford of Briner Building explained Monday that Sonoco wants to create a temporary stone staging area for semi trailers east of the plant.
“They wanted to proceed with this immediately,” said Swinford. The 120-foot by 240-foot lot could accommodate about 18 trailers. An existing swale would be extended to the east, and an existing dike would be relocated to the south of the lot.
“This is going to just be temporary,” said Jay County Surveyor Brad Daniels, speaking in support of the variance.
The drainage board also had a lengthy discussion with Daniels and Mike Schwieterman of Cy Schweiterman Inc. about drainage issues at county roads 600 South and 700 West.
Schwieterman told the drainage board that when doing drainage work on farmland owned by Dick Lavy he consulted with county highway superintendent Ken Wellman about installing a new tube under the road near the intersection. He also spoke with an adjacent landowner.
But the county surveyor’s office and drainage board were not contacted and the work has resulted in ponding on another property.
“I thought we followed all the parameters,” said Schwieterman. “Obviously things weren’t done to satisfy everybody.”
“We don’t want to do something illegal,” said Zimmerman. “With what’s been done, we need to see the best thing to resolve it.”
Commissioners’ attorney Bill Hinkle said the key issue is whether the work complies with the drainage plan for that area.
The issue was sent back to Daniels and the surveyor’s office for further evaluation.
The board assured Schwieterman that any action would involve all of the affected property owners and would be formally approved by the drainage board.
“We didn’t get everyone involved that should have been involved,” said Zimmerman.
Wellman agreed with Schwieterman’s account of events and took responsibility for the problem.
“Everything Mr. Schwieterman said was accurate,” said Wellman. “I overstepped my bounds.”
Wellman and the drainage board also discussed problems with high water on a stretch of county road 300 North between county roads 400 West and 500 West after heavy rains.
In other business, commissioners:
•Renewed the county’s animal control contract with Bill Fields of rural Portland.
•Heard Ford say the county’s communications contract with Motorola expires in 2017 and he is exploring the possibility of working with adjoining counties as a way of saving money.