Supervisors voice new litter concerns
Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Lincoln County supervisors don’t want theircounty to be called “trashy”.
At their meeting Tuesday, which was pushed back one day due to thePresidents Day holiday, supervisors stated they had received callsfrom citizens complaining of seeing litter and trash on the side ofthe roads.
“I have received calls from every district about litter on theroads,” said District Three Supervisor Nolan Williamson, who isalso board president. “It has been more calls than usual in thepast week or so.”
District One Supervisor the Rev. Jerry Wilson asked if thesheriff’s office could step up litter collection with inmates.
“I have a litter crew that works off justice court fines collectinglitter,” said Lincoln County Sheriff Steve Rushing. “We have over1,000 miles of roads, so it takes us time to get through that.
Rushing said that the sheriff’s office is working on expandingtheir litter collection unit.
“We’re working on getting a second crew together now for picking uplitter,” said Rushing. “We have one vehicle assigned to littercollection all the time and another van that we can use. It’s notthe vehicles that’s the problem, it’s the logistics of getting thecrew and the inmates together.”
The sheriff’s office has recently seen some inmates who worked onlitter collection get paroled, so they are working on replacingthose inmates, according to Rushing.
Rushing said usually the day after the litter is collectedalongside a road you can see more litter and the road looks as ifit was never cleaned up – despite his office’s efforts. He would,however, like the public’s help by them not littering.
Williamson said if anyone sees someone littering or illegallydumping, they should call him or the sheriff’s office.
Another matter the supervisors took up was the issue of replacingpart of the roof on the government complex annex, which houses thetax assessor and appraisal’s offices, and has been leaking. Thebuilding was previously home to the Lincoln County HealthDepartment and later the area office for the state Department ofWildlife, Fisheries and Parks.
According to Lincoln County Administrator David Fields, only partof the roof needs to be replaced.
“We had replaced part of the roof a few years ago duringremodeling, but the part we didn’t replace is what’s leaking,” saidFields.
The part of the roof that’s leaking is over a storage area forfiles, according to Fields.
Fields said the low bid on the project was $21,150 from Mike’sEconomy Roofing. The money for the repairs would come from fundsleft over after the initial remodeling.
When the issue went to the supervisors, Wilson voiced his thoughtsthat if a county office needs something done they should comebefore the board to ask for it and not call or send an email.Wilson said he would not support the repairs to the roof and stoodfirmly behind his decision.
After the meeting, Williamson said he agreed with Wilson.
“They really should come before the supervisors to get somethingdone,” said Williamson. “Rev. Wilson got excited at the meeting,but I agree with him.”
After some discussion, the board voted 4-0, with Wilson abstaining,to approve the repairs to the annex roof and to change theirprocedure to requiring someone from the given office or departmentto come before the board and voice their concerns and ask forsomething if they need it.
The next supervisors meeting will be March 5. Meetings are open tothe public.