Meeting of October 8, 2024
Fiscal Court Meeting - October 8th, 2024 · Watch on YouTube ↗
Summary
Hardin County Fiscal Court – October 8, 2024
The Fiscal Court held a routine regular meeting, opening with prayer, pledge, and roll call of all magistrates present. The court approved the September 24, 2024 meeting minutes without discussion.
A major portion of the meeting was devoted to a presentation from Animal Control (Mike McNutt), who reviewed September adoption, return-to-owner, and complaint statistics, discussed a new partnership with John Hardin High School students helping care for kittens, described a new QR-code rabies tag program starting in January, noted staff donations to hurricane relief efforts, and announced a rescheduled rabies clinic for October 19 at the fairgrounds. No emergency management report was given since neither Joey nor Richard could attend.
No citizens came forward during the public comment period. The court then approved a large consent agenda covering routine claims, ambulance purchase/cancellation resolutions, personnel changes in EMS and 911, rejection of a detention center vehicle bid, a sewer easement agreement with Water District No. 2, a revised truck bid resolution due to a price increase, and approval of an emergency services committee meeting.
Magistrates used their comment time to announce upcoming committee meetings, remind residents about absentee voting deadlines, and mark cultural observances for October (infant loss, Down syndrome, domestic violence, and breast cancer awareness). Magistrate Saltsman honored the passing of former State Senator Elizabeth Tori for her years of service. Magistrate Hicks asked for prayers for a friend facing a lengthy prison sentence related to January 6th events.
The meeting concluded with reminders about the EMS Trunk or Treat event, the Columbus Day office closure, and the next Fiscal Court meeting scheduled for October 22 at 5:30 pm, before adjourning.
Agenda (12)
- 5:07
Call to order and roll call
Judge Tall called the meeting to order and a roll call confirmed all magistrates present.
- 5:32
Invocation and Pledge of Allegiance
Magistrate Thompson gave the invocation and Magistrate Pennington led the Pledge of Allegiance.
- 8:24
Agenda overview
Judge Tall gave a brief overview of the day's agenda items.
- 9:08
Approval of September 24, 2024 minutes
The court approved the minutes from the previous meeting with a unanimous roll call vote.
- 9:52
Animal Control presentation
Mike McNutt presented September statistics on adoptions, returns, complaints, and discussed new initiatives including a school partnership and QR rabies tags.
- 25:41
Emergency Management report
No representative was present to give the emergency management report; written reports were noted as available.
- 26:32
Citizens concerns or comments
No citizens came forward to speak during this agenda item.
- 26:36
Consent agenda review
Judge Tall explained the multiple items in the consent agenda including claims, ambulance purchase resolutions, personnel changes, a bid rejection, a sewer easement agreement, and a truck bid revision.
- 30:40
County Attorney comments
The stand-in county attorney had no comments.
- 30:56
County Clerk comments
The clerk reminded residents about the absentee ballot request deadline of October 22.
- 31:36
Magistrates' comments
Each magistrate gave updates on upcoming committee meetings, community events, and personal remarks including a tribute to the late Senator Elizabeth Tori and a request for prayer for a friend facing incarceration.
- 37:34
Closing remarks and adjournment
Judge Tall reminded attendees of upcoming events including the EMS Trunk or Treat and the Columbus Day closure before adjourning the meeting.
Motions & votes (3)
Transcript (30 segments)
- 0:28
e e e e
- 2:28
e e e e e
- 4:50
just again just check your cell phones real quick I just checked mine and thankfully I did they were both nice and loud so that would have been embarrassing so let's go ahead and start this is the October 8th 2024 Harden County Physical Court regular voting meeting to begin and call this meeting to order a roll call please Squire Clen here Squire Hicks here Squire Muse here Squire Pennington here Squire saltsman here Squire Thompson here Square Whitehead here Square Yates here judge tall here next is our uh invocation by magistrate Thompson and Pledge of Allegiance by magistrate Pennington I invite you to pray with me Father God we uh just come to you to today asking that you would continue to uh extend your favor to us your mercy your love father we thank you that you love us even though we um have faults that are um horrific sometimes as as men
- 6:02
Lord we pray that uh across our land those who know you would uh lift up themselves to you and offer themselves asking for forgiveness of the ways that we found ourselves caught up in and we pray father that you would um again bless in a mighty way this County this state and this country father right now with the wages of um uh mother nature that we don't understand that are beyond our understanding Lord we know you have authority and power there and father we pray that if it Be Your Will at all that you would deliver us from the devastation that looks to be impending on uh our southern area of the United States father we pray that you would be uh present and at work among those who have have found themselves in such Devastation Lord Heal them care for them Comfort them help them Lord to deal with the loss that they're experiencing help them Lord God and and Lord move us as a nation to be there to help in the recovery that they might recover their
- 7:16
homes father we know when when you have a home that's established and it's taken right from under you that it it is so devastating and Lord we we pray that uh they would be comforted and strengthened and that their needs would be provided for and that you'd move this nation uh to be a nation that would act as you would have us act and care for them Lord God we bless those who are GA gathered here today and we pray that you'd just continue to work in our lives and guide us as we continue to make decisions that affect us here locally thank you Father that you are merciful and graceful to us in Jesus name amen amen amen please join me in the pledge pledge of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all all right again thanks um all of you for joining today um just a quick review of the agenda and uh looks like today's agenda is is uh fairly simple uh we
- 8:29
approve the uh last meeting minutes uh we have we don't have any informational items today uh we have um a couple of of presentations um and uh have a time of citizens concerns or comments and then we just have our consent agenda which I'll go through and explain those items and then some comments and then adjourn at the end of the meeting all right so that's that review and I'll just um move right on into the next item uh we need to approve the Harden County Fiscal Court September 24th 2024 minutes is there a motion to approve move second second got a second over here then all right and then any discussion let's go ahead and have a roll call Squire Clen yes Squire Hicks yes Square Muse yes Square Pennington yes Square Salzman yes Square Thompson yes yes Square Whitehead yes Square Yates yes judge tall yes motion passes okay next uh we'll move into some uh
- 9:41
presentations um Mr mcnut is here yes and uh we'll talk to us about Animal Control good afternoon good afternoon so in the month of September we um adopted out 52 returned 37 zero left for rescue um of course part of that's uh what's going on across the nation right now um and I don't look for that to change for a while for the year to date our dog adoptions are at 172 and that's down 38 from 23 24 um we returned 91 dogs to the to their owners which is up 16 for the year-to date rescue is at 1% we're like I said we're not getting any dogs out to rescue right now um for the year to date on Ethan Asia it's it's at 11% our dog adoptions are at 58% for the
- 10:55
year to date uh for the year today the return to owner is at 30% that's the highest it's been in 5 years um I think there's a lot of different reasons for that but um mainly it's because they're doing it in the field as much as they can um and yesterday we had six dogs come in and six dogs go home within the course of 2 hours and 37 minutes the reason I'm telling you guys this is because every owner in the back were looking for their dogs that entire time but somebody picked them up and brought them to us so they were safe which is a good thing but for the most part those animals most likely would have been found by their owner if somebody hadn't picked them up so for the complaints investigated we're at 538 um that's up 59 from from last year at this time that complaint number is continuing to rise every year for the September pie chart