Meeting of August 13, 2024
Fiscal Court Meeting - August 13th, 2024 · Watch on YouTube ↗
Summary
The Hardin County Fiscal Court met on August 13, 2024, opening with a prayer for the family of a Hardin County sheriff's deputy who recently died, and a moment of thanks for outgoing Deputy Judge Executive Vicki Meredith, who is retiring after a year and a half of service. Bonnie Sesi was announced as her replacement, starting the following Monday.
The court approved the minutes from the July 23 meeting without discussion. Animal control presented its monthly report, noting a 90% live release rate, continued no-kill status, and ongoing space constraints due to a long-term court-case animal hold. Emergency management gave an extensive update, highlighting a new underwater drone (valued at about $43,000) acquired in partnership with Lincoln Trail ADD, capable of retrieving victims from deep water, and recent mutual aid responses including a hazmat spill in Sonora and mutual aid drills with Fort Knox Fire Department.
No citizens came forward with concerns. The consent agenda was approved, covering routine financial reports and claims, a landfill gas purchase agreement extension, a rate modification for the Fort Knox intergovernmental agreement, rescinding a truck bid, a school transportation contract, personnel changes (including a new opioid-funded rapid response officer position), surplus of old cell phones, a resolution supporting renaming part of the bypass in honor of Billy and Kathy Edwards, and the 2025 litter abatement agreement.
During comments, the County Clerk reported on the annual delinquent tax sale, which brought in about $252,000, and noted rising voter registration ahead of the presidential election. Magistrates offered tributes to retiring staff, upcoming committee meetings, and paid tribute to two recently deceased community members: former fiscal court support staffer Robin Todd and longtime teacher Julia Richardson, with Magistrate Thompson sharing an emotional story about the impact of teachers. The meeting closed with reminders of upcoming community events and committee meetings, and adjourned with no objections.
Agenda (10)
- 1:50
Invocation and Pledge of Allegiance
Magistrate Clem offered an invocation lifting up the family of a Hardin County Sheriff's deputy who recently died, followed by the pledge of allegiance led by Magistrate Saltzman.
- 4:02
Judge Executive's opening remarks
Judge Executive Chick thanked Deputy Judge Executive Vicki Meredith for her service ahead of her retirement and announced Bonnie Sesi as the incoming Deputy Judge Executive, also noting his wedding anniversary.
- 8:39
Approval of July 23, 2024 minutes
The court approved the minutes from the previous meeting without discussion.
- 9:09
Animal control report
Mike McNutt presented the monthly animal control report, noting adoption and return-to-owner numbers, ongoing capacity issues due to a long-term court case involving 14 dogs, and a 90% live release rate maintaining no-kill status.
- 17:06
Emergency management report
Joy Scott reported on emergency management activities including training, mutual aid responses, a hazmat incident in Sonora, and a new underwater drone acquired with Lincoln Trail ADD capable of deep-water victim retrieval.
- 23:47
Citizens concerns or comments
No citizens came forward with comments or concerns.
- 23:58
Consent agenda
The consent agenda included financial reports and claims, a landfill gas purchase agreement extension, an Army garrison rate modification, rescinding a truck bid, a nonpublic school transportation contract, personnel changes including a new opioid-funded rapid response officer, cell phone surplus, a bypass renaming support resolution, and the 2025 litter abatement agreement.
- 30:03
County Clerk and County Attorney comments
The County Clerk reported on the delinquent property tax sale collecting about $252,000 and rising voter registration numbers ahead of the presidential election; the County Attorney had no comments.
- 32:05
Magistrate comments
Magistrates gave committee meeting reminders, thanked Vicki Meredith and welcomed Bonnie Sesi, and paid tribute to two recently deceased community members, Robin Todd and teacher Julia Richardson, with an extended personal story from Magistrate Thompson.
- 47:40
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned with a motion and second and no objections.
Motions & votes (3)
- 8:43
passedApprove the Hardin County Fiscal Court July 23, 2024 meeting minutes
unanimous roll call, all magistrates voted yes
- 29:22
passedApprove the consent agenda including financial reports, resolutions 166, 153, 154, 155, 156, 163, 164, 165, personnel changes, and committee minutes
passed with two abstentions (Clem and Thompson), others voting yes
- 47:40
passedMotion to adjourn the meeting
no objections
Transcript (39 segments)
- 0:28
e e all right very good uh thank you um welcome everyone we just a quick check of your cell phones if you don't mind make sure that they're turned off and we'll go ahead and get started this is the August 13th 2024 Harden County Fiscal Court regular voting meeting let's begin and call this meeting to order a roll call please Square Clen here Square Square Hicks here Square Muse here Square Pennington here Square Saltzman here Square Thompson here Squire Whitehead here Square yakes here
- 1:42
jge tall here uh next we'll have the invocation by magistrate Clen and the Pledge of Allegiance by magistrate Saltzman please pray with me our most gracious and loving Heavenly Father we we come to you thanking you father and for this wonderful day that you've given to us and father we come praising your Holy Name father we thank you for the many blessings that you've given to us and father we're also mindful that in this life in addition to Blessings there's also pain there's also sorrow father we've we've witnessed that as we enter the building today and Father we just ask that uh this time that you just uh share a special measure of your grace and your mercy and your your comfort uh to the family of uh Deputy Kon and father the family of Harden County Sheriff's Department they've gone through a lot the last few weeks and we just lift them up and ask for you to guard them Comfort them and keep them safe and father go with us uh through this meeting and the decisions that we make uh father may they be based on the best information that we have and and in the best interest of the those that we serve lead us guide us and direct us in
- 2:56
the things we say and do in your son Jesus name I pray amen amen join me I PL Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all all right well again uh thanks for joining us today uh just a quick review of the agenda it's Prett typical agenda uh we'll have the uh U approval of the meeting minutes from the last meeting we have several um presentations today and time for any citizens concerns or comments um we have uh the consent agenda that uh cover a little bit later and then U at the end some some comments that that covers it so uh one thing there's a couple things I just wanted to mention before we move on uh one was um the um the terrible death of
- 4:11
of Deputy uh Kon and I since our M magistr Clem's already prayed for for him for his family um then we'll just leave it at that and thanks for that prayer U for lifting up that family I was at the funeral today and it was pretty rough and uh as you would expect for his wife and and children young children and um so they definitely need to be lifted up in prayer and um anything that we can do for them of course um I offered U to his wife uh on a broader note um I was wanting to go ahead and publicly um talk a little bit about a big change um that we're about to go through um uh Vicky Meredith our Deputy judge executive over here to the left she uh has been um asking to kind of move on into back into retirement and so um we're finally able to allow her to do that uh as of this coming Friday um I just wanted to say publicly uh how much I have appreciated
- 5:23
her and her service to this County uh for a year and a half now she promised me a year whenever uh I talked her out of retirement but her background and and uh all the projects engineer being a County engineer for 15 years uh were invaluable to me as I was uh stepping into this position so uh I just wanted to public publicly say thank you very much Vicki for all that you've done and um uh it's it's um immeasurable to me and I just wanted to make sure you knew that and um and I I I believe that speaking for the rest of the county that uh that you're that you've been serving just want to say thanks for what you've what you've done so thank you very much and the second thing is that we have um we will have by Monday a new Deputy judge executive and that's Bonnie cesi she's sitting right there and um I just uh wanted to uh make sure that that was announced um so uh it's it was a bit of a process um I I tried to scare her away with trying
- 6:38
to be honest with what this job entailed and uh but she kept asking good questions and we kept working through that and finally she uh thankfully agreed to step into this position um she'll start Monday and I'm very excited about that she has a a very extensive background in in finance and um she's a a CPA and uh so she'll be able to help us a lot in in all kinds of different ways as we as we move forward in in this uh transitional time for Harden County so I'm excited about that and uh just wanted to say thank you Bonnie for stepping into this position don't bike out between now and Monday okay please don't do that I want to thank her husband too mayor I appreciate that I'm still M that I I know I know I I understand to an extent so um so those are my my big uh two big um items uh one one other one you might be wondering why there's a balloon up here that says anniversary on it and um so and even says Happy happy anniversary so uh today's my my um anniversary my wife and I have been married for 41
- 7:52
years today and uh so I just wanted to U public publicly say to my wife how much I appreciate her and all that she does for me and uh I did the best I could on picking out a nice uh flowers I don't know if they're the right ones or not but I always struggle with that um so I added the balloon for good measure so I'll give that to you later today so um so those that just about covers everything I wanted to today um as far as comments go so we'll just move on then to a approve the Harden County Fiscal Court uh July 23rd 2024 minutes is there a motion to approve salute second you catch it okay uh any discussion hearing none we'll have a roll call Square Clen yes Square Hicks yes Square Muse yes Square Pennington yes Square Saltzman yes Square Thompson yes Square Whitehead yes Square Yates yes yes Char yes motion passes all right we'll move on then to
- 9:06
department and office reports and presentations uh first up is Animal Control Mike mcnut good afternoon good afternoon and happy anniversary thank you uh I want you to keep her happy because of the cookies um you do it okay so uh this is you know the first month of the fiscal year so we adopted out 62 uh we return 24 the majority of these returns that you see were done in the field uh so basically the guys are finding how to get the animals back home without bringing them into the shelter um which I told you guys that's the best thing for everybody including the taxpayers for us not to pay to board people's animals uh two went to rescue there are other places that are doing a lot more