County Commission - Regular Meeting

Something like that. Okay. Quite a bit. Don't start singing or anything because we're now live. Okay. We don't have a great big crowd. I figured there'd be a lot of people come out just to see me or the next.

Okay, we'll get started this morning and

Appreciate y'all coming out today for the activity of the regularly scheduled commission meeting. This is May the 26th commission meeting. And before we get started, if you'll bow with me, I'll ask God to guide our direction today.

Dear God, we come before you again, dear Lord, humble and ask you for your grace.

God, we just ask you to give us the wisdom to take your word, dear Lord, and apply it to our lives.

And we know if we do that, that...

Dear God, you'll be satisfied with us. Along that line, dear Lord, we especially ask you to direct our hands in the positions we hold here. We know that you actually mentioned the government positions in the Bible, how important they were for us to do those in a godly manner. So God, we lift these positions up to you in the actions that we take. Lord, we thank you for your protection over our families. We thank you for taking care of the sicknesses in our families, both mental sickness, financial sickness, emotional sickness, whatever it may be. We just thank you so much for your healing hand. We lay all these things now at the feet of Christ. And in his name we pray.

Amen.

Now I'd ask Commissioner Ricky Parker to lead us in the place of belief. Okay, we may be seated and we'll get started here this morning. He hadn't decided to jump back in the guard and volunteer for Iran, did he, Eddie? Because it looks like we're not going to leave there anytime soon.

They said I was too old, they wouldn't take me away.

Oh, okay. Well, all right then. I don't think you're too old. I think you ought to kill myself. Dan, we're glad to have you back up here today. I thought you was retired and gone. We had your retirement party. Are you looking for another one?

I thought that's what every day was going to be like.

Well, every day is a party till you're gone. OK. Well, that's better be up to you to do that. And we have our circuit clerk with us, Kathy Burke. Glad to have you with us today. And did you have some requests that we need to put on here? If you do, just jump in there anywhere. We'll get it on one of our reports here. OK. all right and other folks that are here we still uh we got some staff people here got some visitors here from up on pine mountain even uh back there we appreciate y'all being here today uh that we border blunt county and pine mountain has an area of their uh fire protection area and all in our county and then we have uh We still have an election coming up. Tuesday was a week ago. A week ago today, we had an election, but we still got some decisions to make. So there'll be a runoff election coming up here pretty soon. Katrina's in one of those. And Adam Pardue will be the other candidate in that. So we'll have that coming up. And hopefully people will come out and vote and help us make the decisions on who will fill these positions as we move forward. And with that, I'll call this meeting to order. And we'll get started on our official agenda today. Having called the meeting to order, the first item on the agenda is to approve the agenda. You can look that over. You probably already have. Entertain a motion to approve. Motion. Second. Properly moved. Second. Any discussion, additions, deletions to the agenda? Not all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Did we need to take action on that that you wrote in on the amendment?

No, sir. When you come to it, you can just mention about amending it.

Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Next item, approve the minutes of the regular meeting of May the 12th, our last regular meeting. Entertain a motion to approve. So moved. Have a motion to have a second. Second. Properly moved and second. Any additions, deletions to those minutes, discussions? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Okay, moving on to the report section. Dan Dahlke, county engineer. For a few more days, he's going to get his last few shots in, it looks like. Now, would this be your last regularly scheduled meeting?

This will be it. I'm actually letting Clay take the ball.

He just here from . Oh, is that what it is?

That's what it is.

Well, now, Clay, keep in mind that if you don't do this right, we can have an emergency meeting and come back and redo it. So don't let Dan intimidate you over there, OK? So no, we appreciate Clay stepping up. We're fortunate here to have had a team of engineers and Dan just has cross trained those people and they're moving right on up and from the public a lot of people out there you mentioned Dan Dawkins they recognize your name about as quick as they do any commissioner because a lot of people have dealt with you some of them in a good way The only difference, I'll tell people the only difference in Dan and Clay is Dan, when he said, when somebody wanted their private driveway paid, Dan would say no. Clay says we'll have to do that at night. So there's a little bit of difference in those two. So we appreciate it. OK, Clay, I've set you up now. Don't disappoint us.

CLAY HENSON JR.: I asked Dan the other day when we was up there for his retirement party, I asked him could I keep his number and call him. He says, no. He said, I'm turning that phone in. That number stays with that phone. He says, hey, don't. I won't be having it no more.

Well, is that gonna be Clay's phone? I don't know whose phone it's gonna be. I don't guess it'll be anybody's. We'll just want to be sure we put Clay's phone number on our public website and all that, you know. Otherwise, we're gonna get all those calls. Yeah, there you go. I ain't gonna mention that.

Clay will have to get used to me calling him on weekends, nighttime, when he's on vacation.

Yeah. I've got it by my nightstand.

There you go.

My wife had said we'd carried the commission on several vacations before.

That's right. I promise you, I did not know when he was on vacation. And I guarantee you, every time he was on vacation for some reason, I called him for some reason.

You called him a lot of times when he wasn't on vacation. It's all mixed together.

I want to point out, there's one more difference. About eight inches. That's true. There you go.

We get you some of those beefed up boots to wear. Oh, boy. Platform shoes for sure.

All right. We got eight items to review today. On the first one, just updating crews and projects. Haven crews been in the Camp Winnetoska area for the last couple weeks and weather provided they'll be out of there this week and moving toward the Shoal Creek Valley area. Be over there for a few weeks. And then moving on to the base crew. They've recently finished the pad work over at the arena. That they were requested to do and right now they're building access paths to the Wolf Creek debris removal project and they're About halfway done with those a little over halfway and also The contractor, he's moved in Thursday. He moved in Thursday, and he's getting good and well on his way. So he says he'll be out in two weeks. So weather provided, he'll be out in two weeks. That'd be a good thing. That'd be a good thing. OK, and we've met with some out people for the Riverside Bridge. And we're just waiting on some information from them as to what we need to do with the detour for that bridge project. And I'll be hearing from them this week, by the end of the week.

Do you have any indication that that's a problem for them? Or is it just the level of the improvement to the detour that's the question? You're going to have to detour or close the road. Somehow or another, that'll be detoured. So it's the question mostly, how much will we be paid to help us make a better detour? Is that right?

DAVID BURRAGE- That is, whether we can use some of the funds to build that detour up. And to the degree that we're going to have to build the detour up also is a question.

DAVID BURRAGE- And the county property coming off the depot all the way through over the down at the Huckleberry Pond, and then the city limit starts. Where is it?

The northern end of Huckleberry Farm is where our maintenance ends.

The northern end. That's some of that engineering talk. Is that the end towards Depot Street or Riverside?

That's the end where the better pavement is.

Ah, gotcha. That's what I thought. So we stop right there. Yes. So the actual dam that's there, or the roadway and dam, is in the city limits of Riverside.

That's correct. OK.

So it may be that we want to get that here. So that is Riverside's, and that seemed to be one of the concerns all along. If we don't get approved, for money to go towards that uh we may need to get with riverside to do upgrades on that dam or otherwise we're going to have a real nice road to detour dumping out onto a really problem road so we may have to get with riverside and do whatever it takes to make that a smooth enough road for people so quite a few people will be driving that road so because they'll have won't they have to come off a broken arrow road

Sugar farm.

I know, but all the people that live down Broken Arrow Creek subdivision, isn't that on the other side of the bridge? For Riverside?

Yeah, I mean, the Broken Arrow Creek goes off in the curve, but the detour would actually be on further toward Coastal City Road. OK. We're sure we're on coast.

Yeah, the detour will, but what I'm saying is the people at Broken Arrow right now come out and just jump out on the depot street and take off through Riverside. They won't be able to do that with it. No, agreed. So that's a large number of people right there in one area that'll have to go back and catch the detour or whatever. I just... I mean, that detour is not just going to be the few people that normally have taken a sewer department. It's going to dump more people now onto that road that we didn't used to have. That's correct. That's a busy road, so we've got to get it right, whatever it is. Yeah. So I guess what I'm saying is that We'll talk about it at a work session and see what it's going to take to get it. Maybe have two plans. If we get money from the state, we can do a much better job. If we don't get money from the state, and we may have to get the mayor of Riverside, especially in his position as the new president of the League of Municipalities, to make sure that he gets involved in that discussion. That may help. Because part of that money, our road's not in real bad shape now. It's the rest of it we're going to have to be looking at. And it's in Riverside. Okay. I was just pontificating on that before we ran into a bump.

You have you have the floor. All right, then moving on to number two, like to just excuse me, consider paying a final invoice to the waterworks board of town of Raglan for the move in the waterline. around the bridge project we're going to be able to replace the bridge now that they've got their water line uh moved and this is the this is the final uh final invoice that'll have to be paid you're ready for it to be paid for y'all's engineering or whatever you've done there yes

DAVID BURRAGE. Motion that we approve paying the invoice. Have a motion and a second. DAVID BURRAGE. Second. DAVID BURRAGE.

Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? DAVID BURRAGE. Yes, we may want to make a note that comes to about $140,000 total, right, for the total. DAVID BURRAGE.

No, the water line, the bids came in about $38,000 higher. So instead of 149,200, the final number is just shy of 192,000.

And then just a reminder, that Providence Road project was 66,000. Making a note. We're giving a quarter of a million total this year. Approximately. Right? Close to it.

I don't say give them, we perform those for them. Just to make a note. And I agree, that project at that bridge was a lot more expensive, but there was some discussion on, I know it goes through the city limits of Raglan, but we've always worked that road from the red line all the way through. So that's... In my opinion, that bridge and whatever it costs to upgrade, it's ours anyway.

We've always maintained it as far as before I've been here.

I wouldn't, I don't know if I'd add that to the column of what we might have given to the city. I'm proud we were able to help them. Make an appointment. Okay. Did we vote on it?

No.

Motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed no. Motion carries. Okay.

Third item, considered proposal from J.M. Wood Auction Company to auction two Kenworth triaxial dump trucks in their June 16th through 18th auction. They're guaranteeing St. Clair County $430,000 for the trucks.

Okay, I have a proposal from JM Wood on the guaranteed price of those Kenworth tri-axle dump trucks. They're guaranteeing us $430,000. I have a motion. So moved. Second. Properly moved and second. Now the Mack trucks, 87.64% return in March. What was that about? They brought that much?

Yes, they brought compared to the original.

So we got 87% of the money we paid for those trucks back. On the Kenworths, we're actually getting more than we paid for them. If that's correct, I wanted to point that out.

That is minus the...

It's not that much. It should be pretty similar. Okay. But we actually, the Kenworths cost a little bit more, and that's... One of the reasons we're only running two right now to see how they return.

Okay. I just wanted to be sure that the commission could factor that in when we're thinking about our bids and what's the value of replacing these trucks as we do. So far, it's been a good program. We literally run new trucks, trucks a year, year and a half old all the time because of this trade-out that we've got between those companies. And that's both Truck Works, his kid worked in it, and then Mack.

What kind of commission structure does the auction company have? What do they get?

Six percent. Six percent of the gross? Yes. Six percent of the gross. Any other questions on that?

Just the savings and maintenance alone is a big deal, isn't it?

Yes, sir. It's, you know, we only replace tires on these trucks.

That's a win-win. And not very much downtime with a new truck. I wish I could run one for 12% every year. I bet you do. But you'd run it 12 months out of the year. Any other questions? No, we did a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Okay. We're just testing you today. We're dragging this out for your benefit.

Thank you. Seat time. Increasing seat time. Item number four is consider a change order from Jones Contract Incorporated to change the roof material from a gaveloon to a colony green colored metal on the new equipment storage building at the St. Clair County Road Department.

The amount of the change order would be five thousand six hundred twenty three dollars Probably moved in second to approve the change order five thousand six hundred twenty three dollars to make sure that that roof matches Pretty much the color of the other roof systems out there.

That's correct That job I didn't get started. We already haven't changed Make sure there's no more change orders when that job starts.

That would definitely be preferential.

You got a discussion?

All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed no. Motion carries.

Number five it's consider agreement with mr. Alan Baker for access onto his property to remove beaver dams for five years some is $5,000 That's so we can move forward on a project that's already on the books at the sandy road in 411 I

This is a charter land project. Yes.

We need to have a motion. Have a second. Property moved and seconded. Any more discussion on that? This is a contract with that guy. Sometimes landowners would like to let us get on their property without pay. But they don't have to. This one asks for money because it's

Hopefully it'll help drain Well, the main reason we're doing this is because waterworks can't get in and move the water lines because they're under water and they can't get in and move the water lines and we can't finish that intersection up where they get the water lines moved.

Yep. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed no. Motion carries.

Item number six, we have a recommendation to bring before you for the assigned crew assistant position that is open right now. I'd like for you to consider a recommendation for Marty Murphy to fill that spot.

Third recommendation from the engineer, Marty Murphy be assigned. Appointed into the vacant sign crew assistant position. I have a motion. Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Okay. Well, I mean, it's not really, yeah, this discussion could have backed it up. What's he coming from?

Well, he's an in-house employee right now.

What is he?

General laborer.

That opens up, just makes another spot for a general laborer. Yes. Last year wasn't it the year that we went through the whole year with about five vacancies and never could fill? Yes. Part of that list, that's what I'm saying.

They'll be open positions for sure. We'll be working to fill those this summer. Item seven is consider a recommendation for the vacant superintendent position. We'd like for you to consider Brandon Vaughn for that position.

OK, heard the recommendation engineered that we approved the appointment of Brandon Vaughn into the road superintendent position. So moved. Second. Properly moved and second. Any discussion? Where did Brandon work before? Yeah, what was his position?

Brandon's been with us for almost Since 2015, I believe that's about the time he came on board, and he's been moving up. He's worked in all the crews, and he's been a crew leader and foreman. And on the base, he's currently the foreman on the base crew.

We've moved it out of a foreman's position, so that'll make a foreman's vacancy.

It will.

Maybe I'll look to appoint that, to approve that.

Second half of June. Second half of June.

Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. OK.

And the last and eighth item is consider sending out a RFQ, a request for qualifications, to seek a consultant for planning and design work for our SS4A Safe Streets for All grant project. DAVID BURRAGE.

Terry, you've heard the recommendation of the engineer that we send out RFQs looking for a consultant for planning and design work for the Safe Streets for All grant project. Motion to approve that? Motion. Second? Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? The Safe Streets for All is a project where we choose the project or that consultant will look at our projects and that's where the recommendation for the project will come from. In other words, do you choose them as the engineer or will you sit down with the consultant? What's the deal there on that?

Well, it's to come up with a comprehensive safety plan for St. Clair County. And this consultant will look at all the high crash locations in the county, and they'll come up with recommendations for the countermeasures to try to reduce the amount of crashes in the county.

And then we're allowed one demonstration project. Is that correct?

We can have as many as 10.

We can have up to 10 demonstrations?

For the application for what they have approved.

OK, gotcha.

There's some guidelines.

That one in the pipeline we're looking at, we're not sure it'll even work. But this consultant will tell us whether that project would work.

In the projects that can come up, we'll find as many as 10. It's just a temporary countermeasures just to evaluate whether those countermeasures going forward will work for a bigger project.

Those temporary projects would be something smaller than a major project that we can look at? Is that what that's for?

Yeah, maybe bollards, things of that nature.

Those little plastic things in this bracket down there. And are all of these projects going to be on county maintained roads, not anything in the city limits?

Could possibly be in the city limits. We've already had an agreement brought before the commission where we're going to include the municipal roads also. The municipal roads where there are already these high crash frequencies at, these locations, if they're in municipalities, they're going to take a look at figuring out countermeasures for those locations.

i guess that's part of the term safe streets for all the whole county we're looking at safe streets and what would that mean some of those will possibly be in municipalities where we have roads uh the next thing let's just say we've got a county road we traditionally maintain but under the the guidelines are under the in-house changes made over the last few years some of those we don't really look at as county roads anymore This is specifically to look at whatever improvements we make will go towards saving the most lives. That's what it's for, isn't it? That's correct. Then about those places in the entire road system of St. Clair County, or from county and municipality, not state roads and that kind of thing. We want to include interstate crashes and all that. That's correct.

No state-maintained roads, just county and or municipality roads.

We'll understand them so we'll know where that is in case y'all if our guy comes back and six out of the ten are located in a municipality. Well, that's where the worst accidents have been in this study. Is that correct? Okay. Okay. Gosh, I sound like an attorney today. This is rubbing on the seat.

I'm sitting too close. That's just coming on out there.

No discussion. I'll say aye. I'll oppose no. Motion carried. Okay.

That's all I have. Were we sufficiently inquisitive

Well, that answers my second question, was do you want us to ask you more questions?

At your pleasure.

Well, I'd like to say you surprised me by just being able to jump right out there with an answer. He studied for this exam. Yeah, he did.

There you go.

Anybody else want to comment on his first meeting without any assistance?

I'd just like to say something about Dan. I know it's Dan's last meeting, and I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you, Dan.

I appreciate that. It's been a privilege to work with everyone.

I'm going to miss you. I'm going to miss calling you and talking to you. I'm not going to call you.

I'll give you my other number. Okay. I'll leave that number then.

You've been real free with that. Your mother gave it to me the other day. Yes. We've been fortunate in this county to have Dan as our engineer for the last many years, 30-something years. That's a service to the county, and a lot of that is county engineer. And I tell you, you helped raise the bar in the Association of County Engineers. to what a county engineer is in Alabama. I really believe that. You were a part of the crew that helped do that. And I'm sure Clay's going to be sort of the same way. There's never a dead end to being able to make improvements. You can always make some. And you've definitely influenced other county engineers. As long as I've been affiliated with county, I can probably name 10. And you're one of them that moved this whole idea of a county engineer being in charge of county roads and getting more work done with citizens' money. You've just been able to do that. And safety has been a big issue with you. Upgrades and how you've dealt with changes coming down from the federal. Not many people know that you had to go through the process of getting mandates from the federal government on how we do our roads so we could continue to get federal money. Not many people even know that. And I doubt if we've ever missed any money because you didn't help meet those compliances. Well, with the exception of not having the bridge on the, what you call that, tip, the tip thing. But you learned a little there, too. But you did.

And he applies for a lot of grants. So he's always looking for grants that's out there to apply for. So Clayton, we expect you to carry on producing. Because the grants out there, we won't be applying for them.

And you've got to be ready for them, as you know. I'll give you an example that I'd have never thought about. Reflectivity on our signs. The federal government came down with a mandate that the signs have a certain amount of reflectivity. And if we didn't change all of our signs, if you just start thinking about how many signs we've got, And 600 miles of road, that's a lot of signs. Well, they all, if you got federal money, if the road possibly would qualify, then those signs had to have that up-to-date reflectivity. And you've done those little things behind the scenes that not many people know about. And I can tell you a lot of counties wouldn't be prepared for federal money if they tried right now.

Floodplain management.

I thought it was in. Behind the scenes, yeah. And y'all handled it. And that's not even really yours. No. But Tina said she wasn't going to take it.

But anyway, I just want to tell you thank you for everything you've done for this county and for helping me all these years. The few years I've been on here, any time I've had a question or needed something, you've been there. I appreciate it.

Clay, there's no pressure on you.

Yeah.

Step up. There are some big things in the works. Hopefully in the short time to come, but Clay's already getting ready for him, so I feel like you're in good hands. Him and, well, both Blakes are stepping up, seeing a lot of maturity here in the last, especially a few months here, about jumping in and just going ahead and taking over stuff. Just to be honest, I hadn't really done much of the, hard work on any of this stuff since probably the first of the year. So they've pretty much handled all of it.

Good transition. Yes. Let's keep it going. Thank you all. There you go. Thank you, Clay. Any more questions for Clay? Yes, ma'am.

Well, I'd just like to say I've just now figured out who Dan is. And now Dan's leaving trying to put a face with everybody. But Stan, my name's Margaret Walker. I live on the Coal City end of Depot Street. Wiggins Lane and Lane Place Road is supposed to be on the agenda, according to Dan. So I'm putting your face in my mind. I'm also, Mr. Stevens, you're my commissioner. Yes, ma'am. I've just been able to put a face with you because I've been to a couple meetings that you haven't been at. But anyhow, you'll be hearing from me.

You didn't know Whistler Purdy, did you?

Also, speak up. Speak up.

Oh, yeah, there you go.

Yeah, hear good.

Speak up. That's some good training from a constituent right there, Clay. You got him indoctrinated right there.

You know her roads are on the agenda now.

Yeah. They're on the list this year. That's right. And I can see, let me just, I'm not going to go through all that because we know about it. We learned a lot out there. We learn something all the time, but we learned something on that one too. So thank you for being here and having an interest in what we're doing here.

Yeah, and I'd also like to, I don't know if this is the time to bring it up, but I was really sort of disappointed at the polling last week at Wattsport. It was handled very unprofessional by the people I thought was there. Me and my husband walked in. He'd been in the hospital. There was a heated discussion between the gentleman trying to vote and the man behind the table that was working the polling area. Then we get around. We finally voted. And then we get up there. I thought I smelled smoke. And I thought, what? And I look around, and a young lady is vaping, sitting in a chair like an Indian with her legs crossed, cell phone in her hand, and she's vaping. And I'm like, I'm seeing things. So then when I get up there and put my ballot in, I said, hon, you know that's illegal. She looked at me and she said, it's not a problem. I said, it is for me. So that needs to be a concern. If they can't do without a cell phone and a vape long enough to work the polls, don't put them in there. They do not need to be there. There's got to be people that's qualified to work our polls without all this bull going on.

We appreciate you bringing that for us, too, so we can get the people that can handle that, but it's tough to get poll workers, and I wouldn't say we take substandard ones, but in that situation, they really didn't need to be smoking, vaping, chewing tobacco, or whatever. So, appreciate you bringing that to us, also. Thank you for being here. Come visit us. Glad you're here. Stay to the end. Stay to the end today. Yeah, so we can chat. Okay. Any other questions for the county engineer, Clay Phillips? If not, Tina? We have set the bar pretty high for your administrator's report there.

Okay. I have a short report. The first item is consider a resolution authorizing a one-time lump sum payment for retirees And this will also include the supernumerary, which we have two of them for a one-time bonus. And that's per our local act for the supernumeraries.

The local act had the supernumeraries. The other was a state act that gave retired state employees a one-time bonus. And county commissions have to say, we opt in. Is that what this resolution does? Ops us in. So entertain a motion to opt in. So moved and seconded. Any other discussion on that? We all understand what that is. We're not allowed by the examiners to give county retired employees an increase in their salary until, I mean, they're on the state retirement system, so it has to go through the state retirement. So I don't think state retirees, we know about it. How long has it been since state retirees actually had a raise?

Well, I've been retired. I've been retired in the state until I retire. I've been retired over 21 years. I've never got a cost of living raise. Wow.

Well, Senator Goodell said we'd get what we paid for.

Well, matter of fact, I've never even got one of them lump sums.

You ain't got a lump sum. The lump sum, from a public standpoint, isn't it $1 per month? So when you retired, if you had 642 months, To retire, you get a lump sum payment of $642 minus your taxes paid out of it. So that's what the lump sum is. Okay, you hear the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries.

It's just a reminder, City of Springville will host the St. Clair County Mayor's Association Breakfast at 7.30, about 7.30 Wednesday, May the 27th at the Springville City Hall.

Tomorrow morning, 7.30. Greenville City Hall.

That's all I have, Chairman, unless y'all have any questions for me.

Okay. Thank you, Tina. Do the commissioners have any questions for Tina? Come on, come up with something. We're grilled the heck out of Clay. Clay's kind of new. We're trying to break him in. We're trying to make an example of Clay. Thank you, Tina.

Thank you.

Okay, county attorney's report.

Okay, so I just got a couple of items that relate to the personnel manual. There are three items that I'd like to ask you all to consider approving today. One has to do with overtime for election-related activities with the staff. There is a policy from 2010 that was adopted and there have been some other actions over the years that were more general that may kind of created a little confusion about what the current state of overtime compensation is. And so I would ask that you consider approving a measure to, um, authorize overtime for, um, the employees from probate court, um, as approved by the probate judge.

Okay. For the recommendation for the change for the employee's, uh, handbook. Motion. That was a proper movement. Second. Any discussion on that?

And then there's other employees, too, that have... I'm sorry. Yeah, that's...

I'm sorry. Yeah, correct.

The sheriff's office. Even they would be approved by the probate judge if they're even from another department, wouldn't they? Well, I would... Another department head can't send somebody to work the polls or to work the election process but the probate judge. Well, I guess probate judge, circuit clerk, and sheriff. Right.

So each elected official would approve their own.

Right.

That's the way we talked about it at the work session.

I would think that would be the way the policy would need to read. Right. Get the elected official. That elected official is in charge of those employees certified that such and such has worked so many hours. X number of hours.

And that's for county employees.

So that's, did we do a motion and a second? We did a motion and a second on that number one there. And any other questions on that? I'd flesh that out. We're good there. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed no. Motion carries.

Okay. In 2023, the commission revised policy 114. And that is going to be incorporated into the policy manual with some additions and some revisions. So the main thing that would change has to do with the supervisors being authorized or department heads being authorized to assign employees to work at a higher or lower capacity and that the employee be compensated according to whatever that role is that they're stepping into. And as it's written, they have the authority to do that for 10 working days. And the request is that that be amended to cover a period of time up to the next regularly scheduled county commission meeting.

As discussed in the work session, this will sort of fix that situation where the supervisor would have to stop them at 10 days, but yet the work might be still going on. But we hadn't had a commission meeting, so the commission could extend it. So have a motion? Motion. Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed no.

Motion carries. And then the third item has to do with, um, employees, county employees that are on, um, injured on the job, their own workers comp, and they returned to work and have follow-up doctor's appointments. Um, we'd like, um, you all to consider making it so that the employees are not having to use their personal time to make those appointments. And so the policy would be that the employees have some sort of documentation upon their return from those appointments where either the doctor or their staff has signed off on their Arrival and departure time and the department head would be in a position to make an assessment about reasonable transportation, you know travel time to and from the appointments Any discussion on that change and Kirk that applies to work related injuries, correct?

Yes

That's one of our workers' comp issues there, pretty much. Okay. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Very good. Thank you. This may be time, because we want your input, to ask the spokesperson, if you're okay there, we'll let them come up, though, about the Is this a discussion on the Pine Mountain appointment? My report's coming up next, so I think I'll just plug y'all into that if y'all want to mention what the situation is at Pine Mountain. I'm sorry, Judge. Excuse me.

Go ahead. So we spoke earlier, and our plan was to discuss after the meeting, and then if we could put this to the next work session to flesh out. I think that would take considerable discussion, probably. Yes, sir.

So unless y'all just have something that you want to say At the next work session then and make sure that then it becomes an action item on the next agenda

So if that works out. I think the deal now is St. Clair County appoints one member of the Pine Mountain Water Board?

That's correct. Okay. Yes. Okay.

And that had to do with the two-mill property tax. You couldn't, part of that tax couldn't be sent to Pine Mountain unless it was affiliated with county that disperses it.

One of the stipulations is that they own real property.

To be a board member.

Right.

Yeah.

This person does not.

We'll get into that then and see how the different the different documents that formed, some of them are water boards, some of them are fire, water, sewer authorities. Some of them have five members, some of them have three. I think one time or another we've had up to seven. So we'll get into that discussion at the next one so we make sure how that works. And some of them say that they have to live within the zone where the water board covers. Some of them say they have to own, one of them I remember years ago we discussed had to own property where the water board was. And so we'll look into your, that gives him time to look into your document to know what it says.

Being fair to everybody, he needs to research this. I wouldn't want him to act without researching it because this could be some problems.

That'll give us a chance to look at that and see exactly what it says. Okay. You and the commissioners have any questions about that? All right. Thank you so much, sir. And then into our reports, then of course we got, I keep running into people at restaurants and all that, and some of them say, yeah, I'm glad you're going to be gone, you sorry rascals. And then we've got others that will hug my neck and say, I'm so sorry. Well, you know what? We get four years in this job, and then we want it again. We go out and ask for it again. And I've actually gone through that process seven times where the citizens said, we want you again, or we want you back. And that's enough. If I went away unhappy about the last election, it'd be really selfish. So that's not my case. At my age and the number of terms I've had, I'm extremely happy. having been selected to serve a four-year term again before. I'm not unhappy now. In fact, I've had some conversation with the new Republican nominee. We're in office. Me and Jeff are going to retire about the same time. But we're in office until November. So we've got a county commission to run for six more months, including a budget. So we've got some pretty important things to go through that we can't just drop because we are not going to be the Republican nominee. But that's okay. We'll continue to do our job. And I've had discussions with Dr. Dave Evans over at Greensport. I've been knowing him for years, too, and he's a good guy. And, of course, he's got some plans that he would like to expose to the commission. I invited him to share some of those plans during the next six months in our work sessions especially. And we'll probably leave room in my report to open the door for him to speak at some meetings. Because the budget, for example, this commission will be the one making it and approving it. But if there's things in there that really are a heartburn for whoever's coming in as two people, there's no sense in waiting until we leave in November and they have to have another meeting to change the budget. So we want those people involved as much as possible in the budget process so that when they come into office officially, that's not on their mind. That would just be because we can. And that's not what any of us are all about. extremely i know jeff is too we're extremely proud to to put in and serve the citizens and and we could in the loss of an election doesn't mean that we're not proud of doing that anymore and i know exactly why i lost the election dr dave evans got more votes That's my report. Thank y'all for allowing me to make it. Commissioner Jeff Brown, District 1. I just want to thank everybody. It's been good. It's going to be a good six or four months. It is. Commissioner Ricky Parker.

Well, we finally got the folks back to work down at Fort Lauderdale. But now it's raining all the time. You can't get nothing done.

It's going to rain again today. Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

I rode by there this morning. It looks like a little pond over there in two little places. It looks like a little pond in there. Hope nobody runs off in there.

Oh, Tim, it's been a knit on 411. That's a major project. That's all I got. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Joey Stevens, District 3. Thank you, Stan.

First, I want to reiterate what we've said here before and what we talked about at Dan's retirement party. Dan, we appreciate the 34 years you've given us and the service you've rendered to this county. It's truly, you've had an exceptional run and we hate to see you go, but we're glad to see Clay step in there and we know he'll do a do a great job as well. Secondly, we've got a runoff election coming up. A couple of guys here mentioned the election and Ms. Wiggins had mentioned the issue out there at and we just need to encourage everyone to get out there and vote it's going to be you know traditionally there's low low turnouts for these these type things so every vote matters and we need to encourage everybody we can to get out and vote additionally i have reviewed some of these items on this pending list and i want to strongly encourage this body that there are a few projects we can that I think that we need to be more aggressive about. One is the bank building in Asheville. That building was purchased a couple of years ago and I'd like to see some movement on getting that project down the road a little bit and also our juvenile detention center. That project's been discussed for five years and I'd like for us to be a little more aggressive on pushing that ball down the road a little bit. We've got several things that need to be done and We need to be about it and get it done. And thank you, Ms. Wiggins, for being here today.

Miss Walker. Miss Walker. Yeah, I was speaking of a road down below where I live.

I'm glad you're here today.

I hope you come back and I'm going to do my best not to schedule family medical emergencies next time you come. I'm going to try to make sure I'm here when you're here.

I hear you. I got your face in my mind and I done got your number.

You can call me anytime. Anytime. I like that. You got the main part now.

I apologize, Commissioner Stevens. I'm the one that told him it's Wiggins. Ms. Walker.

Thank you for being here.

The older people in here, my mother and dad was Gene and Mary Lane of Coast City.

Gene Lane used to cut right-of-ways under contract years ago, so everybody in the district knew him. We had Harold Hall cut down on District 4, and Gene cut over on District 3. And a couple of other commissioners, I don't know, did you ever have anybody in your district to do it?

Yeah.

You found somebody? You found some of them, didn't you? Yeah. And it worked really well, but the liability of plugging in a private individual to mow the county's right-of-ways got to be a little bit scary. So we actually stopped that program, but that's where I remember Gene from out there mowing our right-of-ways and being sort of a quasi-county employee there for a while. You could have gotten more attention if you were still working for the county.

Do what now? I'm sorry.

You could have gotten more attention if Gene was still here and working for the county. Oh, is that why? Gene's got a son working for the county. Oh, that's right, he does.

Yeah, my brother works there.

Okay.

Commissioner Bob Mize, District 4. I can't add anything other than what everybody said about Dan. We all appreciate you, what you've done for us. You're always there for me, too. And one time, it was a meeting of about six individuals, something like Mr. Walker was talking about, and you bailed me out. You and Clay drove up right in time. I was right in the middle of them, and I knew I couldn't outrun two. So when you drove up, it just seemed like you put a calming effect over them, and I appreciate that. You know who I'm talking about.

Oh, me. Okay, moving on now into our regular, the main part of our agenda. First item on the agenda is old business, and that's to consider a request from Trade Name Rodeo Rhythm Green Sports for approval of an alcohol license, and I think this is an event license, isn't it? So we tabled it for two weeks, so now we need a motion to up or down. Motion. Have a motion to approve? Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Now, new business. Consider ratifying resolution 2026-29, recognizing head engineer, Dan Dahlke, on his retirement. So that's the resolution that we just presented to him already. We're ratifying that. Have a motion? Motion. Second, I guess. Probably moved and seconded reluctantly. Any discussion? You've had so many accolades, and now we don't need to put any more out there, Dan. Sure. When are you going back to Fairview this afternoon? This afternoon. Did y'all get any flood damage?

No.

There were some tornadoes. Tornadoes came through. Tornadoes came through the holocon, didn't they? The holocon in Fairview grew up between there and several trees down in Stuyvesant.

I'm sorry. Jumped ahead of the movie. That's good. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Item two, consider request for EMA Director Patrice Kusiasky to purchase materials from Shop CPR in the amount of $659.20 to teach CPR and AED instruction to county employees. This will include in the county safety program. This will be implemented in the county safety program. And will this little bit be out of her regular funds? We need a budget amendment. Yes, sir. Just out of her regular funds. I have a motion. Motion. Second. Property moved and seconded. Any discussion? This will be also sort of headed up with our new safety person. He's really taking this on because he used to do these sorts of things. So I think he's ready to go with it. Do you have discussion? All those say aye. Aye. All opposed no. Motion carries. Item number three. Consider a request for Teresa Kuzniasky to apply for a Coos Valley RC&D grant free smoke detector and rain gauge distribution program for St. Clair County residents. It's a $5,000 grant, which is 100% reimbursable. What that means, we pay it first, and then we get reimbursed, right? Yes, sir. Have a motion to approve. Motion. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Item four. Sir, request Sheriff Murray to adopt resolution authorizing disbursement of $29,638 payable into the Sheriff Murray's Better Law Enforcement Fund. Have a motion to approve that. Transfer of money. Motion. Property moved and seconded. Any more discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Item five. Consider request, Sheriff Murray, to renew the subscription in the amount of $3,000 per year. This subscription renews pistol permits online. So you can buy your pistol permit online. Have a motion? Motion. Second? Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed no. Motion carries. Item six. Consider request, Sheriff Murray, to approve the Industrial Networking Solutions INS service agreements in the amount of $443.31 per year, pending review by the county attorney. This is for an annual subscription for service and support provided by Cradle Point for the DEU van and search and rescue trailer. This is some internal things that the sheriff needs. Have a motion. So moved. Second? Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed no. Motion carries. Next item is a municipal agreement resolution and we want to take action to change the June 1st review of this to August 1st. Is that right?

August 1st for every year from this day forward.

So this changes it period. So I have a motion to change the date of doing this resolution so the municipalities will know about it every year from June the 1st to August 1st gives a little more time for us to work into it with our budget, a little less time for them to work into theirs, but it should be before they do their budget, so everything should be fine. Have a motion, have a second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed no. Motion carries. Item 8. City requests property manager Roddy Wolf to add an additional maintenance position. This will be a budget amendment. That maintenance position as discussed a few minutes ago was one we had on the books. We thought was still there but it wasn't so we're adding we're basically adding one back and it will be a level 12.

Yes sir.

A level 12. So entertain a motion to add that position. So made. Second. Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed no. Motion carries to add that position. Out of nine. Sir requests Jail Administrator Phillip Bernard to pay an invoice without a purchase order to Goree Reagan in the amount of $1,431.17 for work on a control board at the gate at the jail. So this would be to fix the control board out there that had a problem. Motion? Motion. Second? Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no motion carries. Next item, consider travel request. You have a copy of the travel information in your files, and there's quite a few training programs coming up that staff will be going to. And entertain a motion to approve those travel requests. So moved. Second? Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed no. Motion carries. Consider the board board appointments. Have any board appointments ready today? I don't know any. Okay moving on to item 12. Consider payment of the regular bills. You've got a copy of the bills in your files. How much of the bills this time we're paying Mr. Winster?

$1,821,921.15.

Motion. I have a motion to pay $1,821,921.15 for the bills. Do we have a second? Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? Of course, this comes with our policy at this time to allow commissioners up until 5 o'clock today to stop payment on any of these bills, give them a chance to go over them. Do it.

Do you want a rebrand resolution? No. Do you want a rebrand? Well, that was the state resolution at his retirement.

Oh, yeah, we'll read that before we leave. Pay the regular bills. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Okay, before we adjourn, we're going to drag this out, Dan. This is the resolution that the commission ratified today for James Daniel Dahlke. Dang, he should have been a doctor or something. James Daniel, a doctor. He was pretty good.

He had so much to work with.

That's true. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, can you, man? Go ahead and raise your hand, Lois. Whereas James Daniel Dahlke started his career at St. Clair County April 1, 1992, as the assistant county engineer for St. Clair County Department of Transportation, advancing through the years to his current position as engineer. Whereas Daniel Dahlke, also known to all as Dan, with the St. Clair County Department of Transportation, will retire after over 34 years of outstanding and dedicated service to the citizens of St. Clair County, Alabama. And whereas throughout his many years of service, Dan has served the citizens of St. Clair County, working long, tireless days and nights to make the county a safer place. Whereas, in addition, Dan is a husband to Angela Dahlke, father to his two sons, Benjamin and Zebediah Dahlke, daughter Anna Marie Dahlke, and grandfather to Charlie, his beloved granddaughter, and then Nolan, his beloved grandson. And whereas Dan has served on several boards and mentored other engineers over his career, whereas Dan has always been so helpful in guiding the commission office staff to any questions that may arise with bids and county property over the years, his knowledge will be sorely missed. Whereas Dan has exemplified his faith by serving in his church and being a provider for his family, and whereas we would like to congratulate dan on his retirement june the 1st 2026 with our sincere and grateful appreciation for a job well done and now therefore be it resolved in recognition of his many years of tireless dedication service professionalism and commitment to the st clair county department of transportation and St. Clair County Commission, the Department of Transportation does hereby bestow gratitude and public recognition to Dan and offers best wishes for continued happiness and success in your retirement. In witness where Commissioners Jeff Brown, Commissioner Rick Parker, Commissioner Joey Stevens, Commissioner Bob Mize have caused the resolution to be executed on their behalf by Stan Bateman, Chairman of the St. Clair County Commission on his 26th day of May 2026. That has now been ratified. So I believe you've got a copy of that already framed and all that. Okay. This has been ratified. So pass that back as a ratified document. And once again, Dan, thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you all. And Stan, I think you was on the commission and hired me too, so I appreciate that.

Yeah, well, you know, when you've been around a long time and you start outliving staff, something's wrong here. So that's pretty sure. I remember when I retired while we're signing these documents before we adjourned. I remember when I retired from Game and Fish, the one thing that caused me to know it was time to retire as a game warden I drove by a scope of woods that they were cutting the pine trees off of for the third time. Thank you. They have clear cut this property for three times, and I remember every time they cut it, it's time for me to retire. So you've outlived the forest. That'd get pretty crazy. With that, before we adjourn, we've got Katrina Hennings here that's a candidate. If she has anything to say today or just visiting, now well i would like to say i would love your vote and support on june 16th for our runoff yep have a runoff coming up june 16th we'll be sure everybody recognizes that there'll be several things on the ballot that's very important not only to the people that are running for these offices that put a lot of work into those elections but also to the to the operations of our government both federal state And county governments are on this ballot, and it's very important that we do that. We have a representative from the sheriff's office here. Do you have anything that you forgot to put on the agenda or whatever? You're just here watching us. Are you taking notes before you do that? Okay. Okay. All right. I think all minds are clear. And with that, I entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed no. We stand adjourned. We will be here signing documents.