By Meladi Brewer

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — The Darke County Commissioners met Thursday to discuss stop the blood kits and Communication Advisory meetings. Commissioners Matt Aultman, Marshall Combs, and Larry Holmes were present.

In a matter of examination and allowance of bills, there is $16,761.16 in the General Fund, $43,277.34 in the Outside General Fund, and a Grand Total of $60,038.50.

The commissioners voted to transfer $32,788 from the general fund into the outside fund for the 2022 Building Demo Revitalization Grant. the advancing revenue will cover Mikesell Excavating Invoice for project #1 the Palestine and Greenville Demolition.

“This is for the stuff that has already been completed. It is the one farm house on 36, and then the two houses out in Palestine,” Aultman said.

He advised that since the work is completed and everything is “checked off” they are just advancing the payment for the project. The money will advance back once revenue is received from the grant.

Another fund transfer was approved for the 2023 Ditch Assessment for the Darke County Ditch Maintenance project. A total of $67,350.22 was transferred from one outside fund into another. Commissioner Aultman advised the outside fund the money was transferred out of is where the county collects the real estate taxes for their ditch assessments. The outside fund the money went into was the operational account for the ditch department to get paid out of for doing the work.

“That is why we transfer this occasionally for the ditch department,” Aultman said.

Kenneth Johnson will receive a certificate of appointment as Deputy Director for Darke County EMA effective Jan. 23. Mindy Saylor, head of Darke County EMA, advised Johnson had worked for the EMA for 10 years as a part-time employee.

“He comes to us with about 14 years of experience in emergency management, and we want to bring him on to focus on assisting county departments with their emergency planning,” Saylor said.

Johnson has specialized training in emergency communications with the Marks System and was active with the switch over. He will also help with the emergency communications coordination, special events planning, and expanding the EMA’s training and exercises programs.

“We are getting a bunch of requests for training with out health care facilities, our schools, we are required to do hazardous materials exercises, so we really want to expand that as an overall community preparedness,” Saylor said.

She said those will be his focuses with bringing him onboard.

The commissioners fixed the date on two public hearings. The CDBG PY2022 Critical Infrastructure program for the Village of Gettysburg will be on January 17 at 2:30 p.m. in the Board Room of the Darke County Administration Building located at 520 South Broadway, Greenville. Immediately following, at 3 p.m., there will be another public hearing for the CDBG PY2022 Critical Infrastructure Program for the Village of Arcanum.

Commissioner Aultman advised they had their first Communication Advisory Meeting on Wednesday. He said there were 14 board members and one visitor in attendance. They are starting the process to set bylaws.

“We (the commissioners) set the advisory board up the middle of last year to advise on the communications through out the county through radios, dispatch, all the emergency communications, etc,” Aultman said.

The meetings will be the first Wednesday of every month starting at 6:30 p.m. at EMA.

Saylor also advised the commissioners the county had received 6o0 Stop the Bleeding Kits through the Homeland Security Grant, as bleeding is the number one cause of death in mass casualty situations.

In order to prioritize, they put four kits in every law enforcement vehicle in the county.

“We did this with the thought process that they are out on the roads and -a lot of the time- are the first on the scene during any type of incident,” Saylor said.

The kit has chest seals, truncates, and other supplies alongside an information card so anyone can utilize the kit.

“We are really proud of this program. Hopefully we never have to use them, but they’re nice to have just in case,” Saylor said.

The Commissioners were given two kits to put inside their AED box in case of an emergency.

The Darke County Board of Commissioners meets every Tuesday and Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at their office located at 520 S. Broadway Street in Greenville. To contact the office, call 937-547-7370.

To contact Daily Advocate Reporter Meladi Brewer, email [email protected].