County News
OSWEGO — During Monday’s Labette County Commission meeting, commissioners herd lengthy discussion on Neighborhood Revitalization Plans.
County Appraiser Melody Kikkert and Jim Zaleski, economic development director with the City of Parsons, approached the commission to begin conversations about how to make the NRP process easier for the county appraiser’s office with a potentially county-wide NRP.
Neighborhood Revitalization Plans are aimed at facilitating revitalization and development efforts in neighborhoods within a defined area. This facilitation comes in the form of tax rebates for those who have made qualifying improvements or developments to a property. During the discussion, Zaleski described NRP as the top tax incentive program available to get properties developed.
“Basically, what we are doing is: we are trying to work together to go to the colleges and schools to do an addendum to our Neighborhood Revitalization to have the schools and colleges participate,” Kikkert said.
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Zaleski said that he planned to work with the county’s taxing entities to see if he could get all parties on board with such a plan, and asked questions regarding how to simplify things at the county level.
Finer details surrounding how such a county- wide plan would benefit other local taxing entities, and how this county-wide program would be structured, will continue to be discussed.
“It’s not the end-all, be-all by any means, but it is definitely another club in the bag of economic development,” Zaleski said.
Kikkert and Assistant Cartographer Beth Spencer also presented on mapping updates. Kikkert highlighted that Spencer had recently completed some new maps for the county.
“We have really been moving along to try to do more stuff in-house, and not rely on outsourcing as much,” Kikkert said.
Spencer presented a 12-month Geographical Information Systems plan.
In planned improvements, she noted that she would be updating the Open Records for Kansas Appraisers as information was reported. Spencer noted that the existing maps don’t work with the current software programs the maps are used in. Spencer said she has begun the process of creating new maps.
Spencer said her future goals include creating interactive maps that will be available to the staff or possibly publicly.
Spencer said she hopes to move to a parcel fabric geographical information system for map creation, which Spencer said is more accurate, stores historical data, and would speed up processes. Kikkert said they are currently waiting to hear what switching to such a program would cost.
Kikkert described having these capabilities in the County Appraiser’s office as “a game-changer.”
In other business, the commissioners voted to reappoint the following individuals to the Labette Health Board of Trustees: Melissa Morris, Dr. Robert Gibbs, and Dr. Wayne Gilmore.
In updates from Emergency Manager Charlie Morse, he noted a recent class he attended, about proper response protocol to fires occurring at places with a high number of battery devices. The training was put on by the Energy Safety Response Group.
“What they want us to do if we respond out there — they want us to do nothing,” Morse said. “Just guard the facility. They [ESRG] will have an expert on site in two-to-four hours.”
He noted that if smoke does get too heavy, crews can knock it down with water spray from at least 100 feet away.
“What happens in these fires… crews show up, they see smoke and start putting water on this,” Morse said. “All the stored energy in there, the busted bars, all the busted wiring — that is what creates more of the issues. The water makes it a million times worse. They just want us to stay back and contain the area until they can get their people there.”
Morse said that many batteries on fire go through a process called thermal runaway, and the proper protocol is to let them self-consume.
Morse noted the cleanup process required discharging any remaining batteries after the fire, then shipping them off to a recycling facility within 10 days of the fire, as required by federal regulation. Morse said he would be sharing what he learned with the area fire chiefs.
It was noted that this type of knowledge would be helpful, considering the Plus Power battery storage facility will become operational in the coming years.
In other updates, Morse and the commissioners discussed the ongoing negotiations with Green For Life Environmental Services, the company operating the county’s transfer station.
A meeting of the Solid Waste Committee was held to discuss the issue in further detail on Thursday, Feb. 12. News coverage from this meeting will be included in an upcoming edition of the Parsons Sun.
The Labette County Commissioners meet each Monday at 9 a.m., and on the last working day of the month at 9 a.m. Meeting take place on the ground floor of the Labette County Courthouse in Oswego.
