A new lease agreement between Lyon County and Westar Energy will help provide additional infrastructure for the Lyon County public safety radio project.
During their weekly action session Thursday morning, commissioners gave direction to move forward with a lease agreement between the county and Westar Energy allowing the county to utilize Westar property located in the 1700 block of Road 200 currently occupied by the Lang substation. Per the lease, the county will pay $10,000 a year to utilize the property and tower located on said property.
According to Lyon County Emergency Management Director Jarrod Fell, utilizing the existing land will allow the county to increase its radio coverage without having to build an additional tower site. In addition to the agreement, commissioners also approved a request for the payment of $400,000 to Hayden Tower for the construction of new buildings at the Westar and two additional tower sites.
Fell says the need for the additional buildings is due to the age and condition of the current structures at the two existing tower sites. Fell says the agreement provides benefits to both the county and Westar.
For formality purposes, Westar requested construction drawings to be added as an appendix to the lease agreement. Due to this, the agreement will be signed at a later date after Hayden Tower has the opportunity to draft the drawings according to Fell.
The lease is anticipated to return before County commissioners within the next 30 days for signature and final approval.
Separately, commissioners also approved the Kansas Department of Corrections adult and juvenile carryover reimbursement budgets for 2020 presented by Community Corrections Director Steve Willis. Willis tells KVOE News reimbursement funds allow the department to sustain any programs for probationers when grant funding from the state runs out.
He says standards in place only allow the funds to be used for the age group designated, meaning juvenile reimbursement funds may only be used for juvenile programs and adult funds for adult programs. The total carryover for the adult budget is $190,000 — a $12,000 increase from the year before. Total carryover for the juvenile budget is $16,900 which is a total increase of over $13,000 since 2016.
In other business commissioners also approved the submission of the 2020 Federal Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant for community corrections. Additionally, commissioners approved a request from assistant Lyon County Engineer Jim Brull to send representatives to the 2019 CAT Government Training and Safety Seminar in Oct. and voted to rescind a prior resolution leading to directions for a revised entrance application form. LCAT transportation services for the 2019 Merit Badge U program were also approved unanimously.
The Lyon County Commission will meet again next Thursday at 8 am inside the Lyon County Courthouse.
