Allen County commissioners received a check for $192,500 to represent CARES/SPARK funding allocated to Kansas counties, at their meeting Tuesday.
About 20 local businesses and 20 local nonprofits will receive the funds.
Thrive Allen County CEO Lisse Regehr also discussed with commissioners using additional SPARK funds to install touchless faucets and other amenities at public buildings connected to the landfill office, noxious weed building and three senior center buildings.
Regehr expressed an interest as well in helping the Humboldt food pantry obtain more storage by installing an additional freezer at its senior center.
On another front, Carl Slaugh received approval from commissioners to have a television screen installed as part of the veterans memorial wall on the courthouse lawn.
He said the screen would be “as big as we can fit.”
There was also some discussion of installing large static images in the memorial in glass cases that currently have no name-plates.
Terry Call presented commissioners with bids from three vendors to install audio/video equipment in the courthouse commission room.
They selected Graham Audio and Electronics out of Chanute to do the work for $4,759.
Commissioners had expressed a desire to work with a more local company, but the differences in price between vendors were significant, with the bid from Advantage Computers approaching almost $14,000.
Commissioners also signed off costs incurred by auditor Rodney Burns.
The approval followed a lengthy discussion of how best to arrange and represent the auditing data so that it might be used by county offices and understood by the public.
An additional item that commissioners approved was for the courthouse bandstand to be used to host a political event in support of U.S. Senate candidate Barbara Bollier this Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
The bandstand is open for reservation by any interested candidate or party.
Clerk Sherrie Riebel said that a shortage of volunteers for Meals on Wheels had largely been remedied, but suggested that the county is always looking for more, especially since the sheriff’s department continues to provide backup on deliveries.
During his weekly report, public works director Mitch Garner said that crews had been doing chip-seal repairs in areas such as 2800/West Virginia and 2600/Hawaii Roads.
