Menu
Lisa Zeiner named Putnam County planner
The sudden retirement of Don Hatfield from his post as Putnam County planner earlier this summer left the county commissioners scrambling to find his replacement.
On Tuesday, they did just that, selecting Lisa Zeiner as the new planner.
Zeiner is already a county employee, having served as environmental specialist and preparedness coordinator in the Putnam County Health Department.
She will assume her new role on Monday, Sept. 14.
The commissioners received 14 applications for the position and recently interviewed five candidates during an executive session.
“There were a lot of good candidates. It was a tough choice,” Commissioner David Berry said.
“We believe that two quickly rose to the top of those five,” Commissioner Rick Woodall added.
Not naming the other candidate in his top two, Woodall made the motion to hire Zeiner.
Berry seconded the motion and Don Walton joined the affirmative votes for a 3-0 decision.
Hatfield had served as his own building inspector, but this is not a role the commissioners expect Zeiner to fill.
As such, they recently requested the 2021 budget for the department to include salaries for a full-time director, full-time inspector and full-time office worker.
This means an inspector will need to be hired by Jan. 1.
However, between now and the end of the year, the county hopes to keep up with inspections with part-time inspectors Bill Mentgen and Donnie Watson.
Each of these men has said he is not interested in a full-time position.
The new inspector will certainly find plenty to keep his or her plate full, not only performing inspections for the county, but also for the Town of Cloverdale and the Town of Roachdale.
The county took over inspections from Cloverdale when the town fired its building inspector this spring, working out an arrangement to continue doing the inspections.
The commissioners informally agreed to do Roachdale inspections on Tuesday, though this should not add significantly to the workload. The town issued just 10 permits last year.
The commissioners asked County Attorney Jim Ensley to draft an agreement with Roachdale regarding taking over the duties.
One headache lingering in the area of planning and zoning comes in the form of two buildings in New Maysville.
The former New Maysville store, located at 6745 E. CR 900 North, and a house just around the corner at 8948 E. CR 675 East have been deemed unsafe by county officials.
However, when the commissioners opened bids — just one bid for each building — Tuesday to demolish the buildings, they had a bit of sticker shock.
The quotes from Eubank Brothers Excavating of Danville were $28,500 for the store and $15,000 for the house.
The county does not have a fund for demolishing such buildings. Woodall asked County Councilman Larry Parker, present at the commissioners meeting, if such a fund had been established for 2021, as had been talked about during county budget hearings. Parker said he did not believe so.
The commissioners took the bids under advisement to consider their course of action.
In other business:
• The commissioners discussed an ongoing issue regarding county credit cards.
The cards, issued through First National Bank, are for various offices and departments, each with its own limit according to the department’s needs.
However, when First National Bank changed credit card companies, the county began receiving just one credit card bill. This created a nightmare for the auditor’s office, which has to assign charges to individual offices and departments in order to know from what fund to draw the money.
While the county successfully lobbied FNB to change this practice and issues multiple bills, the commissioners recently received a bill addressed simply to “Putnam County Government” showing a credit limit of $58,000 (which is actually the amount of all county accounts combined) and an amount due of $3,254.
After two hours on the phone with various FNB employees, Woodall eventually got the answer that this is the amount the county has underpaid, though no one with the bank or the credit card issuer can say what the charges were.
“Somewhere between February and July there has been an underpayment of $3,254 and they can’t find it,” Woodall said.
This creates further problems for Auditor Lorie Hallett, who emphasized that she cannot pay a bill without receipts.
“I have rules I have to follow to pay something,” Hallett said. “I can’t pay it just because.”
The suggestion is that the county get all department heads together to look over receipts to see where the problem might be. However, county officials balked at the idea of having to do the work to track down money that the creditor itself cannot trace.
County officials plan to at least ask that late fees be waived while they try to find a solution.
• The commissioners approved continuing to contract with West Central Solid Waste District for 2021.
The county had a substantial credit with the district, meaning it had not had to pay for the service for several years. However, that credit will run out in 2021, with just an $11,000 credit remaining and an annual fee in the neighborhood of $66,000.
The remaining $55,000 or so will be paid from the county’s hazardous waste fund.
Montgomery County is formally pulling out of West Central Solid Waste District at the end of 2020, leaving just Putnam and Parke counties.
• The commissioners also received a formal letter requesting funding for West Central Indiana Economic Development District in 2021, at a cost of $20,668.18.
The county pulled its funding for 2020, with the commissioners expressing displeasure at a lack of presence in Putnam County from the Terre Haute-based organization.
The commissioners will consider future funding at their Monday, Sept. 21 meeting.
• The commissioners approved transferring a 2007 Ford Taurus from the Sheriff’s Office to the Health Department.
The car, which is high mileage, will serve the Health Department as it does home visits due to the COVID-19 pandemic.