County Council creates Public Safety Subcommittee to find funding options for area fire & ambulance depts.

A committee to explore possible ways of providing financial support to the various fire and ambulance departments throughout the county was created by the Marshall County Council during Thursday’s meeting.  This committee will be known as the Public Safety Subcommittee.  

Council president Jesse Bohannon proposed the roster which included County Commissioner Stan Klotz, Council members Nicole Cox and Tim Harman, John Grolich representing the firefighter’s association, Jerry Lamb the Polk Township Trustee, Matt Neher the Bremen Fire Chief, Lisa Mullaney the Argos Town Clerk-Treasurer, Ed Barcus representing the Argos Town Council and has firefighting experience, and Bohannon.  Marshall County Emergency Management Agency director Jack Garner would serve as consultant and secretary of the committee.

Councilman Jim Masterson asked why there wasn’t a representative from Bourbon on the committee and Mr. Harman said, “We came up with nine and Lisa was one of the people I has spoken with that I didn’t want to name because I had a message out to her so when she got back to me, I said sure.”  

Masterson said you have two representatives from Argos and no one from Bourbon and he suggested Bourbon Town Clerk Kim Berger who also spoke at one of the council’s meetings about the struggles the smaller communities are experiencing.

Bohannon said, “The desire is to make sure it (the committee) doesn’t become unwieldy, you know, to have too many folks on there.  Part of what I’m going to aske Mr. Garner to do is to reach out to people in every community and gather data so that we do get input from everybody, certainly not just these folks.”

Bohannon’s motion was seconded by councilwoman Nicole Cox and received a 7-0 vote.    

Council Harman said the committee’s objective will be to find 3,4, or 5 options to consider.  He said, “It’s not important that there is unanimous consensus.  It’s just something to look at for the council.  Obviously there should be a difference of opinion, I think that is a good thing.”

The nine-member committee with Garner not having a vote will meet every other week on Tuesdays.  It appears the meetings will be in the afternoons and may be held in the EMA conference room.