PRESCOTT – Nevada County Judge Mark Glass isn’t making a lot of plans for 2020 where the county is concerned.
Last year, any plans made were rendered meaningless because of weather problems. However, Glass said the county did get Hines Blvd. done with chip and seal, and 1.2 miles of Cale Road got a new overlay.
This year, he said, residents should be happier with the road and bridge department as it moved to a new gravel pit with a sandy-type of gravel. Otherwise, the plans are to get caught up and deal with day-to-day maintenance of the county’s roads.
There will be money to do about two miles of paving with state aid, he said, and this will be used on a section of Wildcat Road.
Glass admits the county’s new garbage fee isn’t popular and basically amounts to another tax, but he said it’s something that had to be done if the county is to be expected to provide trash collection for county residents. The Nevada County Quorum Court voted, in its December meeting, to charge households $10 a month, or $120 a year for trash pickup. Ricky Reyenga, with the Nevada County Collector’s Office, is working on a billing program for this.
Glass said there could be people in the county who own homes no one could live in. If these people are billed, all they need to do is call or come to the collector’s office and get it straightened out. According to Glass, Reyenga figures there’s roughly 4,000 houses in the county. But, he added, those houses in municipalities, such as Cale, Rosston and Bodcaw, will be exempt from the fee, as will churches and businesses. In the end, he said, it’s more likely there’ll only be 120-1,400 homes in the county and the fee should generate around $150,000 a year.
The primary reason for the fee, he said, is because the landfill in Nashville is raising its tipping fees by $50 this year and another $50 next year. Until Jan. 1, 2020, the county was paying $100 per load in tipping fees. Glass said the county normally hauls eight to 10 loads to Nashville per week.
The fees will help keep the county’s solid waste department afloat and allow the county to continue picking up trash.
In talking about the Nevada County Jail, Glass said it’s holding its own and will have generated more than $600,000 once the December figures are added in concerning inmates being housed for other counties. Glass said if it were possible, he’d like to add another 100 beds. This, he continued, would require hiring two more employees, but the jail would have an average daily population of around 150 inmates at $30 per head per day.
As to what the county gets done this year, it’ll be like years past and depend on the weather.