Seward County Commission Meets Appoints Scott Carr as Chair

The Seward County Commission met Tuesday evening and welcomed the 3 new Commissioners, Tammy Sutherland Abbott, Presophoni Fuller, and Scott Carr. The commission selected Scott Carr as the Chair and Tammy Sutherland Abbott as Vice-Chair for 2023.

The Commission approved the Waiver of Fees for the Seward County Activity Center for Southwest Miracles Annual Fundraising event which will be held on February 25th and heard an update on the County’s new Comprehensive Plan from Neal Coffey. Commissioners also approved the 5-year Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan.

The Commission approved $288,068 to Daimler Truck North America (DTNA) which includes an additional pricing surcharge on the Freightliner and Western Star Trucks that were approved in February and March of 2022. This surcharge is due to continued challenging global and domestic economic conditions in the industry.

Sharon West, Kenneth Thompson, and John Thorton were appointed to the Seward County Council on Aging Board for 3-year terms.

The Board originally approved matching funds for Base Grants with $312,268.26 going to Liberal Industrial Park, $126,901.51 to Holly Ridge 4th Addition, and $44,946.25 to Park Properties 3rd Addition, however none of the three above-mentioned projects were approved in the first round of BASE Grant funding. The County was just made aware this month that the State was going to open up a second round of funding and grants submitted in the first round would automatically be reconsidered. With that being said, the County could reconsider ARPA project submittals and reallocate funding based on this new information. The County now needs to determine if they want to reconsider financially matching these BASE Grants utilizing ARPA Funds. This was discussed by the Commissioners and then tabled the item as they scheduled a special meeting to be held with the City of Liberal Wednesday, January 18th at 4:00 pm at the Blue Bonnet Community Building.

Commissioners rescheduled the following Commission meetings in 2023:
February 20, 2023, to Tuesday, February 21, 2023
June 19, 2023, to Tuesday, June 20, 2023
September 4, 2023, to Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Portfolio Reports and Assignments were approved by Commissioners.