County Coroner and EMA Director seek approval from Commissioners

“Some of the hospitals may start to receive the vaccine as early as next week or the week after,” -Emergency Management Director Clyde Avery

MARSHALL COUNTY - County Coroner John Grolich came before the County Commissioners, updating them on the progress of the construction of the County Morgue.

He stated that he “received a notice from R. Yoder, the folks that are building the morgue. there was an upcharge of $9,780 to run the gas line

to the building. They propose, with the direction from the county maintenance folks, to tap the gas line coming off the roof of the jail and actually picking that up there rather than trying to run the gas to the building all the way from the gas meter that’s on the north side of the jail.”

Grolich said that he didn’t think that there was mention of a gas line in that location in the contract.

The commissioners approved the change order with R. Yoder to perform the work.

Emergency Management Director Clyde Avery presented his department’s quarterly report and requested permission to apply for the CARES-OMB Safety Awareness Grant.

“This is another part of the CARES Act funding that’s available to us,” he explained. The funding allocation is in the amount of $165,050.60. According to Avery, the original allocated amount was $159,046. However, an additional 10 percent was able to be requested.

“The funding will supplement the prior allocation of $1.5 million, $460,000 that we received,” Avery said. “This particular batch of funding is geared toward enforcement and education of the governor’s mask ordinance, basically.”

It also supports the county’s local ordinance, Avery added.

Commissioner Kevin Overmyer stated that the county’s ordinance mirrored the Executive Order that was issued by Governor Eric Holcomb. He also stated that the ordinance was put into effect by the County Commissioners and not the Marshall County Health Department (MCHD).

Avery said that there is a time limit to receive reimbursement through the grant. The deadline to submit reimbursement is at the end of the month. He also said that because of the deadline, he and Lisa Letsinger from the MCHD have been working on some projects that could be used with this grant.

“Enforcement and education is what it’s geared toward,” Avery said when asked about those projects.

The commissioners approved the request to apply for that grant.

The director informed the commissioners that his department and the MCHD have been working together to develop weekly incident action plans “to make sure that we’re continuing to follow through with what we need to have in place in order for us to be able to receive the vaccine and any other issues that may be popping up that we need to deal with.”

Commissioner Stan Klotz asked Avery if there was any indication that the vaccine was going to come to the county. Avery replied that the general public might have access to the vaccine in late March or early April of 2021. “Or maybe later,” he added.

“Some of the hospitals may start to receive the vaccine as early as next week or the week after. But it will be a limited supply and it will be geared, as you’ve probably heard, it will be geared specifically toward a certain audience,” Avery said.

When asked about how to store the vaccine at 94 degrees below zero, Avery stated that “was something that the hospitals will have to work on.”