County Commissioners recommended allocating $1 million toward road projects during their meeting this morning. County Highway Superintendent Scott Tilden presented a preliminary list of six projects for the year totaling $1.165 million. The commissioners’ recommendation to allocate Economic Development Income Tax funds will be considered by the county council Thursday at 7 p.m. Assistant Highway Superintendent Steve Moriarty noted after the meeting that they may have to eliminate some of the milling and asphalt projects depending on total funds received, but don’t yet know which ones. Priority will be given to projects that benefit the county most, he said. Also during the meeting, World War II veteran and North Webster resident Robert Frank Walker was recognized as the veteran of the month. Walker served in the Navy from 1942 to 1946 on a landing craft for tanks, and was involved in gulf landings during the campaign in the Philippines. “My job was rather mundane, but it was necessary I guess,” Walker remarked. And commissioners approved reimbursing a claim for two killed and three severely maimed sheep, at $300 a head. They then agreed to draft a letter to state representatives asking that the state reimbursement law be reconsidered, since the county no longer has the specific income source the law was designed for. And they voted to do away with the $26 meal per-diem for county employees who travel, in favor of reimbursing itemized receipts. Barry Andrew, with the county probation department, had requested an increase in the per-diem, which has been $26 since 2001. Commissioner Bob Conley suggested receipt reimbursement instead as “a level playing field across the board.”
