Jail fully staffed in Union County

Following interviews held over the past couple months, several positions at the Union County Jail have been filled, including two which were acknowledged during last week’s board of supervisors meeting.

Sheriff Brian Bolton presented his recommendations for the two positions Wednesday, which the board accepted.

The sheriff’s office will move Mason Gossman to fill the role of assistant jail administrator. Bolton described Gossman as a tremendous asset and a hard worker. Gossman attended Wednesday’s meeting.

Gossman has worked at the sheriff’s office for the last five years has been the acting assistant jail administrator for the past six months, and with recognition from the county, he now fills the position officially with respect to the proposed budget for next year.

“We appreciate his patience in that with us,” Bolton said.

The second position comes after losing an employee to the Creston Police Department, with that position to be filled by Tristan Randall. Randall is currently in the criminal justice program at SWCC.

Bolton praised Randall’s communication skills which highlighted him for the position in the interviews. Randall joins JD Conrad, hired in December, and Isaias Ramos, hired in January, in filling the remaining positions at the Union County jail.

Bolton also received approval at the meeting for swapping mobile phone providers from FirstNet to T-Mobile. Citing recent plans to allow for the phones to connect to radio towers, Bolton expects the plan to be useful for officers in the field.

“[T-Mobile] sent us down a couple phones and we’ve utilized those phones,” Bolton said. “We’ve taken them out in the county and tested them. I don’t think there’s any perfect option, but it seemed to work well, but it’s going to be a huge saving.”

The sheriff’s office expects the first year of the plan to save the county $1,400, with every year after saving $504.

In other Union County news...

An agenda item was tabled during the meeting. A discussion for a potential data centers/industrial ordinance was planned, but was delayed to the next meeting on Wednesday, March 11, to have all supervisors present at the meeting. Supervisor Rick Friday attended last week’s meeting via telephone due to illness.

“That’ll give us a little bit more time to do our research,” Friday said. “All of us have been doing some pretty extensive research. It might give us a few more days to gather.”

No decision would have been made due to the agenda item limiting the topic to discussion only, but an ordinance would likely be drafted after the discussion takes place.

A public hearing to set the proposed property tax levy for Union County was set for Wednesday, March 25. Levies will be lowered from last year, from $11.99505 to $11.03467 per $1,000, about a 96 cent difference.