City, county don’t see eye to eye on bill

New Hampton Mayor Deb Larsen, Chief Deputy Marty Hemann and the Chickasaw County Board of Supervisors met to discuss the communications bill that was sent to the City of New Hampton.The New Hampton City Council thinks the bill of $45,000 should be negotiable and decided to only pay part of the communication bill.Hemann explained to the group that the communications bill has increased over the past few years because the sheriff’s department had been taking over the majority of the cost but decided to begin asking more from the Nashua Police Department and New Hampton Police Department who share the dispatch services and equipment.Last year, representatives from the City of Nashua visited with the supervisors about the communications bill as well. However, the City of New Hampton never came up and discussed the bill with the supervisors or sheriff’s office.Assistant County Attorney Mark Huegel said this topic should have been discussed back when the council was first informed of the bill and if there was a problem they should have talked about it.For the complete story see the 7/15/2016 New Hampton Tribune.