Daniel Webber named new county assessor

Upon the recommendation of the Hot Springs County Republican Central Committee, the Hot Springs County Commissioners appointed Daniel Webber as the new county assessor at their meeting on Tuesday evening.

Webber was sworn in on Wednesday morning to fill the position recently vacated by the the retirement of Shelley Deromedi.

A native of Hot Springs County, Webber has been with the assessor's office for 13 years. He is a permanently certified property tax assessor by the Department Revenue.

"Shelley Deromedi was here for 31 years and during the 13 years I worked for her I learned a lot about the office and the assessor position," said Webber.

Webber will be up for election this year.

According to the committee, they did their due diligence in looking for a qualified candidate. Webber was the only person who actually applied for the position. State statutes require the committee to have three candidates, so two other names, Mike Baker and Benge Brown were added to the committee's ballot to conform to the statute.

Neither Baker nor Brown were actually interested in the position.

In other business, the commissioners again discussed the roof situation on the multi-purpose building at the Hot Springs County Fairgrounds.

Insulation from inside the building was recently removed and found to be so saturated with moisture some of it remains frozen to the ceiling on the inside of the building. In fact, the insulation that was taken down had to be scraped from inside the dump truck as it had frozen to the bed of the truck on the drive from the fairgrounds to the dump.

The fair board is concerned about the frozen insulation that still remains stuck to the ceiling, fearing it could be a safety hazard. Heaters and fans are being run day and night to get the sections thawed.

Thane Magelky with Malone, Belton and Abel, the company overseeing the roofing project, says the best solution is to remove the entire roof and install a new one along with properly installed insulation.

The second solution would be to use spray-on insulation as a replacement, however, he noted there is no guarantee with the spray-on that it would last even 10 years.

Magelky was given the go-ahead by the commissioners to contact qualified contractors, get their input on the situation, cost estimates and then put together architectural drawings to work from along with a bid packet.

The commissioners do not want to wait until spring to get going on the project, but would like to see some warmer weather before some of the work is done.