ALLEN COUNTY, Kan. — Allen County Commissioners Tuesday approved a Planning Board Recommendation to rezone a property at 2732 Minnesota Road south of La Harpe from Agriculture to Heavy Industrial to allow Coby Cochran to establish a salvage yard.
Zoning Administrator Terry Call said Cochran’s business is a specialized one, focusing on pickups from 1967 to 1987. 75 percent of them don’t have motors or transmissions on them, just body parts. Once he has removed the usable parts, which he generally sells online, the remains are hauled off for recycling.
The rezoning also involves a conditional use permit which a salvage yard requires. One variance was granted related to fencing requirements, which only will apply to the two-acre area where salvage operations actually take place.
In his report, Public Works Director Mitch Garner said he is currently working on updating the County’s Solid Waste Plan and is awaiting a quote on a gas line installation and other approvals for installation of a new generator at Allen County Airport.
Road and Bridge Supervisor Jeremy Hopkins said his crews are currently working in Elsmore assisting in brush removal, which was a concern expressed last year during a Thrive Allen County Community Conversation.
After receiving a second quote requested last week, the commission accepted the low bid from Wellborn Sales of Saline for purchase of two loads of pipe, which are used for “whistler” culvert installations, at a cost of just under $76,000, just over $7,000 less than the other bid from J&J Drainage Products of Hutchinson.
Hopkins also discussed equipment plan reviews he’s working on.
Allen County 911 Director Chelsey Angleton provided an annual report on their activity, and while she didn’t have the full numbers of calls, they took over the court of 2024 yet due to a data change, she did share some interesting statistics about call volumes.
The busiest month of 2024 was July with 2,071 calls for service, compared to December’s 1,548 in their slowest month of the year. The Busiest day of the week for Allen County 911 is Tuesday, with Sunday their slowest. The busiest call hour for them is between 3-4 PM and the slowest between 3-4 AM.
The busiest day in 2024 was June 26th, when it received 103 calls.
