Apotential merger between Ellsworth County Economic Development and the Ellsworth Area Chamber of Commerce received the nod of approval Monday from the Ellsworth County commissioners.

Commissioners approved adding an employee to the county’s economic development staff. That person would serve one step below Stacie Schmidt, ECED’s executive director, and report directly to her.

Schmidt said there is no title yet for that job, however.

Justin Lindsley, president of the ECED board of directors, said for several years the board has wanted to hire a person in clerical to free up Schmidt from doing the day-to-day office-type tasks, but it could never do so because of budgetary reasons.

“We basically thought if we pool resources and stuff, this may be an opportunity for us to really push forward and free Stacie up just a little bit,” Lindsley said.

He said once the board started thinking about it more and more, they started to think about it a little differently as not just a clerical position, but perhaps someone who could be a liaison for the business community of Ellsworth County.

“There are other cities and stuff that have them combined,” Commission Chairman Greg Bender said. “They said it worked out pretty good for them. It isn’t a new idea around the state.”

“It’s a great time for this,” the Chamber’s Colby Richard said, adding the goal is to provide a product that is essential to businesses in Ellsworth County as they come out of COVID and enter the future while confronting what those economic realities look like.

“When you start thinking about pooling resources, taking out some of the redundancies and some of the overlap between our two organizations, targeting things like tourism directly with one organization, it starts to make a lot of sense,” Richard said.

If the proposed merger takes place, the combined organization would be known as Grow Ellsworth County.

In other business:

• During a teleconference with the Lincoln County commissioners, a change to term of 10 years was chosen instead of 20 years for a proposed PILOT agreement to be sent to Pattern Energy, the owners of Post Rock Wind Farm, for consideration.

“We can do that without a problem, I think,” Bender said.

• Commissioner Dennis Rolfs told County Road and Bridge Superintendent Dale Houston he received several complaints about the condition of the road going into Yankee Run.

“Perhaps we need to take better care of it,” Rolfs said. “There are a lot of tax dollars there.”

• Terry Kueser, former county commissioner, asked Houston about a low water crossing north of Ellsworth. Houston said it needs ripped out and replaced.

“It’s going to take more than just putting a culvert in,” Houston said.

“It either needs to be fixed or the road closed,” Kueser said.

• No action was taken after a 23-minute executive session with Nathan Florian, director of the county EMS, to discuss non-elected personnel (disciplinary matter). EMS employee Julie Neuman also attended the executive session.

• During a meeting with Keith Haberer, director of emergency management for Ellsworth and Russell counties, commissioners learned Haberer’s emergency management director’s job in Russell County now falls under the Russell County Sheriff ’s Office. It is planned that Haberer’s office in Russell County will move from the Bunker Hill Fire Station to the Russell County Courthouse. The two counties will continue to share Haberer in the emergency management role.

• Sheriff Murray Marston said research is being done to possibly go with split units for heating and cooling at the sheriff ’s office and jail. The research centers around feasibility and affordability.

The next meeting of the Ellsworth County commissioners will be at 9 a.m. Monday, Oct. 31, at the county courthouse.