INGALLS — A seminar designed to help notice signs in people who might have suicidal thoughts will take place from 2 to 5 p.m. March 7 at First United Methodist Church, 301 N. Alfonte St., Ingalls.

Greg Valentine, who is part of the Drug Free South Madison County Coalition, spoke to Ingalls Town Council at the Feb. 10 council meeting about safeTALK, a half-day alertness training that prepares anyone over the age of 15 to become a suicide-alert helper.

A $10 registration fee is required to secure a place in the training session. A link to the registration site, requirements, as well as more information about the training, is available on the Town of Ingalls Facebook page.

“Statistics show if kids are thinking about suicide, if you can get somebody to talk with them, chances are you can talk them out of it,” Valentine told the council.

Valentine prefaced his talk with the board by noting recent suicide attempts of young people in south Madison County.

Planning member needed

Town council President Scot Lawyer’s efforts are ongoing for his appointment of a new member for Ingalls’ plan commission.

He has been searching since he became the council’s highest officer at the beginning of 2020.

The town is looking to fill the void left when Dennis Cozart resigned at the end of 2019.

With the growth of the Ingalls area, Lawyer would like to find a representative from one of the area’s new neighborhoods.

He hasn’t found that yet, but he’s going to keep trying.

“I want to hit the new neighborhoods and try to get some of those people involved, because by the time they finally get involved they are going to be angry about something,” Lawyer said. “I would much rather get them involved now, because our future growth is going to be in that direction.

“To nobody’s fault, you’ve got everybody in old Ingalls making decisions for everyone. I’d like to see more people in our newer housing developments get involved in what goes on here so they have a voice.”

Town Manager progress

The council met at the end of January and had an executive session immediately prior to its Feb. 10 meeting to talk about the town manager position.

The executive session was to talk about the possibility of outsourcing some of the town manager duties to MS Consultants, a nationwide consulting engineering firm that is adding a new branch to handle municipal operations.

Lawyer said it is still to be determined whether all council members are on board with the possible change.

“As a potential solution, we’re looking at outsourcing some of the town manager duties until we get to a time that we find somebody that we’re comfortable with,” Lawyer said. “This may end up working for us in the short term.

“The last thing we want to do is bring (a new town manager) in and set them up for failure. I’d like to get the office cleaned up so they have every opportunity to succeed.”

Ingalls has been without a town manager since Frank Owens resigned from the position on Aug. 5 after serving in the position for four months.

Requests tabled

With Ingalls police chief Chris Thompson unable to attend the meeting, the board voted to table two requests that were made by the police department.

One request was for new computers that would cost $4,153.31.

Also moved to a later date was the request to increase the department’s clothing allowance of $400 per year, per officer, to $500.

At the Feb. 10 meeting, councilman Tim Green was named liaison to the police department.