LINDEN &8212; Deek Glass, a former county employee and outspoken critic of the county, came before the county commission Tuesday with a laundry list of complaints, most of which were for the county road department.

Glass&8217;s first concern was with the usage of gas in county equipment and trucks. Glass claimed there was an excessive amount of gas being used.

Ken Atkins, county engineer, explained that many of his workers are on-call 24 hours a day and they allow their employees to drive county trucks home and not pay for the additional gas.

Clearly unhappy with this response, Glass asked for an explanation from the commission.

Commissioner Freddie Armstead made the point that when Glass retired from working with the county, he was making significantly more than many of the works do now &8212; $21.50 an hour compared with the average $12 or $13 an hour. With the high cost of gas, this is the least they can do to help their employees, Armstead said.

Glass went on with other concerns dealing with rock on private property and an accident with a county truck on private property many months ago.

During his remarks, Glass started to comment about other matters, but Chairman Calvin Martin insisted he stick to the agenda. Before leaving the meeting, Glass said he would return to a future meeting with more concerns, including an inquiry about the salaries of each commissioner.

In other business, the commission:

Approved the opening of bids for debris removal, a step that must be done prior to any hurricanes or disasters in order to receive FEMA funds.

Approved a revision to the South Alabama Mutual Aid and Assistance Agreement so that any county personnel or equipment that may provide aid to another county in an emergency can be afforded with all rights and insurance as if they were in Marengo County.

Approved a mileage rate increase for county employees.