Marion County Commissioners held a rare afternoon meeting on Monday due to weather related issues, but fairly routine business at the beginning of each calendar year was the agenda of the day.
Commissioners approved a bid submitted by Casey Slone Construction, LLC, of Marshall to perform the work on the Marion County Jail elevator. The proposal was for a total of $70,480, and was the low bid submitted.
“With the award recommendation and your approval today, I can bind those into a contract and once the paperwork is all in order, I’ll present them to the Court for signature and formally enter into a contract,” said David Wood, of Wood Engineering Company, who’s been overseeing the project. “With your direction, I’ll give notice to proceed and gives him 10-days to being construction.”
Based on the scheduled proposed by Wood and Commissioners, work should be able to begin in February.
Two bid proposal were received on the project. The project involves installing piers under the structure, as well as repairs to the roof and flashing where the elevator shaft joins the jail structure. Over the years the shaft structure has been moving away from the mail building creating water leaks and the potential for other damage.
A tract of land in Smithland area owned by Ruby Bailey, was approved to be leased by the County for use as a Solid Waste location for Precinct 3. The cost of the lease is $2,500 and runs from February 1, 2021 to January 31, 2022. The County has leased the property for a number of years.
“We’ve been paying $2,500 a year for over 20 something years,” said Commissioner Pct 4 Charlie Treadwell. “I would really like us to try and find some property that might be on the struck off roll and find us a dump site where we can stop spending this kind of money.”
“I wish we had done this before the water department bought the land behind the county barn, but it didn’t happen,” said Commissioner Pct 2 Joe McKnight. “I think there’s some land on the same road where the dump site is. If it is that would be a perfect place.”
“They [water department] couldn’t sell us an acre or two of the land?” said Commissioner Pct. 1 JR Ashley.
“I’m not chunking rocks anywhere but it should have been done 3-4 years ago,” said McKnight.
“Let’s do it this year,” said Ashley.
Marion County Sheriff David Capps discussed the plans for the Summer 2021 Lake Patrol and requested the Court table the action on the agreement until more information could be obtained.
“We need to make some adjustments [to the agreement] before signing,” said Capps. “We’ve been using deputies as we’ve been unable to find people for Lake Patrol. That means overtime, which gets paid out of sheriff’s budget, and then taken from fuel and vehicles for Lake Patrol, so we end up with about $1,200 for fuel for all summer.”
“If we approve this today, then you can adjust it once you’ve got permission to sign,” said Treadwell.
“This has been done for a number of years like this,” said Capps.
“Lake Patrol has always been a weird thing,” said McKnight.
“Lake Patrol does Friday, Saturday and Sunday and only Mondays that are holidays,” said Ashley.
“I think we should come up with some different numbers for this year,” said Capps. “I’m not sure who’s going to do Lake Patrol at $15/hour when most security in the hour is $20/hour. If we can table this for a little I’d be happy with it.”
In other business, Commissioners approved bonds for incoming elected officials including: Angela R. “Angie” Smoak, District Attorney; David Capps, Sheriff; Stuart J. “Jeff’ Greer, Constable Pct. 2; Marion E. “Ed” Baird, Constable Pct. 1; Ralph Meisenheimer, County Commissioner Pct. 3; John Ross “J.R.” Ashley, County Commissioner Pet, 1; Karen Gale Jones, Tax Assessor-Collector; Alan Biddy, Justice of the Peace Pet, 2; and Shanna Solomon, County Auditor.