The Oglethorpe County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a $499,807.64 bid from North Georgia Concrete to repair the four-barrel box culvert on Double Bridges Road at its monthly meeting Monday night.
Commission Chair Jay Paul said he doesn’t have a timeframe for the work to begin, but gave an estimate of three to six months.
“We want it repaired as quickly as possible now,” he said after the meeting. “We’re ready to move on it.”
Double Bridges Road near the intersection of Wolfskin Road has been closed since last October because of the damaged culvert at Moss Creek. The Georgia Department of Transportation found the damage during an inspection.
The bid was one of two received for the project, the other from Williams Contracting, which was twice as much as the one from North Georgia Concrete, Paul said.
Paul said Oglethorpe County could receive help from the state to pay for the repairs, up to $500,000. He contacted Gov. Brian Kemp’s office and received a call from GDOT.
“I’m not counting those chickens just yet, but it looks like we’re going to come out OK financially with this,” Paul said.
District 5 Commissioner Tracy Norman vouched for North Georgia Concrete based on work through his job with Boehringer Ingelheim in Athens.
Paul honors Johnson
Paul wore a dark red tie to commemorate former commission chair Robert Johnson, who died Feb. 8. He said Johnson, who held the position for 9½ years, wore the tie on his last night as chair and gave it to successor Billy Pittard, who wore it on his first and last night as chair.
Pittard gave it to Paul, who wore it during his first meeting as chair and then again on Monday.
“I want to say how much I appreciate the things he did for me and the county,” Paul said.
Nine items were unanimously approved at the meeting, which was attended by about 30 people and lasted 57 minutes.
One of those items included $10,000 from the school zone camera fund to build an entrance and deck, replace the flooring and partition a building that was given to the Sheriff’s Office by the Oglethorpe County Board of Education.
The building, which was moved to the Sheriff’s Office for about $9,000, Chief Deputy Jason Taft said, will be used for a variety of reasons, including county and law enforcement training and meetings, in addition to grand jury space.
Taft had asked for the $10,000 to come from the county’s capital fund, but county attorney Chip Ferguson, who was in attendance, said the funds could be drawn from the school zone camera fund because one use would be for law enforcement training.
Taft said the Sheriff’s Office was trying to stay within the guidelines of the school zone camera fund when he made the request. He also said the school zone fund has been used for large projects, “fluctuates a lot” and is used for every patrol car purchase.
Jason Lewis, serving in the role of county administrator, said there is $348,000 in the school zone camera fund. Taft said he plans to use a portion of the fund to purchase two patrol cars.
In other news, the BOC:
- Unanimously approved the general consent agenda, which included an agreement with Emergency Billing to handle the county’s EMS billing and collection. Lewis said EMS revenues have been down since COVID-19, and the county hasn’t hit its “benchmarks doing it in-house.” He said EMS vetted the company and reached out to nearby counties that use Emergency Billing. “This was the one that matches our model,” he said. “We’re hoping to mirror the success that Greene and Franklin (counties) have had with them and get back to what the expectation has been in the past.” Lewis said Emergency Billing is paid from what it collects.
- The BOC also unanimously approved $1,000 to buy a plot at Crawford Cemetery for use as a pauper’s plot. Commissioner Howard Sanders, a former county coroner, said the county needed a pauper’s plot.
- Unanimously approved Franklin Gabriel’s variance request to the maximum number of parcels accessed by a private drive in order to subdivide Gabriel Drive (Tax Parcel 008 042).
- Unanimously approved Gabriel’s rezone request for Gabriel Drive from agriculture residential to single family residential in order to subdivide for family.
- Unanimously approved Joyce Bramblett’s request to rezone 1724 Lexington Carlton Road (Tax Parcel 126 035A) from general agriculture to agriculture residential in order to sell and build a single-family residence.
- Unanimously approved Paul Sanders’ rezone request for 1466 Union Point Road (Tax Parcel 058 008) from intensive agriculture to agriculture residential to cut 5 acres for a double wide manufactured home.
- Unanimously approved Leila Garner’s rezone request for 768 Verbest Road (Tax Parcel 145 041 02) from general agriculture to agriculture residential in order to subdivide.
- Heard from new Maxeys Mayor Edward Toledano, who said he’d like to start regular meetings with the county’s other three mayors.
- Heard from Randy Gordon and Brad Johns about the condition of Almond Drive. Paul said he plans to set up a meeting with Johns regarding the road.
- Heard from Crawford resident Scott Pettis about the Oglethorpe County Board of Education’s decision to opt out of HB 581.