County commissioners discussed the demolition of the old county jail on Piedmont Street in downtown Calhoun.
Commissioners voted to accept a bid of $91,000 from Environmental Holdings Group, LLC, out of Buford, Ga., for the demolition process with $70 added for relocation and reconstruction of some county technology infrastructure currently located in the old jail.
This process has already begun, County Administrator Randy Dowling stated, and is expected to last until June 1. This task must be complete before demolition can begin, he explained.
Another $20,000 has been added for contingency occurrences. One such situation may come in the form of a change order after the project begins, said County Purchasing Director Martin Vaughn.
Environmental Holdings Group has agreed to accommodate a request from Gordon County Superior Court officials that noise be kept to a minimum during court days, Vaughn explained. However, the company may require up to $15,000 in compensation, depending on how long equipment must be left idle.
The total cost of the project, $226,000, will be part of the 2011-2012 fiscal year budget, Dowling said.
All inmates were moved to the new jail north of Calhoun on Highway 41 by 2009.
Delinquent taxpayers
Commissioners also agreed to sign a contract to allow the tax commissioner’s office to contract with Appalachian Mountain Services to act as a collection agency for taxpayers delinquent on payments.
This 12-month contract, will require no out-of-pocket cost from the county or the tax commissioner’s office, County Attorney Suzanne Hutchinson-Smith explained.
Payment for this service will be rendered in the form of a surcharge – “an add-on collection fee assessed against the person who has not paid their property taxes,” Hutchinson-Smith said.
The tax commissioner can sign the contract without approval from the commissioners, she said, but the board needed to approve it because the county attorney must represent the county in the event of legal challenges from property owners.
I would like to know why they need to contract with an outside agency to do their job. We elected this tax commissioner to do this job. Now the people that are already having a hard time paying their property tax will get a surcharge on their bill for something that an elected official's office should be doing. This is in the tax commissioner's job description. This is not the sensible decision making process that our county commissioners should be using during a recession.