by Clinton Bowman
Special to TownTalk News
info@www.towntalkradio.com
The Yoakum County Commissioners Court met in regular session on Monday, April 18, where they addressed their weekly agenda.
In the major item on the agenda the Commissioners considered two bids that had been submitted for the construction of the new Denver City Community Building. Butler Construction of Midland had submitted a bid of $4.3 million and Level 5 Design submitted a bid of $3.2 million. Both bids were about $1 million over the projected cost of the suggested 12,500 square foot structure.
Both bidders were in attendance and offered suggestions on how the cost could be reduced, including door knob hardware. Another area were they thought the cost could be reduced was in the banquet hall were the original plans called for a 500 capacity seating. Commissioner Ray Marion suggested making it big enough to seat 275-300.
Another area of concern was the A/C Chiller unit which had a price tag of $750,000.
“I had no idea that size of a unit would cost that much,” Marion said.
When Gilmore was asked how much the Senior Citizen building had cost he said it was right at $1.5 million.
“I think the size of Senior Citizen building would be an awfully nice community building too,” Gilmore said. “The only thing the Senior Citizen building does not have is the nice sound and video system Oxy had asked us to put in. However I can see several ways we can cut the cost at least $500,000.”
Earlier in the year Oxy had committed $1 million toward the project and with that commitment had asked for a nice ultramodern sound and video system for the safety meetings that are held in the facility.
After more discussion it was decided to rebid the project after Level 5 had redesign the facility. A motion was made and unanimously approved to redesign the building and then advertise for bids once again.
When a new design had been made Level 5 will come back and meet with Commissioners once again.
In other items on the agenda the court unanimously approved to accept a $3,035 grant from Tocker Foundation for book clubs. The next two items also dealt with this same item where the Commissioners certified grant revenue to Commissioner’s Court and then took appropriate action on a budget amendment to expand grant funds.
The court also unanimously approved action on a request for road crossing from ER Operating under and across County Road 160. This area is about 6 miles north of Plains just west of highway 214 and is in Precinct 3.
The Commissioners once again had several computer related items to be disposed of, approved two line item transfers, and had no Soil Conservation request.
There was one question from Commissioner Ray Marion concerning sound boards in the new Senior Citizen building to Level 5 representative Justin Gilmore. He said he would check into the matter.
In auditing and settling all accounts against the County the court approved to pay all bills from the General Fund which totaled $36,986.66, there were no bills presented for Precinct 1, Precinct 2 bills totaled $6,458.61, Precinct 3 bills totaled $5,290.48, Precinct 4 bills totaled $89.36, Jury totaled $947.88, Juvenile Probation/TJPCA $32,796.23, a second Juvenile Probation/TJPCA item totaled $8,352.00, Yoakum County Civic Center was $38.47, Yoakum County Landfill was $39.87 and Library Grants Fund was $212.63 for a grand total of $91,212.19.
In medical bills $175,566.04 was paid from the hospital funds, $38,687.02 to West Texas Medical Center, $1,791.42 to the Plains Clinic, and $497.72 to the Plains Lifestyle for a grand total of $216,542.20 of hospital bills.
In other medically related bills $1,675.28 was paid to Home Health, $8,844.29 to Dialysis, and $50,803.86 to Dispro for a grand total of $277,865.63 in medically related bills.
Commissioners Woody Lindsey, Ray Marion, Ty Earl Powell, and Tim Addison along with County Judge Jim Barron were in attendance.
The next meeting will be held on Monday, April 25 in the county courthouse at 10 am.
