HC BOCC approves paying $10,000 for EAR report

BONIFAY – Holmes County Board of County Commissioners approved paying the last $10,000 to consultant Tony Arrant to complete the County’s Evaluation and Appraisal Report (EAR) for submission to the state Department of Community Affairs. The action was taken at the BOCC’s regular meeting on June 30.

The BOCC took the action to ensure the EAR report was delivered to DCA as the report is almost a year past due. According to documents provided by Circuit Court Clerk Cody, Taylor Arrant was to receive $60,000 in grant funding to prepare the EAR report, and

Arrant had been paid $50,000. Taylor said Arrant said he could complete the report for the remaining $10,000. A $100,000 grant was obtained to cover preparing the EAR report and for the separate visioning process.

The EAR report is part of the process of revising the County Comprehensive Plan. The EAR process included public hearings to get public input on the existing comp plan.

It was reported at the BOCC meeting that a document had been turned into DCA last year but it did not qualify as a final EAR report and was only designed to get a courtesy review from the DCA. The DCA asked for more information on the EAR.

In other business the BOCC:

•Approved the low bid of $122,731.16 from F&W Construction for the temporary Rum Road bridge, including removing the remnant of the old bridge that was destroyed in the recent floods

•Approved ranking the top four choices for landfill engineering submittals

•Ranked Jones-Phillips first to administer the Community Development Block Grant for the Gritney firehouse and Rum Road, and the County would negotiate a fee

•Approved quotes from PRM Insurance with no increase from last year

•Ranked Greenhorne O’Mera and Daniel Melvin as the top two engineering firms for County work and agreed to offer all project to both firms and get quotes

•Tabled discussion of leasing an excavator to obtain more information

•Accepted low bid of $13,416.13 from P&P for air conditioning at the health department

•Approved sending out bid for a new motor grader for District 3

•Approved extending the auditor’s contract with Carr, Riggs and Ingram for another year