Holmes BOCC will reevaluate comp plan proposals

BONIFAY — The Holmes County Board of County Commissioners approved tabling awarding bids for county planning services until the three proposals could be re-ranked using different criteria. Action was taken at the BOCC’s regular meeting Tuesday night.

County Attorney Brandon Young, who was serving at his last meeting before leaving to take on more responsibility under State Attorney Glenn Hess, said that criteria issued for ranking the bids for planning services for revamping the county’s comprehensive plan were “not clearly stated.”

Young recommended re-ranking the existing bids based on revamped criteria on a 100-point scale. New bids will not be taken.

Hilton Meadows of Diversified Environmental Planning, one of the bidders, noted that he filed a petition about the way the ranking was done and cited state regulations for soliciting management services. Meadows said that the three bidders should be able to come before the BOCC and make presentations.

Diversified, West Florida Regional Planning Council and David H. Melvin Engineering submitted bids.

Young said that making public proposals was one option for the BOCC although the proposals would be made available to the public for review even if no public proposals were made.

The BOCC will revisit the proposals on Sept. 14 at 9 a.m.

The BOCC also approved hiring local attorney Jeff Goodman as county attorney.

Mezzaluna Springs plan will not make CDBG deadline

The BOCC heard that Mezzaluna Springs would not be able to meet the deadline to submit all of the required paperwork to obtain funding for the $750,000 Community Development Block Grant for infrastructure construction for the proposed residential and commercial development in Leonia.

The CDBG application is being submitted through the BOCC to meet federal requirements. The BOCC passed a resolution of support in January.

The deadline is in about a week and a half, according to Evan McAllister of David H. Melvin Engineering, the engineer for the Mezzaluna Springs project.

McAllister said the next CDBG funding cycle the developers could apply for was for 2010, and he asked the county to maintain its support for the project when the developers reapply for CDBG funding.

McAllister also proposed the final draft of an agreement between the developers and the BOCC that would largely hold the BOCC harmless is something went wrong with the project.. Both Young and McAllister said the proposal was not a 100 percent guarantee.

BOCC Chairman Monte Merchant wondered out loud about what would happen if another project came along and requested county support for a CDBG while the Mezzaluna Springs developers were reapplying. “Why should the county make any obligation,” Young asked.

Developer Linda Christie told the BOCC that while most CDBG application took three months to complete the Holmes County application took 11 months. Christie said she “understood that it would take longer” because the BOCC had never done this kind of CDBG before.

Christie said that developers had letters of intent from banks but that because the paperwork was not completed in time the terms from the banks were hanged and a considerable amount of funding was lost.

“We literally lost $3 million we need to recoup somehow,” Christie said.

Young noted that the resolution of support passed in January was still in effect and McAllister said that when he returned with the new application, “we will pick up from right here” and resubmit the application to the Florida Department of Community Affairs.