November 27, 2018
By: Dwayne Page
Construction will begin soon on a new county fire hall in the Four Seasons Community, a project that has been in the making for four years.
During Monday night’s regular monthly meeting, the county commission voted 10-4 to award the latest lowest bid for the project to Johnson Builders of Doyle, Tennessee. Their base bid was $160,820 with alternate deducts of $8,000 for work on the parking lot and $4,000 to add insulation to the building. The contractor has 270 days to complete the project.
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Fifth district commissioner Anita Puckett moved that the county accept the bid. Fifth district commissioner Jerry Adcock offered a second to the motion. Both Puckett and Adcock represent the district where the new fire hall will be built.
In 2014 the county commission voted to acquire property, a little more than an acre in size, near the intersection of Four Seasons Road and Young Green Road for the future home of the fire station. In 2015 the commission set aside $25,000 as seed money for the eventual development of the fire hall. In 2016 another $50,000 was added for a total of $75,000 and in 2017 the fund was increased to $100,000 with the addition of another $25,000. A total of $165,000 is now set aside in the capital projects fund of the budget for the fire hall.
The project has been delayed twice because the lowest bids to construct the facility ($257,000 in May and $197,000 in March) were deemed too high by the previous county commission. That was essentially the same argument posed by commissioners who voted against awarding this bid thinking the fire hall could have been built cheaper. Second District Commissioner Myron Rhody said the proposed construction is more extensive than he was led to believe and moved to table the project until the commission has more time to review the specs.
“I think we need to table this motion (by Anita Puckett) so we can discuss this because I don’t feel like all the commissioners understand what we are actually letting out for bid. At the workshop I was under the impression it was a pole barn. A wood structure. A pole barn. That’s what I understood it to be but its not that at all. I have had a chance to glance over the specs and we are doing a lot of extensive building. I don’t think everybody is on the same page with the specs,” said Rhody.
Third district commissioner Bobby Johnson offered a second to Rhody’s motion.
The vote to table the project failed on a 9-5 vote. Commissioners Myron Rhody, Jeff Barnes, Dennis Slager, Janice Fish-Stewart, and Bobby Johnson voted to table. Commissioners Julie Young, Sabrina Farler, Jenny Trapp, Scott Little, Anita Puckett, Jerry Adcock, Matt Adcock, Bruce Malone, and Beth Pafford voted against the move to table.
“I was on the previous commission and we have pursued this before. Lots of controversial issues arose from this and we talked about trying to obtain a cheaper bid but that was not the case. We re-evaluated the specs, made lots of changes, and cut this drastically and still we have an overpriced bid. That’s how we all feel but here is the deal. It (project) is going to continue to grow (in cost). The money is there (budgeted) and has been appropriated for this so I feel like we need to pursue this,” said Commissioner Puckett.
Original plans called for the fire hall to be a steel frame structure of 40’ x 55’ in size consisting of two bays, a restroom, shower, and a small meeting room. It was to be a turnkey project with all the work including construction, concrete pad, septic tank, etc all to have been done under one contract. The county altered the bid specifications during the latest round of bidding hoping to bring the costs down.
Puckett’s motion to award the bid passed on a 10-4 vote. All voted in favor except Rhody, Johnson, Slager, and Barnes.
When the fire hall is completed, the county will have a fire truck ready to put in it after having secured grant funds with a local match months ago to purchase a truck.
The new fire station at Four Seasons will be the 12th station in the county operated by the DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department. The other fire halls are on Short Mountain Highway, Midway Community, Belk, Keltonburg, Cookeville Highway, Austin Bottom Community, Liberty, Temperance Hall, Main Station, Johnson Chapel, and Blue Springs.