Henry County government’s vehicle fleet is getting a major overhaul.
More than 50 new vehicles were approved for purchase by the Board of Commissioners at its November 4 regular meeting. The list includes more than 40 Ford pickup trucks and vans as well as two Chevrolet vans, three John Deere earth-moving machines and three Kenworth dump trucks.
These vehicles will be utilized by the county’s transportation, stormwater, animal control, parks and recreation, senior services, judicial, extension services, airport and other departments. More than $2.6 million was allocated for these acquisitions using a combination of SPLOST funds, capital funds and stormwater funds.
In other business, the board voted to accept the continuation of Victims of Crime Act subgrant funds from the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council of Georgia to be used by the District Attorney’s office. According to a county staff report, the two grant awards total roughly $115,000 with an 80-20 local match and are allocated for the continuation of existing early notification victim advocate positions for the 2021 fiscal year. Their duties include assisting the CJCC with distributing information concerning the crime victims compensation program, and also providing assistance to crime victims at the beginning stages of the judicial process.
Engineering design services for three separate road projects under Henry County’s current special-purpose local option sales tax program will soon be underway after contracts were approved by the commissioners. The work includes improvements to Sandy Ridge Road (from Keys Ferry Road to Stallsworth Road) and Ellistown Road (from Peeksville Road to Moccasin Gap), both of which are dirt road paving projects with a total engineering design cost of $203,947. The third project is the extension of Flippen Road to Jonesboro Road, with a $284,650 price tag for engineering design.
The board approved the purchase of a $98,090 laser scanner kit for the Henry County Police Department. According to a staff report, this equipment will allow the department’s Crime Scene Unit and Traffic Unit to obtain measurements that help provide depictions of investigation scenes in court. The Crime Scene Unit has been using fiberglass-measuring tape and a measuring wheel for its investigations while the Traffic Unit has been operating with out-of-date software. Both situations have required excessive amounts of time and personnel to do the work that the new equipment will do much more quickly. The laser scanner kit, which requires only one person to operate, works in any conditions and will create a diagram for a judge and jury to have the ability to realistically view a scene in a video-style format.
Also approved was the $76,755 purchase of necessary wireless access points to enable technology staff to operate a single wireless network across all county buildings. There are currently two wireless networks that are mixed and matched across county buildings, and both are utilizing equipment at or nearing their end of life, according to a county staff report. Officials said replacing this equipment will give county employees better wireless connectivity while lessening the amount of required maintenance with one system instead of two. Funding for the purchase will come from the technology services department’s capital improvement plan.
The board voted to refund $35,000 to the Lake Dow Homeowners Association that was paid in connection with an application for a special service district to cover maintenance and repair on a dam in the community. The funds were intended to cover the creation of the special tax district as well as design and engineering plans for the work and so that the county could conduct a referendum for approval of general obligation bonds throughout the district. As the county has not moved forward with any of these plans, the association decided it was in its best interest to pursue the maintenance and repair of the dam without county assistance.
A resolution was approved awarding Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood Inc. a contract for the design of the wetland and/or stream restoration at Butler’s Bridge Road in the amount of $159,000. The board also approved the next group of applicants for the Small Business Restart and Non-Profit Assistance Program, as well as an ordinance amending multiple sections of the county code regulating development within the Highway Corridor Overlay District
