The Highland County Board of Commissioners announced at their weekly Wednesday meeting that it plans to officially move to use Bid Express as a part of its bidding process.
Commissioner Jeff Duncan said that the commissioners office used the system for the last couple of bids and that they’d be using it from now on.
“The Highland County Commissioner’s Office is pleased to announce that we, as a county, along with the engineer’s office, will be utilizing Bid Express, an online bidding process,” Duncan said. “We will continue to accept paper bids if you choose to continue with that as well. We have seen at the engineer’s office this is a smooth process and online submission allows for digitally signed bids, eliminates costs for hand and hired delivery of bid packets and provides air checking for alerts to omission to submission, easily accommodates last-minute changes and price cuts, automates email notifications to alert vendors of solidification, posting and solicitation changes. Vendors can either pay a monthly fee of $50 per month or $40 per bid.”
In other news, commissioner Dave Daniels said that the county continues to work on the Rocky Fork Lake sewer system. He said that because of the monthly billing and working with some residents that have delinquencies, that number has been reduced. However, he also said there are still some out there, but that they are working through them.
Daniels also said the county has had some issues with a specific group of people. He said that if residents are illegally hooked into the system, get their services shut off, and then try and reconnect themselves, that is theft of services. He also said that if the county find people doing that kind of thing, the county will probably end up filing charges against them.
Commissioner Terry Britton said that the Buford school project was let out for bid Wednesday morning and it utilizes the electronic bid as well as a paper bid packet people can pick up.
Concerning the dog pound, Duncan said he hasn’t heard from the architect, but they were hoping to announce that soon so it could be let out for bids.
Daniels said that the delay on the dog pound is “bordering on unacceptable.” He said the commissioners have been working with the architects on the project for far too long and the project started a long time ago. He also said there haven’t been any significant changes for about four months and they need to get results out of it.
Bill Behling, Innergex director of development, attended the meeting to announce that for the Palomino Solar Project, the Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) completed its application, deemed it complete and set both a public hearing date and the evidentiary hearing date. He said the public hearing date will be Wednesday, June 29 at the Highland County Fairgrounds in Hillsboro at 5 p.m. and the evidentiary hearing date will be Wednesday, July 13, starting at 10 a.m. at the OPSB in Columbus.
In other news, following questions about what was going to happen with an open dog warden posting, Duncan said that it was in their plan to fill the position, but that the job had not been posted yet. He said they have a job description ready to go and it should be coming soon.
Ted McReynolds, president of The Friends of the Highland County Dog Pound, said they applied for a grant from South Central Power for a professional dog grooming tub that would be used in the new facility. He said they asked for something over $2,700 and should know about the status of the application by next Wednesday.
Britton said Highland County Sheriff Donnie Barrera sent the commissioners a note saying the sheriff’s office needs repairs for a steamer table. Britton said he received information that Barrera got a quote for a new one that would cost $22,000 and that the quote for the repairs was about $4,784. Britton said he didn’t think the table was that old and thought they should have it repaired. He also said he thought the county probably had the money in its budget to take care of the issue. The board of commissioners moved to accept the repair of the steamer table instead of buying a new one.
There were two resolutions approved by the board of commissioners:
* Res. No. 22-84 is an authorization for the signature of the Ohio Department of Transportation Grant Contract Offer from the Office of Aviation for the Highland County Airport AWOS III Grant Project.
* Res. No. 22-85 is a purchase and agreement to pay $150,000 for a property located on Beech Street in Hillsboro to be used as the Highland County Records Storage Facility.
Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.
