The Barry County Board of Commissioners voted last November to hire Tower Pinkster Associates, Inc. to facilitate planning for a new Barry County Jail and Commission on Aging building, but a professional service agreement approval was delayed until Dec. 11, and then postponed again to the second board meeting in February this Tuesday.
After a motion to delay the agreement again to wait for a report on the feasibility of a separate Barry County Health Department failed, the service agreement was approved 5-2 with commissioners Dan Parker, Vivian Conner, Ben Geiger, Heather Wing and Jon Smelker voting “yes” Commissioners Howard “Hoot” Gibson and David Jackson voting “no.”
The majority of commissioners argued the health department issue would make no difference to the agreement with Tower Pinkster one way or another, and it was time to move forward.
The agreement calls for Tower Pinkster to update a facility study they developed for the county in 2015, planned to take 48 hours. They will provide a facility cost index for the health department building, Friend of the Court, Sheriff/jail and COA facilities following data gathering; walk through of the buildings and facility updates.
The facility cost index will compare the cost of modifications and renovations to the cost of building a new jail/COA, something commissioners asked for.
The $70,000 fee includes $5,000 for the facilities update and facility cost index and $53,000 for planning and public information services, estimated to take 400 hours. Tower Pinkster will provide materials for public information services for $12,000.
All of the billings are plus reimbursable expenses.
Implementation services for bond projects, (after a successful election) include design and construction administration at a yet to be negotiated fee, plus reimbursable expenses, the agreement reads.
In other business, the commissioners approved:
*an agreement for economic development services from the Barry County Economic Development Alliance/Chamber of Commerce for one year for $133.891.
*the purchase of Youth Center Management software
*accepting a $10,000 grant from Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for juvenile detention services
*adopting the Barry County Parks and Recreation five year plan, with several typos corrected.
