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During the Monday meeting of the Chambers County Commission, county coroner Jeff Jones was one of three recognized for his years of service to Chambers County.

Jones has served as coroner for 15 years and is the first recipient of the county’s recognition awards program.

The program, Commissioner Sam Bradford said the commission developed the system to recognize county employees about a year ago.

“I guess nine months or a year ago, we began to have some discussions about what things that we can do to recognize employees that had continuous years of service more than just a short period of time,” Bradford said.

Also recognized, but not present were, Julius Bullard Jr. and Bryan Yates.

County engineer Josh Harvill introduced a resolution for the expenditure of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funds in the amount of $939.872.20 to purchase road construction equipment that was passed by the commission unanimously.

The equipment to purchase will be:

• Volvo PT125C Pneumatic Tired Roller at a cost of $90.458
• Etnyre Centennial Distributor at a cost of $223.679
• Etnyre 9/18 Chip Spreader at a cost of $328,005.20
• 720Xi-260H Reclaimer/Stabilizer at a cost of $297,730

“The purchase of the equipment will avoid or eliminate the need for the county to contract with third parties for certain road construction services and lower the cost per mile of the county road construction by 38% and allow the county to provide these road maintenance and construction services in a more timely, targeted, and cost-effective manner,” the resolution reads.

“The biggest thing I would like the public to realize [is] that it is our responsibility as commissioners to manage the monies that the taxpayers pay us all year,” Commissioner James “Moto” Williams said. “This is a way that we see that we can extend our tax dollars by purchasing this equipment and I think this is a great thing to do.”

Harvill told Commission Chair Debra Riley that ones the new equipment was placed in service, he would redo the county’s transportation plan. Harvill says if the equipment is ordered the week of March 4, delivery would likely be around August or September timeframe.

“So, the sooner we order, the hope is, maybe, there’s enough left to the summer that we can start taking advantage of it,” Harvill said.

Harvill also told the commission that there would be no further road closures on County Road 268. However, the road was still considered to be under construction until resurfacing in the summer.

County Attorney closed out the meeting telling the commission that the bill to continue the 6 mil Ad Valorem tax passed the Alabama House of Representatives and the Senate. McCoy said he and Sen. Randy Price have been in discussions and Price will assist in getting it to Gov. Kay Ivey and signed in to law. 3 mils are earmarked for the county commission for construction and maintenance programs use and the other 3 mils are divided between the Chambers County Board of Education and Lanett City Schools. The referendum vote will be held on June 21.

The commission will meet again on Monday, March 8, 2022, at 4:00 p.m. central.