Cole County Commissioners kicked off their Tuesday meeting by proclaiming the week of Oct. 1-7 as National 4-H Week in Cole County.
“The Cole County Commission … encourages all of our citizens to recognize 4-H for the significant impact they’ve made and continue to make by empowering youth with the skills they need to lead for a lifetime,” Presiding Commissioner Sam Bushman said.
Two Cole County families involved with 4-H received the proclamation: Amanda Stapp and her sons, Conor and Liam, and Julia Suess and her children, Madisyn, Jasper and Everett.
Getting into regular business, commissioners approved entering a professional services agreement with Architects Alliance to draft designs for the new Prenger Family Center.
While Cole County finally found a home for its new juvenile center in August after months of searching, the project is still a long way from being finished.
Cole County purchased a 9.09-acre plot next to Scheppers Distributing Company to use for the new center.
The professional services agreement with Architects Alliance comes with a $860,000 price tag. Those services include completing a schematic design, drafting construction documents and support during construction.
Chris Neff, a project manager with Architects Alliance, said there were also direct-to-owner costs on top of that. Those include $10,310 for a site survey, $15,000 for a geotechnical investigation of the site and $15,000 for a kitchen equipment consultant.
Architect Abigail Steck said this proposal was based on a building study of the existing Prenger Family Center conducted in late 2022. She said Architects Alliance designs will be based on a roughly $11 million construction cost estimate.
“We started out at $6.5 million, so we’re gonna have to pump the brakes somewhere. That’s just not jiving,” Eastern District Commissioner Jeff Hoelscher said. “We’re gonna have to scale something back or make some changes.”
Hoelscher said he thinks the budget needs to be closer to $6.5 million, which is the amount of American Rescue Act Plan (ARPA) funds commissioners set aside for the project.
“You perhaps thought it was going to be $6.5 million and completely paid for by ARPA; I never had that premonition,” Western District Commissioner Harry Otto said.
Otto said it’s an unbelievably costly project. He said previous meetings indicated square footage for the facility’s secure kitchen was estimated to cost $500-$600 per square foot.
Hoelscher was adamant the county couldn’t afford to spend $11 million on a new juvenile center. He asked whether cuts could be made to bring down the cost or if the project could be shifted.
One suggestion Hoelscher posed was to keep the current facility as a residential area for juveniles and only build a new detention area at the new property.
He also suggested possibly cutting down from eight detention cells to four, or building to meet state needs to initiate a partnership with the state that might pay for some of the construction.
Steck said commissioners could try to shave off some of the cost by reducing the scope of the project, but no amount of “gnawing” was going to reduce the price tag by half, as Hoelscher wanted.
Cole County Juvenile Court Administrator/Juvenile Officer Tobie Meyer said the facility needs eight detention cells and said she didn’t think the state was interested in partnering with Cole County.
Hoelscher said he understood Meyer’s situation and hates to tell her no, but $11 million was too hard to swallow.
Otto argued the county can’t know what areas it can cut from the facility to potentially reduce the cost without getting designs first. So he made a motion to enlist Architects Alliance’s professional services.
Bushman seconded the motion.
“All in favor?” Bushman asked. “Aye,” Bushman and Otto said in unison. “Nay,” Hoelscher said.
In other action at the meeting, commissioners:
Signed a contract with Juvare for Crisis Track services, a damage assessment software.
Signed an agreement for a Prenger Family Center grant-funded supervised access and exchange program. The agreement pays a contractor to supervise visits and an exchange program for juveniles in the county’s care.
Signed a contract with Central Bank for professional services for the Collector’s Office.
Approved letters engaging the services of an outside contractor to conduct appraisals of two Cole County properties. Jill LaHue, representing Assessor Chris Estes, said the regular appraiser had a conflict of interest and couldn’t provide his normal services.
Signed a change order for the 2023 asphalt overlay program. County engineer Matt Prenger said the project had an increase of $26,915.40 in cost due to a difference between tabulated and actual quantities of asphalt. Prenger said part of the work was done in Jefferson City, so the city will reimburse the county for a portion of the work.
Rejected a bid from Micro Imaging Solutions for book preservation services for the Recorder of Deeds’ Office. Purchasing Agent Jessica Bryant said Recorder Judy Ridgeway needed the bidder to digitize, reassemble and rebind 28 books, but Micro Imaging Solutions only submitted a quote for scanning the books. With the bid rejected, Ridgeway will re-bid the contract.
Public Works Director Eric Landwehr gave a brief update on the Capital Area Rail Terminal (CART) project. He said construction crews are actively laying down track at the site now and construction is going along as expected. The project’s completion date is still estimated to be in December, with the facility opening for operation in early 2024.
Commissioners ended the meeting by going into closed session to discuss legal actions. The full 50-minute meeting is available to watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lv7daiAj18.