Lawrence County Commissioners Approve Repairs To Courthouse Roof

Last updated on Wednesday, August 24, 2016

(BEDFORD) - The Lawrence County Commissioners took emergency action and approved to spend $73,170 to repair both wings of the Lawrence County Courthouse roof.

BNL Sheet Metal will do the repairs.

The action was taken after a section of the roof fell on a Circuit Court reporter last week.

The work will be advertised and then taken from the Cumulative Capital fund.

In other business:

Lawrence County Highway Superintendent David Holmes reported crews are finishing chipping and sealing in District 2 and crews are out mowing.

"It has just been miserable this year with all the rain," Holmes says. "We are doing the best we can."

Crews were slowed because of paving, all the rain and because their tractor was broke down for a couple of days.

Commissioner Dave Flinn issued an apology to county residents because of the delay.

Holmes reported work continues on Bridge 113 and crews have the piers in place and are working on the abutments.

The bridge over Spring Creek was closed after an accident in July knocked out a pier from under the bridge and caused other substantial damage. The bridge is located between Popcorn and Harrodsburg roads.

The work should be completed in 5 to 6 weeks weather permitting.

Work continues on Bridge 83 on Logan/Donica Road located just off Logan Bottoms Road.

Crews will be filling a large hole that weakened the concrete deck. The bridge is still open but reduced to one lane and has a load limit of 12 tons until further notice.

The commissioners also voted to purchase new Peterbuilt trucks from Larson Group for the highway department.

Sheriff Mike Branham reported there were 153 inmates in the county jail. Of those 31 were females, 9 Level D felons and 1 Department of Correction hold.

Sheriff Branham says crews are working on a new LED lighting system in the jail.

"We are using commissary funds to pay for the project," Branham says."In the long run this will save us money seeing a substantial energy saving. We will use 60 percent less energy seeing a substantial savings of $800 to $1,000 a month."

By the time the project is completed and all the refunds come in, Sheriff Branham estimates the total project with cost around $10,000.

DLZ will be at the sheriff's department next week to complete their Americans With Disabilities Act Information inspection.

Sheriff Branham says some changes will have to be made at the department to become compliant.

One of those changes will be in the visitation rooms were the public visits with inmates. Currently the room has seating not accessible to those in wheelchairs and that will have to be changed.

County Health nurse Sherry Lawson presented the commissioners with a letter to be sent to the State Health Department in a move to finalize the needle exchange program in Lawrence County. The letter will asked the State Health commissioner to issue a declaration of emergency at the state level for the county.

Vanguard Alarm Services Inc. will service all the county's fire extinguishers at the cost of $975. The extinguishers have not been serviced since 2004.

A bench was placed on the courthouse lawn in memory of former Veteran's Affairs officer Bill Baker. Then bench was paid for by county employees.

1340 AM WBIW welcomes comments and suggestions by calling 812.277.1340 during normal business hours or by email at comments@wbiw.com

Click here to go back to previous page