County Commission O.K.s Precinct Reduction

The Jasper County Commission gave its blessing Monday to a proposal by elections superintendent and Probate Judge Linda Keller and Chief Registrar Carole Norris to reduce the number of voting precincts in Jasper County.

If the plan is approved by the justice department, Jasper County will go from having seven voter precincts to having three. It will not change the district lines, just where some voters vote.

The precincts which would be eliminated include Hillsboro; Shady Dale; Smith, Jordan, Lazenby, and Thompson and Barnes.

The change will save the county money in purchasing ballots and paying poll workers, and will expand the amount of room available for early voting. As it is proposed, the current law library on the ground floor of the Courthouse will move to the second floor, and a door will be cut from the registrar’s office into that space. Early voting could take place there.

Judge Keller said that for the November election last year, more people voted early than voted on election day. All early voting is done in the Courthouse.

The election officials were seeking a green light from the commissioners before moving forward with submitting the plan to the justice department. Judge Keller said she is clear on the regulations, the required posting and advertisements, and is prepared to handle that.

Judge Keller and Mrs. Norris made their presentation during Monday afternoon’s meeting of the Jasper County Commission.

Also at that meeting, commissioners voted to allow 911 director Melissa Slocumb to apply for a grant to help with communications. She explained that they may have found a $500 fix to the glitch that had been keeping the new radios from working as well as anticipated. If not, she will need the grant funds, and local funds, to purchase new equipment.

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If the fix works, she suggested the same grant could be used for new antennas in the Shady Dale area where emergency officials are having some coverage problems. The match for the radio fix would require the $5,000 budgeted by 911 for grant matching funds and another $7,5000 local funds, if the project cost $50,000.

Mrs. Slocumb said that if the $500 fix worked, the grant money could be used to install antennas. She said the purpose of the grant was to help with interoperability and compatibility issues that were caused by the switch to the FCC-mandated narrow-banding.

Before she could say what the cost of that would be, Commission Chairman Carl Pennamon stopped her saying this is the second week of a new budget year, and that better planning must be done. The county cannot allot an additional $7,500 in the second week of the year.

Chairman’s Pennamon’s concern was first raised when the commissioners were discussing the best way to fix a leak in the law library that has forced the registrar from her office, and has continued to cause problems.

The new county manager, Karen Degges, was suggesting that a maintenance plan be put into place. One bidder for the project repair suggested it would be appropriate to get an engineer’s opinion. Commissioner Gene Trammell suggested getting the expertise of an architect, possibly the one who designed the addition, even though the leak is in the old part of the building.

After much discussion, and the chairman expressing his concern about the budget, the commission voted to have Joe McMichael do the work he outlined in a bid that will hopefully fix the problem. Mr. McMichael believes he can fix it for $1,300.

In other action at Monday’s meeting, commissioners agreed to

•Establish a county-wide uniform color selection for roofs of county-owned buildings, and the color recommended by staff and approved by the commission was pearl gray.

•Voted to move forward on the lease of three new motor graders, and not to purchase the service package.

•Accepted the low bid from the northeast Georgia regional commission to complete the hazard mitigation plan.

•Authorized the county manager to make bank transfers.

•Agreed to install two culverts on Turtle Cove Trailway for nearly $3,500 with the agreement that Turtle Cove would address the run-off problem that is exacerbating the problem.

•Agreed to sign the county manager contract.

•Learned the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) committee was to meet yesterday, July 17.

•Heard from the county manager about several concerns.

At the end of the meeting the commissioners went into closed session to discuss personnel and courthouse security.