Supervisors approve purchase for surveillance equipment for courthouse, other county buildings

Security cameras will be installed on the Washington County Courthouse and two other county buildings soon as the Washington County Board of Supervisors approved a bid for the project.

In May, supervisors voted to reject bids that were $140,000 over the budgeted $550,000. The board put out a new RFP (request for proposals) which detailed a base bid and alternate packages for other county buildings to be selected as cost allowed. During the second round of RFPs, the county received two new bids.

Washington County Engineer Jacob Thorius said the low bid came from Tri City Electric for a total of $526,016. This bid encompasses the base bid of $446,446, of which the equipment will be used on the courthouse. The remaining $79,570 will be used to purchase two alternate packages for county buildings three and four.

Supervisor Abe Miller, who attended the meeting by phone, was concerned about the price of the overall project, stating it is much higher than what other areas are paying.

'I just visited with some other counties, and I just know they put some systems in that were far less expensive,” he said. 'I also visited with another company that (said this) was a quite out-of-the-ordinary type of bid, as far as the cost.”

Thorius said the reason for the cost all boiled down to preference.

'Are you a Ford guy or a Rolls-Royce? We're not doing Rolls-Royce and we're not doing a Pinto. We're doing something in between,” he said. 'You can do whatever options you want out there. When we looked at this system over the past 2 1/2 years, and what other school districts in the community have, some banks, and some of the capabilities available to the sheriff's office, that's a plus with this system.”

He said comparing price from county to county is difficult because multiple factors such as the number of cameras, types of cameras and types of systems all play into the cost.

Supervisors approved the bid from Tri City Electric 3-1 with supervisor Abe Miller opposing and supervisor Jack Seward absent from the meeting.