Supervisors award bid for Marsh Avenue bridge contract

By BRYCE KELLY

Mt. Pleasant News

The Henry County Board of Supervisors has approved a Marsh Avenue Bridge award contract with Taylor Construction, Inc.

During Tuesday?s Henry County Board of Supervisors meeting, Jake Hotchkiss, Henry County engineer, approached the board about the contract with Taylor Construction in the amount of $449,821 for the 120x30 foot continuous concrete slab bridge. The accepted contract amount was just slightly over the engineer?s original estimate of $448,952.40.

If all goes as planned and Hotchkiss can get all the necessary approval and paperwork completed, he hopes to begin work on the project in July. However, this is just a tentative start month.

Besides discussion of the new bridge project, Hotchkiss also gave the board an update on driving conditions on county gravel roads and reported that cars will undoubtedly get dirty quite quickly with current road conditions.

?Gravel roads were messy over the weekend and may continue to be that way,? Hotchkiss said. ?We will be working on those roads by cutting out ruts created over the weekend. Spot rock will be hauled in later in the week once temperatures stay below freezing to allow our trucks on the roads without causing more damage.?

Hotchkiss also reminded the board they should expect road conditions to change from day to day as weather temperatures are slated to shift around this week.

In other news, the Henry County Board of Supervisors has also approved two grant applications from the Henry County Sheriff?s Office.

The first grant, a one-time $7,391 Advanced Mobile Forensics Grant, will be used to purchase software that will allow law enforcement officials to obtain data from a cell phone that could be used as part of an ongoing investigation.

Without this software, Henry County investigators have to send cell phones collected as part of an investigation to state offices where data is extracted then sent back to Henry County. While this process is effective, the time it takes to get the extracted data back to Henry County is often lengthy and can slow an investigation that could benefit from the cell phone data.

According to Dora Bentler, a representative from the Henry County Sheriff?s Office, the software would be a welcomed tool for Henry County law enforcement as cell phone data has become, in many cases, integral pieces of evidence.

Apart from the Mobile Forensics Grant, the supervisors also approved an application for the Traffic Safety Program and Impaired Driving Grant in the amount of $32,560. This particular grant will go toward three new squad car cameras, educational materials regarding impaired driving and an impaired driving prevention training program.

The next Henry County Board of Supervisors meeting will be held on Thursday, Feb. 12 at 9 a.m., inside the Henry County Courthouse. All Henry County Board of Supervisors meetings are open to the public.