The Pearl River County Board of Supervisors met on Wednesday to discuss the opening of bids for two county projects, radios for volunteer fire departments and a variety of other business before the holidays.

Pearl River County Engineer Les Dungan announced that bids had been opened for the Richardson-Ozona Road Project and the replacement of the E.T. Poole Road Bridge.

Dungan said the successful bid for the Richardson-Ozona Road Project was within a half-percent of the initial engineer’s estimate. The board approved the motion to award the contract to Huey Stockstill, Inc. for $1,436,539.

“We got a qualified contractor at a good price,” said Dungan, “He called and expressed interest in starting the project as soon as the paperwork is approved.”

Dungan said the contractor is eager to begin working because of how unusually dry the climate has been for this time of year.

Pearl River Paving was the only company to submit a bid for the E.T. Poole Road Bridge replacement project. Dungan said the state allows the county to award a contract to a single bidder only if the bid falls within five percent of the engineer’s initial estimate. Since the proposed bid of $207,702 was only 0.29 percent more than the preliminary estimate, the board approved the motion to award the contract to Pearl River Paving.

In other business at Wednesday’s meeting, the board continued their discussion on the radio system used by volunteer fire departments in Pearl River County.

“Two meetings ago the board made a motion to basically have COMSOUTH look at the radio system and make some recommendations,” said Pearl River County Administrator Adrain Lumpkin.

COMSOUTH, Inc. President Dale Purvis said he inspected the existing facilities.

“The equipment is all up to specifications,” said Purvis, “There’s nothing wrong with anything you got.”

Purvis said COMSOUTH did not do an engineering analysis, and added that there will always be plusses and minuses with any system.

“We went to the south site, and there is some interference on the fire channel,” said Purvis, “There are ways to resolve that. You can put a monitor on it to see what the frequency is and who is transmitting on it to see if it’s legal.”

Purvis said there were no issues with any of the radio equipment at the dispatch, but recommended upgrading the computers, which run on Microsoft XP and were installed in 2004.

In light of this new information, the board had a lengthy discussion over the appropriate course of action, but could not come to a conclusion. While the supervisors are in agreement that something must be done to resolve the problem with the radios, they are still deliberating on a solution and will continue their discussion at the next meeting.

Also at the meeting, the board approved travel for two deputies with the Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department to an NRA Handgun and Shotgun School for training in Pearl from March 23-27. District I Supervisor Anthony Hales voted against the matter.

In other business, the board:

–       Decided against changing the Christmas holidays from the previously approved dates of Dec. 24-25 to the newly suggested dates of 25-26. The board decided not to vote for the new dates since people may have already made plans based on the dates they had already approved.

–       Signed a letter of notice stating that the county would provide water to Pearl River County Hospital in case of an emergency if they were able to do so.

–       Passed a motion to approve poll worker checks.

–       Approved personnel changes in the Justice Court, Sheriff’s Department and Tax Collector’s office.

 

The board will meet again on Monday, Jan. 5 in Poplarville.