During the regular meeting of the Bandera County Commissioners on Jan. 25, JC Stoddard Construction was selected by the court to work on the demolition and clean-up phase of the historical jail and courthouse, a restoration project that began last year and is being headed by Commissioner Jack Moseley.
Ranking the highest in the Court’s selection system, JC Stoddard was the preferred contractor out of a starting six bidders.
Out of the four bidders that remained, the court voted unanimously to accept the four remaining bids and to award the base bid of $81,649 to JC Stoddard.
Moseley said that they intend to salvage the beaded ceilings.
Bids for installing metal doors at the County EMS building were also discussed.
The EMS structure is a metal building that was installed with wood doors during construction — doors that are now posing a problem with proper functioning.
Mulling over several bids that were presented, the commissioners voted to postpone their selection for up to 30 days due to inconsistencies in all work to be done across the different estimates.
EMS Director Shannon Griffin requested that County Engineer Dieter Werner oversee the bids and work with the companies.
Dieter, who will work with the companies to define and refine the bids, said he would like to reach out to some other local companies as well.
Commissioner Jody Rutherford stressed that the money to pay for the project should draw from the county’s contingency fund and not from EMS’s budget.
“This is not their fault,” said Rutherford.
As it is used numerous times per year for various function types, the commissioners deliberated over revising and enforcing the rules for using the courthouse lawn.
Some of the rules discussed included, no vehicles to be driven on the lawn, users to provide their own trash receptacles, no large animals on the lawn, damages caused to any court fixtures must be repaired, no harassing courthouse employees and mandatory liability insurance.
Since liability insurance for lawn users has never been required, the commissioners voted to postpone the acceptance of the revised rules so that the liability clause could be drafted.