St. Clair County to purchase buses

By Michael Mee/For The Leeds News

The new buses that will transport residents throughout St. Clair County were approved for purchase at last week’s county commission meeting.

In a work session before the meeting, County Transportation Director Terry Rowe went over the features the buses will have. The four new buses, which will cost $58,000 a piece, will be equipped with Q-strait belts to ensure passenger safety, will be handicap accessible and will have an integrated child seat for each bus and a sonar backup system to ensure maximum visibility for drivers and pedestrians.

The funding for the buses were made after the county secured a $231,372 grant out of the federal stimulus package adopted a few months back. There was a $1,756 shortfall that the county will make up to purchase the buses with the extra safety features.

There will be a total of six buses in the county’s fleet, with five on the road and one in reserve in case another bus goes out of service due to an unforeseen event, Rowe told the commission. He said that once the order was placed, that it will take around 120 days to build the four buses and added that he hopes they will be on the road by March.

Commissioners also approved for Rowe to let bids for a dispatch system to be purchased for the growing county bus system.

Rowe also discussed that the Springville bus funds could add $9,900 to the county’s system if they add a pickup site one-fourth of a mile away from the county’s pickup location in that city.

Also at the meeting, the county librarians asked the commission to give the go-ahead on allowing an integrated system to be installed that would link libraries to better serve patrons. The system could also be linked with other libraries not in the county system, such as Moody and Pell City.

Commissioners agreed to match funds at a cost of $17,000 that would be added to a $68,000 federal grant for circulation software for the five county libraries to run new hardware and software for a new system.

The move would set up a system-wide patron card that would connect all libraries and free up staff to spend more time with their patrons while streamlining libraries’ supply management.

Library representatives noted that currently the county library in Ashville, Springville, Ragland and Steele are more akin to what schools use, not public libraries. The commission said that moving forward with a new system is warranted and delegated the county’s technology team to oversee the new system to ensure the libraries would get the most effective and useful system available. Other items approved at last week’s meeting included:

•approving to close courthouses and county offices on Christmas Eve;

•accepting an annual grant from the Department of Youth Services in the amount of $300,000;

•contributing $50,000 to the Town of Steele for use to construction Community Center, also county will do grading and other site prep;

•approving and accepting an ADECA grant in the amount of $25,000 to be used to further technology in the court system;

•approving for the St. Clair Technology Team to engage Jeffcoat & Associates LLC to install data wiring infrastructure in the Ashville Courthouse at a cost of $29,632.95;

•approving up to $15,000 for the St. Clair County Technology Co-operative to purchase equipment for network upgrade and also approve a General Fund Budget Amendment reflecting that amount;

• approving the request of Property Manager Harold Hoyle to let bids for security surveillance equipment for the Ashville Courthouse and to declare a number of items in the Pell City Courthouse basement as surplus so they can be disposed of;

•approving a one-year maintenance contract with Windstream for all VOIP equipment in Pell City and Ashville in the amount of $7,709;

•approving the request of Probate Judge Mike Bowling to enter into a contract with an accountant for the probate office to be paid on an hourly basis from the judge’s discretionary funds;

•approving request of E911 Coordinator Bill Richvalsky to let bids for a 911 switch for Central Dispatch;

•approving the request of Sheriff Terry Surles to pay an invoice in the amount of $164 from Tactical Technologies. (No purchase order was issued on the original invoice.)