Newton County Supervisors agreed Thursday to host inspection teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for several months while they investigate flood damage in neighboring counties.
Emergency Management Director Brian Taylor told the Board of Supervisors FEMA had reached out to him requesting a temporary office space for approximately eight workers for up to three months.
“FEMA is in our area, in this district, District 6. They’re looking for a location that they can potentially use for approximately two, at most three months,” he said.
Taylor said the FEMA selected Newton County because it’s centrally located to the flooding that occurred in neighboring counties late last year. He suggested allowing the use of the Newton County Show Barn, as it has adequate space, restrooms and power, but using it would not displace any county employees.
“All they really need is power,” he said. “They can bring their own Wi-Fi, that sort of thing.”
FEMA also pledged to vacate the Show Barn if an event or meeting needed to be held at the facility, he said.
County Administrator Steve Seale said the Department of Human Services could also house the FEMA workers if the Show Barn didn’t meet their needs.
“DHS has a lot of open space,” he said. “I think there’s only like ten people down there.”
The board agreed both the Show Barn and the DHS building would meet FEMA’s needs. Supervisors approved entering into a license and use agreement with FEMA but did not specify which building would be used.
Taylor said he would talk with DHS and FEMA to see which building would be a better fit and let the board know at the next meeting.
In other business, County Engineer Duane Stanford told the board it had $22,000 in Local System Bridge Project funds that would be returned to the state if the county did not use them.
“They call it resending funds,” he said. “They’ve started resending funds from counties that aren’t using them.”
LSBP funds are collected by the state and distributed to counties to repair and maintain eligible bridges. Although $22,000 is not enough to complete a project on any of Newton County’s bridges, Stanford advised the board to authorize a project anyway to tie up the money.
“Just pick one of these bridges and program it,” he said. “When you program it, that means that money is obligated to go to that bridge. They can’t take it.”
Programming a bridge project is just a planning stage, Stanford said. Which bridge was chosen didn’t matter as the project would just be paperwork to tie up the money, and the county wouldn’t be obligated to move forward, he said.
The board chose to program a bridge on McElhenny Road, one of four LSBP-eligible bridges on the county’s project list. The county is expecting to receive additional LSBP money from the state early next year and can revisit the project or plan other projects then.
In Tuesday’s meeting, the Board of Supervisors also:
●Applied for a $150,000 Community Development Block Grant to build a new multipurpose building;
●Amended the personnel manual to comply with state regulations; and
●Appointed Sherry Harrison to the Newton County Election Commission as a temporary replacement for Merita Cherry. Harrison will serve as election commissioner for Beat 3 until a new commissioner is chosen in the November election.
