Welcome to Turner County Georgia

Published November 5, 2014

Road work approved

The County Commission Tuesday night gave approval to road work bids that should fix the problems with Bethel Road.

Commissioners discussed the $522K bid from Reeves Construction at the workshop meeting last week. The Bethel Road work will be 1.8 miles from the cemetery to south of Inaha Road. The total, which includes work on Leon Williams and Lakeview roads, is $549K. This includes engineering work. All of Leon Williams will be resurfaced and Lakeview will get a new base.

“I know this has been hashed out several times,” said Commission Chairman Sam McCard, noting the County has spent a lot on the road trying to get it stable. “Will this get the road fixed?”

County Manager Mary Wynn said it will. Part of the work is putting in a new base on the road, she said.

“What did we do the last time,” asked Commissioner Brad Calhoun. Mr. Calhoun arrived at the meeting a few minutes late.

“We patched it,” Mrs. Wynn replied. Otherwise, Bethel Road has been resurfaced in sections, she said.

Commissioner Daryl Hall said the County is hiring an engineering firm and should listen to what the company says. He said in the past the Commissioners have dictated to the engineers and had problems. By following the engineers’ recommendations “there is some recourse if this doesn’t work,” he said.

Mrs. Wynn said the engineer has worked on several road projects for the County.

“They have basically been paying for themselves. They have someone on the job every day they’ve got paving going on. We’ve been under (budget) on every project,” she said.

70 percent of the money, $322K, is coming from the state as a local road improvement grant. The other 30 percent, $96K must come from the County. Mrs. Wynn said the County budgeted $100K for the work. The rest of the money will come from the 2006 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax account to cover the County’s share.

“I was not aware there was that much left over in SPLOST,” said Chairman McCard.

Commissioner Joe Burgess said there are other roads in the County which also need attention. He said if the County has the money in the 2006 SPLOST account, those roads should be worked on.

The County received three bids for the road work. Reeves was the low bidder and has done work for the County in the past.

In other business:

• The Commissioners approved a grant from the Department of Transportation to buy a new van for the Turner Transit public transportation program. The County matches 10 percent of the cost of a new van for the program. Mrs. Wynn said vans in the program are rotated out of service when they reach a certain number of miles.