Commissioners are moving forward with possible plans to use federal COVID-19 relief funding to renovate Platte County facilities.
At the Monday, July 19 meeting of the commission, held at the Platte County Resource Center, commissioners approved the formation of an architect review committee. The committee will help commissioners in selecting architects, consultants and experts to review requirements of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The committee will be made up of presiding judge Thomas Fincham, sheriff Mark Owen, prosecutor Eric Zahnd, recorder of deeds Gloria Boyer, second district commissioner Joe Vanover, IT director Ted Smith, director of administration Dana Babcock and director of facilities Daniel Erickson.
The committee will review requests for qualifications before they are issued to professionals for proposals, review and interview potential architects and consultants and make recommendations to the commission.
Vanover was absent from the morning meeting, but sent media his comments on the committee.
“The commission wants to have a committee help select the architects, consultants and experts we will hire for the ARPA projects,” Vanover said. “We asked several key parties to serve on the committee. The committee will discuss whether we should hire one organization to lead the entire project or hire several organizations for various parts of the project. The committee will review the submitted qualifications and interview them as needed. The committee will make recommendations to the commission. The commission will make the decision of who to hire.”
Resident Sharen Hunt voiced her concerns about the committee formation. At the last meeting, Hunt spoke about community perceptions that commissioners planned to use the approximately $20 million in federal funding for capital improvements instead of assisting residents and social service programs in need, including the Platte County Health Department.
Since the approval of ARPA funding in the spring, Vanover launched a series of meetings to discuss the possible uses of the federal funds. He hoped to use them to update aging facilities and put permanent mitigation measures in place to allow people to work from home, conduct business via the internet and reduce the burden on the courts and detention center.
“I didn’t know that the retrofit of the administration building and courthouse was a done deal – was there enough input from commissioner Vanover’s survey for people to say what they thought about the plan?” Hunt said.
Presiding commissioner Ron Schieber said the committee would gather information to give the commission a framework to determine its path forward. Later stages of planning would include public input.
“We haven’t made any decisions,” he said. “This is all about gathering information.”
Also at the meeting, commissioners approved more than $70,000 for the installation of bleachers at Platte Ridge Park. Gametime Turf will install the bleachers.