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Coffee County Capital Outlay reviewed the bid documents during the Dec. 5 meeting for construction of the new animal shelter.

Capital Outlay Chairman Terry Hershman said at the meeting that the current proposal was a down to Earth projection of what the county needs.

“I have really looked over these documents and it took a while because it is so big and has so many different facets,” Hershman said.

Hershman said that pending approval from the committee, the bid specs are ready for a request for bid (RFB) now that the county has an approved sewer tap from the city and an easement from the neighboring property owners to run a sewer line to a manhole located behind the Coffee County Jail.  

“Everything appears to be working in our favor for a change,” he said. “My recommendation would be to approve it and send it back to St. John Engineering for a bid.”

Hershman estimated that the cost of the project is double what it would have been prior to the pandemic but noted that prices will not go down in the foreseeable future.

“We will never know what the price is until we bid it out,” Hershman said.

Mayor Dennis Hunt noted that any work on driveway connections damaged by planned Highway 41 road construction would be reimbursed by the Tennessee Department of Transportation.   

The motion passed Capital Outlay unanimously.   

HVAC units at Jail 

Coffee County Sherriff Chad Partin approached Capital Outlay with a request for a replacement of the jail’s 18-20 HVAC units.

In the days leading up to the Dec. 5 meeting, Coffee County Jail had three units malfunction. These units are out of date and jerry-rigged to function.

In January, during the snow event, one unit went down and resulted in dropping temperatures in the inmate area of the jail. Partin said that the department’s only solution was to place propane heaters in cells.  

“We are keeping temperature logs for lawsuit purposes,” Partin said. “We have to act on it. It’s hard to move 200 people to another jail.”

Partin said modern equipment is not made to last, and the jail is about 13 years old.

Hersman said he was familiar with the units and called them off-brand and near obsolete when purchased. Hershman said the expected life of those units was at best seven years.

Capital Outlay directed the Maintenance Department to seek quotes for replacing new units.