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ESCANABA -- With the Delta County Correctional Facility set to move to the Delta County Service Center later this year, the Delta County Board of Commissioners voted to work with the Michigan Municipal League and city of Escanaba on a request for qualifications (RFQ) process for the current jail site. This decision was made during the board's regular meeting Tuesday.
Delta County Administrator Philip Strom started the board's discussion with a look at the "complexities" associated with the current ownership of the jail property. The city of Escanaba has the first rights to refuse the purchase of the nearly two acres of current jail property, which neighbors a one-acre parcel the city owns on the lakeshore between North 3rd and North 4th streets. According to Strom, the county and the city had previously agreed to work together to prepare a request for proposal (RFP) for the current jail property.
Strom said shortly after he entered the county administrator position, he met with Escanaba City Manager Patrick Jordan and Code Enforcement Official Blaine DeGrave. They discussed recent developments related to the jail site agreement.
"They had that (RFP) ready to go when the Michigan Municipal League called them and said Escanaba and Delta County were one out of four sites that were selected for a grant-funded marketing strategy through the Michigan Municipal League," he said.
Strom and city officials spoke about this on a conference call with representatives of the Michigan Municipal League and service providers involved with the project. According to Strom, the league plans to provide funding and support for market evaluations and the development of RFQ documents for the current jail site over the next few months. Planning sessions, which are expected to start in late July, will be held with eight to 10 city and county leaders to collect input on the evaluations.
"By December of 2018, they will have (an) analysis done and a marketing plan together for what would be a request for qualifications -- which is actually, in my opinion, a more responsible way to go out with this sort of project," Strom said. Under a RFQ, companies submit information on why they are qualified for a project before submitting bids.
The RFQ will be released in December 2018 or early 2019.
According to Strom, the parties on the conference call determined authority should be sought from the Escanaba City Council and the Delta County Board of Commissioners to put the RFP process on hold and start the RFQ process with the assistance of the Michigan Municipal League and its associated groups. Despite the slight delay this could create, Strom said the RFQ process will be more thorough, will provide the city and county with better market analysis on the property, and will hopefully make it easier to solicit a higher quantity of local and national developers and interested parties than the RFP process would have.
Strom thanked the city's personnel for their work towards securing the Michigan Municipal League's involvement.
"I want to give a lot of credit to them, because I think that they had a hand in getting these people to the table and getting this grant moving," he said. He noted the city is a member of the league.
In other business, the board:
– approved minor changes to and ratified a contract with Strom as Delta County's new administrator.
– voted to allow the Delta County Airport to accept a bid from SkyWest to serve as its Essential Air Service provider. SkyWest is currently serving in this capacity.
– chose Prein & Newhof to continue serving as the airport's consultant for the next five years.
– approved and accepted a contract with the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) for weather briefing services at the airport.
– approved and accepted contracts for the Airport Awareness Marketing Grant and the Airport Capital Improvement Grant, both with MDOT.
– granted a request to give incoming Delta County Airport Manager T.J. Reid a county credit card.
– approved a $70,000 budget amendment authorizing expenses from the airport's purchase of jet fuel and recognizing future revenue from the sale of this fuel.
– accepted a $50,600 bid for new jail software from Beacon Software Solutions, authorized the transfer of up to $60,000 to the IT budget from the sheriff's department commissary account fund and the delinquent tax revolving fund, and made an amendment to the budget to reflect this.
– okayed Strom's upcoming out-of-county travel to the Government Finance Officers Association's Accounting Academy in Chicago and the Michigan Association of County Administrative Officers' 2018 Spring Conference in Thompsonville, Mich.
– approved various requests from the personnel committee, including requests for the hiring of a part-time seasonal maintenance assistant, the filling of the Victim Witness Coordinator position in the prosecutor's office before Karen Alvord retires, and the payment of temporary stipends to two attorneys in the prosecutor's office who are currently doing the work of three attorneys.
– voted to approve several requests from the building and grounds committee. These included a request to authorize new estimates for courthouse windows that include high-security glass, a request to use $11,000 from the service center fund to pay for the removal of brush and stumps outside the Delta County Service Center by Brad Anderson Trucking, and a request to use up to $10,000 from the service center fund for landscaping and topsoil at the service center.