The Fannin County Board of Commissioners agreed to demolish and rebuild the restrooms at Ron Henry Horseshoe Bend Park.
The decision came at the request of Recreation Director Eddie O’Neal during the board’s regular meeting Tuesday, September 24. According to O’Neal the project will cost no more than $53,680.
“What we’re looking at is the grading, demolition of the current bathrooms, building a 20x20 set of bathrooms with a 20x30 pad, kind of a walkway around that, and pouring a wheelchair ramp, making everything ADA compliant,” O’Neal said. “That breakdown comes to about $53,680 and we would add HVAC to that. The existing bathrooms have no power, no heat. We lock them down in the winter times. So we would pull power and add heat to those restrooms where they can stay open year round in that park.”
The board unanimously agreed to fund the project, however they requested that O’Neal look into placing a security gate around the property, similar to the one at the Recreation Department.
“They’ve served their time and it’s ready for an upgrade,” Post One Commissioner Earl Johnson said.
O’Neal hopes to have the project completed by December.
According to Finance Director Robin Gazaway, the county is currently operating 3 percent under budget as of the end of August.
Post Two Commissioner Glenn Patterson asked about the Risk Management budget, which the county has spent $1,416,852 of its budgeted amount of $1,620,000.
“I know we’ve talked about it in the past, but the Risk Management is at 87 percent, and we’re at the end of September,” he said. “Any comment on that? Are we going to go over?”
Gazaway responded, “Yeah, we’re going to go over expenditure wise, but then we have what’s called a ‘stop gap’ where the reinsurance reimburses us. … Our stop gap is at $2.4 million and that’s total wise and then of course there’s a stop on each individual employee. If they go over a certain amount, the reinsurance reimburses us. So that keeps our cost down overall for the whole year.”
Fannin County residents Jacqueline Howard and Sue Campbell spoke to the board about the dangers of 5G network technology coming to the county and how it may affect the human body.
“The extremely high frequencies of 5G are where the biggest danger may lie in comparison to the previous 2G, 3G, 4G and 4LTE,” Howard said. “What makes this even more dangerous is that the 5G in all these three levels of frequencies are adding on to, on top of the present 3G, 4G and 4LTE.”
Campbell said, “The towns, and the cities, and country areas like ours, and states are starting to buy into this because it looks like a slam dunk, but it’s not healthy for the people. My health concerns are why I’m here.”