Honoraville Senior Center, E-911 top County Commission’s concerns

Published 11:02 am Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Two big issues came before the Crenshaw County Commission on Monday night: the Honoraville Senior Center and funding for E-911.

The entire work session before the scheduled meeting was composed of a discussion between the commission and Joseph Bradley, an architect and owner of Bradley Architecture, PLLC.

Bradley gave the commission a timeline of the events leading up to the late construction of the Honoraville Senior Center.

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The center was originally scheduled for completion last March, but faulty work during construction led to the need for more work before the building could be declared open.

The senior center was finally opened in September of this year.

“On March 25, we walked in, and it was nowhere near complete,” Bradley said. “It couldn‘t be occupied.”

Bradley said that his contract with the county ended on March 28, but he stayed on to make sure the project was completed to specification.

Because of the problems with the building, the county sought and won liquidated damages from the contractor, and Bradley said part of that was on his behalf.

“I like to think that I did my job above and beyond what was required,” he said. “If I felt like I was asking for money that was not given back to the county for this purpose, I would not have asked for it.”

The total amount of liquidated damages came to $15,000, of which Bradley asked for between $7,000 and $8,000.

Members of the commission and county attorney John Nichols had several questions for Bradley, including details about the process leading up the final inspection date and why problems weren’t found in advance.

Nichols suggested that the county not take any action concerning extra payment until he issued legal advice in the form of a memo.

The other major issue brought up was funding for E-911.

Currently, the towns of Luverne, Brantley and Rutledge contribute money along with the county to fund the service.

Part of the funding also comes from a fee on landline telephone services.

“E-911 revenue taxed to landlines is going down because people are going to cell phones,” said commissioner Merrill Sport.

The town of Brantley has expressed interest in withdrawing its funding, but commission chairman Ricky McElwain said he persuaded them to commit to another six months.

“I told them I would like to try to educate everyone,” he said. “We want to get everyone together to try to get some answers to this.”