By RANDALL ALLEN

Horizon Reporter

CELINA-Various positions, including chairman, chairman pro-temp, and judicial commissioner, were appointed here during the September Clay County Commission meeting, and county mayor Dale Reagan also briefly discussed the new jail project.

Reagan was elected chairman following a nomination by commissioner Bryan Coons.  Commissioner Winton Young seconded the motion, and it passed 9-0.

Coons was elected chairman pro temp, following a nomination by Young.  Commissioner Parrish Wright seconded the motion, and it passed 9-0.

Coons made a motion to reappoint Cassie Haney as the Clay County Judicial Commissioner.  Young seconded the motion, and it passed 9-0.

Reagan said Haney, who is the current judicial commissioner, is “doing a great job.”

Wright made a motion to approve the trustee report.  Commissioner Jeff Gentry seconded the motion, and it passed 9-0.

Coons made a motion to appoint commissioners to the various county boards.  Reagan recommended every county commissioner be appointed to the jail committee.  Commissioner Jennifer Ritter seconded the motion, and it passed 9-0.

Coons made a motion to authorize a cooperative purchase agreement with the Clay County School system.  Commissioner Dorothy Forney seconded the motion, and it passed 9-0.

Following the appointments and other business, Reagan spoke about the current situation regarding the new jail project.

“I think everybody is pretty much on the page of looking at doing something in this area,” the mayor said about an option to build the jail close to the Clay County Government Complex, as opposed to the previously-chosen site between Dura Plastics and Industrial Park Lane at 3670 Gainesboro Highway.  “The loan that we got was $7.5 (million), we know it is going to be more than that.

“We think it will be around $10 to $11 million, something like that.”

The mayor spoke of some potential cost savings of building near the government complex location, which houses the courtroom.

“When we built this here, they did a lot of environmental stuff on this,” Reagan said.  “I don’t know how much that will play into this.

“Me and (sheriff) Brandon (Boone) was talking about this today and the set of plans we got, I know it will have to be downsized,” the mayor continued.  “Hopefully, we could take some of those plans and tie them in over here, (and) save us some money.

“We will just have to see.”

The latest news concerning the new jail comes over a decade after the first official action was taken in the summer of 2012.

That’s when commissioners approved the 26-acre parcel of county-owned land on Gainesboro Highway as the location for the new jail.

Funding for the project didn’t come until seven years later in November of 2019, when the USDA announced they were loaning $7.5 million to the county for the construction of the new facility—which was estimated to cost under $8 million at the time.

A wheel tax to be used to pay back the loan and fund future operations at the new jail was then levied by commissioners in January of 2020, before it began being collected three months later.

A bid to build the jail at the Gainesboro Highway location came in at almost $19 million and was officially rejected by county commissioners in March.

The issue was also discussed at the July county meeting, where the option of building the new jail near the government complex was introduced and downsizing the scale of the project was discussed.