Camden County commissioners approve multiple road, base and county contracts; appoint elections board member

The Camden County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a series of county and intergovernmental contracts and appointments at its regular meeting. Actions included a pavement-preservation contract for roughly 11.34 miles of roads, a smaller resurfacing package, an intergovernmental service agreement (IGSA) resurfacing award for work on Kings Bay property, rejection of a separate base preservation bid, approval of athletic-field lighting via a Sourcewell cooperative purchase, approval of tourism promotional service contracts under the recently increased hotel-motel tax, purchase of four sheriff vehicles and the appointment of a District 5 member to the Board of Elections and Registration.

County staff said the preservation work is funded by Georgia Department of Transportation Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG) funds together with SPLOST 8 matching dollars. Public works presenter Jared told commissioners the preservation bid covers about 11.34 miles and that the quoted cost works out to about $142,000 per mile; the bid listed preservation work on 32 road segments. Jared recommended awarding the preservation contract to Asphalt Paving Systems; commissioners approved the award by voice vote.

Commissioners also approved a separate full-depth resurfacing contract covering five roads (about 5.16 miles). Staff said the resurfacing bid list originally included Owens Ferry Road but that road was removed to stay within budget. The resurfacing recommendation was to award to The Scruggs Company; commissioners approved the award.

Under a multi-item IGSA with Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, the board approved an award to The Scruggs Company for full-depth resurfacing at the USS Benjamin Franklin entrance (the county estimated receiving about 1,000 tons of reclaimed asphalt millings as part of that work). Because the Benjamin Franklin bid came in higher than early estimates, commissioners formally rejected a second, smaller preservation bid for a different base section and agreed to re-bid it next year.

Also under the IGSA items, commissioners approved a cooperative purchase to replace athletic-field lighting for a base field using Musco Sports Lighting through a Sourcewell cooperative contract. Staff described Musco as providing design, equipment purchase (at roughly 5% below MSRP under the cooperative) and turnkey installation; the county’s role is to facilitate ordering and coordination under the IGSA.

The board approved tourism promotional service agreements that reflect the board’s October 1, 2024 change to a 6% hotel-motel tax and cite OCGA 48-13-51(b). Finance director Nancy Clark Gonzalez said the revised contracts allocate 50% of the tax receipts to the county’s convention and visitor entities (distributed by 2020 population), with $20,000 annually assigned to the ThiCal memorial project and remaining unrestricted receipts transferred to the county general fund. Clark Gonzalez said fiscal year 2024 collections were about $165,000.

The board approved the sheriff’s request to purchase four vehicles; Sheriff Cheney told commissioners the cost increase (particularly for radios and in-car cameras) required buying fewer vehicles than the department requested earlier. The board also appointed Ray Holland to the District 5 Board of Elections and Registration and designated the chair and vice chair to serve on the fiscal-year 2026 budget committee with Commissioner Martin Turner named as the alternate.

Finally, after an executive session on IT matters, the board approved a three-year contract for planning-and-development software with an annual cost of $27,000 and a one-time data migration/implementation fee of $13,500.

All recorded motions described above were approved by voice vote; the meeting minutes and each motion were adopted with no recorded roll-call breakdown beyond the chair’s announcement that all commissioners were present.