County supervisors award bridge contract

New Albany, MS– A contract to build a new bridge on County Road 137 was awarded Monday by the county board to a Panola County company.

McBrideCo, LLC, was one of seven contractors to bid on the new bridge when the bids were initially opened  at the September 26th meeting of the Union County Board of Supervisors. The call for bids was somewhat unique in that contractors were offered the opportunity to include some used parts for construction of the new bridge. The proposed used parts were subject to inspection by the county’s civil engineers.

McBrideCo, LLC had the low bid of $225,630.00 when the bids were opened last week. The engineers inspected the proposed used parts, found them acceptable, and thus McBride won the contract.

The next lowest bid for the bridge was from  Buddy Ayers Construction Company of Corinth with a total bid of $248,273. The highest bid was by Steel-Con, Inc. of New Albany with a bid of $322,121.

A prominent figure absent from county board meetings for the last three months was Terry Johnson, who had been county administrator for 16-1/2 years. Johnson retired at the end of June after 33 total years of state employment, including more than 16 years as an auditor with the State Auditor’s office.

Johnson was present again at the Monday morning, Oct. 3rd, meeting. He has returned to his old job on a less-than-full-time basis, a move allowed under State of Mississippi retirement rules. However, the rules required that he be completely away from the job for a minimum of 90 days before returning on part-time status.

Monday morning’s board meeting lasted only 10 minutes. The board also dealt quickly and routinely with housekeeping matters such as paying the bills, approving September meeting minutes, approving the road department work schedule, payment of medical examiner fees, etc.