By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The design team for a justice center for Barren County to be constructed along West Main Street in Glasgow had to make a slight change, which is in the process of being finalized.
Brian Estep, a member of the design/architectural team, told the local board overseeing the project that shortly before the holidays, they had worked through a relatively minor revision requested by the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts. It had to do with the amount of space provided for files in the circuit court clerk’s office space, he said. The revised design has been passed along to one of the AOC representatives who have been working with the project and to other project consultants.
“They are working on picking up their particular scope related to the project, and once that work is completed, we will issue the full, 100 percent complete construction documents to the AOC for their review and to Alliance for their use in creating their bid packages for the construction,” Estep said.
“Sounds good,” said Circuit Judge John T. Alexander, vice chair of the project development board, as he presided over the meeting.
With no further comments or questions on the design team’s report, he began to move on to the construction manager’s report but first provided a bit of a report himself.
He noted that the board had previously discussed a request from South Central Rural Telecommunications Cooperative for an easement on the property so the company could access its fiber optic lines that cross the property.
Rich Alexander, the Barren County Bar Association’s appointee to the board, had prepared the necessary paperwork, and he had emailed it that morning to Judge Alexander (no known familial relation) because he wasn’t going to be at Wednesday’s PDB meeting. The judge said he wanted to let Tommy Gumm, who is leading the construction management work on the justice center project, know where they were on that, and he said that Rich Alexander had recommended the group approve the easement agreement and authorize Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd, who chairs the group but also could not be at this meeting, to sign the appropriate documentation.
With four of the six board members present, the vote taken a bit later in the meeting to that effect was unanimous.
Gumm said the preconstruction work to prepare the site had been slowed or stopped over the past week due to inclement weather. He has spoken with the contractor that will be handling some sewer-line work on the site that has also been previously discussed, and that company has been working with the Glasgow Water Co. to get the necessary materials available and wanted to mobilize on that work as soon as the weather clears up some, he said.
He said the design team has also made some changes to the retaining wall, and, according to the last email he had seen, everyone that needed to had “checked off” on the new design, but the process of getting that change had held up the pending change order some.
“Hopefully, maybe by the end of the week, I will have that,” Gumm said.
He added that his company, Alliance Corp., had not received either of the payments due it, and an AOC representative present at this meeting, which was mostly attended via the Zoom streaming service, told him they would check on it at an upcoming meeting he had and get back with him.
The next meeting is at 2:30 p.m. Jan. 29 in the Fiscal Court Chambers on the third floor of the Barren County Government Center, 117 N. Public Square, Glasgow.
