Overton County Breaks Ground On New Services Building

Overton County officially broke ground on the new Millard V. Oakley County Services Building Monday.

Oakley said having his name on the building means a lot to both he and his family.

“It’s a great event for Overton County. It’s the first time we’ve had a new office building in over 100 years,” Oakley said. “It’s a great occasion for me and my family. We’re just glad and blessed to be in a position to be of assistance for this community.”

Oakley and First National Bank partnered to donate nearly $2 million towards the construction of the building.

County Executive Ben Danner said the donation provides major cost savings for the county.

“1869’s the last time we opened a new county services building, and for 40 years we’ve been in an old rundown building,” Danner said. “Every county executive in that time has tried to somehow come up with a way without raising taxes to build a new building. Thanks to Millard Oakley we’ve come up with a way to build a new building without raising taxes. We’re in no danger of ever having to think about raising taxes because of this new building.”

The new county services building will be located in Livingston between West Main Street and West Broad Street at the site of the former Republican Party headquarters.

Danner said the new building comes just as Overton County prepares for continued growth into the future.

“There will be all kinds of parking, it’ll be easy to get in and out of, and just a lot better situation than we’re in now,” Danner said. “I think it looks good for the county because we’re progressing into the next decade. We’ve been in the old building and we’ve just made do with what we’ve had and right now we’re moving forward. I think that’s going to show with this building and the progress we’ve made.”

Danner said he thanks everyone who has supported the project since its inception.

“We’ve got a lot of things going for us and things are looking up. I’m thankful I’m the county executive of this county right now,” Danner said. “I would just like to appreciate the county commission. They gave me the ‘deer in a headlights’ look when I first brought it up. They said if we can find a way to do it without raising taxes they were for it and we found that way.”

County commissioners awarded the construction bid to W&O Construction last month. Danner expects the project to be completed around August 2020.