Clay Nearing Bidding Process For Jail

Clay County Mayor Dale Reagan said the county is about “halfway” through the process of putting the jail project out to bid.

Reagan said there had been setbacks due to the city needing to upgrade sewer lines. He said the most recent setback was the County having to resubmit the bid documents to USDA.

“We had to go through that and then the property where the jail is going to be had to go through all the environmental steps and all the different tribal groups to go through that and get their approval,” Reagan said. “Which we did all that and that took quite a bit of time.”

Reagan said their new timeline is to put the bids out in January with construction to begin in March.

Reagan said they had originally taken out a loan from USDA of about $7.5 million, with the county’s wheel tax giving aiding about $800,000 of the cost. He said a recent recommendation from the USDA will have the county looking at interim financing options while construction is ongoing.”

“So at our January meeting we’re going to have some folks there to talk about the interim financing part of that,” Reagan said. “So it’s taken a long time yes, but Lord be our helper we’re looking at the final stretch of hopefully being able to put it out to bid.”