Commission Votes To Purchase Land For Additional Parking

Additional parking for the Putnam County Justice Center could be coming in the near future.

The County Commission gave approval Monday night for Putnam County Executive Randy porter to proceed with purchasing property on the corner of East Spring Street and Maple Avenue subject to due diligence.

The property has been offered to the county for $210,000.

““We have a parking problem at the justice center with so many more court cases being heard,” County Executive Randy Porter said. “We are trying to alleviate that by buying a piece of property at Spring and Broad to create a new parking lot that would supplement the existing ones at the justice center.”

Several outgoing commissioners expressed interest in allowing the new county commission to make the decision.

“Half of us are outgoing and we’re about to make a quarter million dollar decision,” outgoing County Commissioner Bobby Williams said. “I think some of us are saying that should be for the next round that’s been elected.”

Porter said most of the due diligence had already been done on the property.

“I don’t understand the reasoning behind passing it on to a new commission that’s gonna have to walk in and do that during their first meeting,” porter said. “They don’t know the issues as well as you do about the justice cnter parking lot and the parking issues that we have.”

The county commission voted 19-4 to proceed with purchasing the property.