It may cost Schoharie County a little more than officials expected for the new Harvey E. Stoddard Safety Public Facility.
Supervisors Friday morning approved the purchase of 58 acres next to the Fire Training Site in Howes Cave for $188,400. The total is $28,500 more than had been expected when supervisors approved the location last month.
The new jail will be built on two properties, the current fire training site off Route 7 and the 58-acre site to the east.
When the county approved the location last month, the announced price for the 58-acre site owned by Dennis Berlin, was $159,900. Since that time, the owner said he had put a well and septic on the site, which cost about $28,500 more, according to County Attorney Mike West.
Conesville Supervisor Bill Federice was not happy about the increase.
“I don’t like it, but what are we going to do? Start over again?”
He wondered if the price went up because the owner found out that the county wanted the property.
Initially, the county was going to put down $5,000. With the higher selling price, the owner wanted a down payment of $25,000, but the two sides settled on $10,000, Mr. West told supervisors.
If there is a problem, and the jail cannot be built on the site, similar to what happened to the Seebold location, the county would only be out the $10,000.
The new jail will cost about $44.3 million to construct, leaving the county a local share of between $6 and $7 million, flood recovery coordinator Bill Cherry told supervisors last month.
Bids will be going out in about 10 months.
Next month, supervisors will review an alternate which would include a “continuity of government” component to the public safety facility. The facility is currently about 55,000-square-feet.
Architects gave presentations on separate buildings at the fire training sites for records storage and a location to continue government functions in case of an emergency such as a flood.
The records building would be about 4,000-square feet and the other about 3,600-square-feet. Each would cost about $800,000 to about $1 million to build and could have been included in the bid packages for the jail as alternates.
Supervisors apparently were not impressed and it was suggested to include the continuity of government component in the new jail and to seek a private facility to store records. One such facility may be available in Cobleskill.
“This is a lot of money,” Cobleskill Supervisor Leo McAllister commented on the separate buildings.
The architect said the county should get a good price since they would be bid as alternates.
There were also questions about using the former jail for records storage.
The county would not get any FEMA aid on anything done at the former jail and the architect said the floor may not be strong enough to support the records.
Mr. Federice said that no private business would consider building its own records retention facility. He suggested finding a location to rent.