Discussions began to heat up inside the commissioners’ chambers Thursday as the Cass County Parks Department requested funding to purchase a new furnace for its rental property at T.K. Lawless Park.

The Cass County Board of Commissioners signed off on the purchase of a $6,800 Yukon Husky furnace from Edwardsburg’s D.E. Duck Heating & Cooling for a rental cabin currently in use at the county park, located in Vandalia, during the board’s meeting last week in Cassopolis. The installation will also include $1,300 worth of labor and materials, bringing the total estimate of the project to $8,100, funds for which will be drawn from the county’s capital improvements fund.

The furnace will replace the current one in use at the facility, which is also a Yukon Husky, said Parks Director Scott Wyman in his presentation to the board Thursday. The existing unit is running at around half capacity due to irreparable damage to its heat exchanger that was discovered by the department in late winter/early spring, Wyman said.

“The current unit we have is more than 30 years old,” he said. “It has done what we asked and more.”

One of the reasons the department is seeking to replace the unit with the same model rather than another cheaper one is due to the fact that the Husky can use both gas and wood for power, so that in case of a power outage the operator can still heat the rental facility using lumber from the woodland park, Wyman said.

The rental unit is currently occupied by a private tenant, who does around five hours worth of volunteer work for the park such as closing the gate and turning off lights during closing hours at Lawless, Wyman said. The tenant pays $375 worth of rent every month to the county for usage of the two-bedroom property, though that rate may change early next year when the county discusses its fees, the director said.

In spite of the straightforward nature of the request, not every member of the board was pleased with how the purchase request was handled.

District Three Commissioner Skip Dyes criticized the proposal due to it only listing a single contractor’s bid for the project, which violates the terms of the county’s purchasing policy enacted earlier this year.

County Administrator Karen Folks defended Wyman’s request, saying he had attempted to solicit a bid from another company in Kalamazoo, which does not service Cass County, and that the furnace model is considered a unique product, which means orders can be submitted for board approval with only a single vendor’s bid per the terms of the purchasing policy.

“You are saying there is only one company that can handle this work,” Dyes said, in response. “I really do not think that is 100 percent true. I think there are other people who can handle this for us. As a county, we should be doing our due diligence and making sure we get three bids. I do not care if we have to ask companies in Ohio to do so.”

District Five Commissioner Robert Ziliak was also skeptical, asking why Wyman had requested a dual burning furnace instead of a traditional, less-expensive gas model.

Wyman responded by saying the move was made with the potential future growth of Lawless Park in mind.

“If Lawless someday starts to really realize its potential, we are going to need a county employee in that house again,” Wyman said. “That county employee will appreciate the ability to use wood from the park to help subsidize his living. I know it is a leap of faith into the future, but it is more than just about right now, I would like to think.”