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ST. JOSEPH – Thursday’s Berrien County Board of Commissioners meeting featured discussion on whether to change the board’s meeting schedule as well as action on formally awarding the bid for the design work for the 500 Circle building renovation project.

     Commissioners awarded the contract to design the renovation work to Wold Architects & Engineers of Illinois for over $847,000. Commissioners said last week that Wold has the most experience and qualifications to do the design work needed.

The county is getting a $3 million federal grant to fund part of the renovations. That grant which requires a $1 million match from the county is coming from funding secured through U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg’s office. The county has to spend the grant monies by June, 2027.

County Administrator Brian Dissette said that the county is currently estimating that it will cost $10 million for the total renovation of the building. He said he thinks that all the work will be done in two years, saying that while he’s not sure he has a good estimate of the completion date but called two years “realistic.”

The county plans to move the 9-1-1 Dispatch/Emergency Operations Center offices to the 500 Circle building initially, with other departments utilizing the space later including a south county branch of the County Clerk’s office. The county purchased the building from American Electric Power in 2022 for $200,000.

Work is nearly complete on a nearby county project in Buchanan. The county has built a new communications tower on land behind the Buchanan Township fire station to improve communications in the south county and along the state line. The tower is expected to go live in late fall.

That project had initially been delayed since the original site on land adjacent to the 500 Circle building was found to contain Native American artifacts. Officials then looked for other sites and found the land near the fire station.

     Thursday’s meeting also featured a report on the audit of the county’s books for the 2023 year. Auditor Nathan Baldermann of Rehmann Robson told commissioners that his firm gave the county a clean “unmodified” opinion which is the best opinion an auditor can give.

     As for discussion items, commissioners are considering changing their public meeting schedule starting next year. The county board currently meetings weekly on Thursday mornings excluding holidays and fifth Thursdays of a month. Board committees also meet on those days prior to the regular board meeting.

     Commissioner Robert Harrison reported that the personnel and human services committee which he chairs has researched what meeting schedules other county boards follow and also got information from the Michigan Association of Counites.

He asked fellow commissioners for their input and said his committee will investigate how to go about changing the meeting schedule if that’s the way commissioners want to go.

Board Chairman McKinley Elliott noted that the county board met monthly and committees weekly when he first came on the board 30 or so years ago. He said the board back then eventually went to weekly meetings because the monthly meetings ended up lasting too long.

Commissioners received feedback from one citizen who favors keeping the current weekly meeting schedule. Mike Haskins of Pipestone Township said that the county board can stay on top of things and “be ahead of the curve” by meeting weekly rather than less often.

“It enables you to be ahead of the curve on things and pick up on opportunities that slip through other counties,” he said. “The balloon could float by and get off your radar. Keep doing what you’re doing. The work load won’t be less for the staff with less meetings.”

County commissioners meet again on Oct. 3 as commissioners decided to cancel next week’s meeting due to an expected lack of a quorum.