The Cole County Commission on Tuesday signed a $1.3 million contract with low-bidder JC Industries for improvements to Frog Hollow Road starting this spring.
This is a cooperative project between the county and Jefferson City using their half-cent sales tax money to pay for the work.
Phase one will connect Missouri 179 to Creek Trail Drive and have a traffic engineer study West Edgewood Drive to come up with a traffic plan, which should be completed in March.
The original Frog Hollow Road project, when it was conceived, did not take into account the new St. Mary's Health Center, the property owned by the Jefferson City School District and the incoming Sam's Club. The altered project would affect only a portion of Frog Hollow Road, which would become a dead-end street to allow Creek Trail to connect to Missouri 179.
As part of this project, Jefferson City will be doing $266,000 worth of sewer improvements in the area.
Work is expected to start in March and it should be completed in late September or early October.
In other business, commissioners awarded contracts to three local agencies to help them continue their services to residents.
ABLE Learning Center, which helps middle school students and adults with improving their literacy, received $3,500. The Senior Nutrition Center, which last year provided 60,000 meals to citizens 60 and over, was awarded a contract for $10,000. Habitat for Humanity, which is doing rehab work on a project Moreau View Drive, was also awarded $10,000.
The money comes from the county's general revenue fund.
Commissioners also gave permission for the Cole County Emergency Response Team to respond to hazardous material and other dangerous situations in the Lake of the Ozarks area, if needed.
Mike Rackers, who is chief of the Cole County team, told commissioners the emergency response team for the lake had been disbanded and they had contacted Cole County to see if they would be interested in taking over the area they serve.
This would include places such as Camdenton, Lake of the Ozarks and Osage Beach.
Rackers said he came to the commission because, when the team was formed, the commission said they should respond to emergencies in the counties that touch Cole County because many of those residents help the local economy by paying the half-cent capital improvements sales tax. However, if they went out of those counties, they should get commission approval.
Rackers said that in the near future the commission should get an agreement for its approval for the changeover and the county should be getting some money for this.
He also said the team hopes to have a group of responders, made up of former Lake team members, as a forward team to respond to emergencies.
Also at Tuesday's meeting, commissioners were told there were more leaks at the roof of the Carnegie Building. They directed maintenance officials to just patch the roof as best as possible. Commissioners also learned that officials at the Missouri River Regional Library have expressed interest in acquiring the building, if the county wants to sell it.