$6.7 million county bond up for vote
Legislature will act on financing variety of projects, including sheriff’s storage site
LOCKPORT — The Niagara County Legislature is to vote Tuesday on borrowing $6.7 million for a wide variety of construction projects and equipment purchases.
The bond issue will be used to pay for the list of capital projects the Legislature approved earlier this year.
Budget Director Daniel R. Huntington said the county will have to pay about $500,000 a year in principal and interest on the bonds for each of the next 20 years. That assumes a 4 percent interest rate, which is what Huntington believes the county will be able to obtain when the bonds are bid upon on Wall Street.
The largest chunk of the borrowing is $2 million for construction of a 30,000-square-foot building to store Sheriff’s Office vehicles and evidence. The facility is to be erected between the County Jail and the Warren J. Rathke Public Safety Training Facility on Niagara Street Extension.
The building is to have 11 vehicle bays along with 7,500 square feet of space to store seized evidence and a 3,250-square-foot radio service area.
Also at the jail, the county plans to borrow $435,000 to pay for the installation of more security cameras in the old section of the jail, the replacement of plaster walls with steel walls in four cellblocks and a new heating and air-conditioning system for the old section’s administrative offices and forensic laboratory.
The package also includes $1.44 million for the first phase of the planned reconstruction of Beebe Road between McClelland and Wilson-Burt roads in Wilson. The county is expecting $563,160 in state aid toward that project. In May, Wendel- Duchscherer of Amherst received a $523,926 contract to design the project, which is to cost an estimated total of $7.3 million when all three phases are done.
The package contains $1 million toward the reconstruction of the Miller Road Bridge over Mud Creek in Royalton. Another highway item is $311,600 in borrowing for the county’s share of the reconstruction of the Cedar Street Bridge over Tonawanda Creek at the Royalton-Newstead border. That’s on top of the $590,000 the county borrowed for the project over the past two years.
Another $1 million in borrowing will go toward preparation of designs for the planned new Public Works Department headquarters and garage to be built on Junction Road in Cambria. The project, whose initial cost estimate was $15 million, has risen to more than $40 million, but a firmer figure is expected when plans are presented to the Legislature this fall.
The package also includes $200,000 worth of repairs to various county buildings, $100,000 worth of park improvements and the purchase of two tandem-axle dump trucks for $192,000 each.
