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Logan County Board
July Building and Grounds Committee meeting
[July 10, 2026]
On Wednesday, July 8th, the
Building and Grounds Committee of the larger Logan County Board held
their monthly meeting in the first-floor courtroom of the Logan
County Courthouse starting just after 5:30 p.m. Four of the five
committee members were present: Chairman Lance Conahan, Vice
Chairman Hannah Fitzpatrick, Gil Turner, and Jim Wessbecher. Dale
Nelson was not present at the meeting.
After guests were introduced, a motion was made to approve the
previous month’s minutes. Conahan then moved the committee into old
business. The first two items were requests for proposals (RFP). The
first RFP was for the server at the courthouse to be replaced. The
committee has been working on this for the last few months. Sheila
Feipel and Kerry Loveless with Heart IT were present. The item was
moved to new business for next month, and Conahan informed the pair
that they were welcome to be present for that meeting when they
opened the bids.
The second RFP was for work needed for the Logan Building which
needs a new roof. Conahan asked the committee if they wanted to put
it out for bid. The committee took some time to look over the
information in their packets about but ultimately decided to move it
on to the Workshop meeting next week for full Board consideration.
The final item of new business was an update on Latham Park. Conahan
stated that Nelson sent an update stating that the work there had
been started. This work included setting up the net for the
pickleball court, fixing and maintaining the fountain at Scully
Park, and putting down new certified mulch at the Scully and Latham
Park playgrounds.
Conahan made the decision to move public comments up, as Tammy
Bunner was present to speak on Touch-a-Truck. This event, which
Bunner shared is going into its third year, is an event where
various kinds of vehicles are brought to Scully Park for kids to
touch and interact with. Bunner shared that, in the last two years,
they have had semi-trucks, fire trucks, police vehicles, and even
military vehicles. This year’s event is planned for Saturday,
September 12th from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. A motion was made to send this
item to the Workshop meeting for full Board consideration.
Conahan next moved onto new
business, with the first item being an interview for a part-time
facilities worker position. He entertained a motion to go into
executive session to hold the interview with one candidate present.
The motion was successful and everyone in the audience, but the
candidate, was asked to leave the room.
After the interview was conducted, everyone was invited back into
the room. The committee made a motion to hire Chris Neaville for the
position. This was moved to the Workshop meeting as well, and
Neaville was invited to come to the meeting to introduce himself to
the rest of the Board if he wanted to.
Next on the agenda was listed as “meeting location for county board
meetings,” but this item was not discussed. Rather, Conahan moved on
to the third item on the list, which was to allow Bill Walter, who
is with Masonry Restoration Technologies & Services (MRTS) and has
been overseeing the Courthouse restoration project, to speak on said
restoration. Walter started by stating that the elevators were
making headway and went into a few specifics on what work needed to
be done. He stated that there is a "substantial" penalty to the
company TK Elevator for not having the elevator repaired in the time
that was initially agreed upon.
During February’s Building and Grounds Committee meeting, it was
decided that, should TK Elevator take more than 22 days to get the
exterior elevator working, they would be fined $1,000 per day. The
county paid the company an extra $25,000 to have the work done in
that time frame, as it was faster than they would complete the
project at a non-expedited pace. The committee decided to do this
because they could be in violation of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) if they did not have any other means for
people who cannot climb stairs to access the courthouse. They felt
this fee would provide TK with incentive to get the work done in the
agreed upon time frame. The county did end up purchasing and
installing a wheelchair lift to comply with ADA.
Walter stated that this fee was so significant he was expecting the
county attorney and TK’s attorney to be speaking on the matter.
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Walter continued,
stating that the lift would be taken down at some point, but
there is currently no date for that. He said he is working with
the contractor that damaged the concrete outside the courthouse
to get them to fix it, and that should be happening soon.
Mid-August is the time that Walter
said he expected the tile floor restoration project to begin. He
gave an update on the blinds that the county purchased. He stated
that they are coming from Cambodia, and that they would likely come
in some time around October. Walter stated that they are in the
process of getting scaffolding to place near the clock so the
contractor that is going to work on it will have something to stand
in. According to Walter, this scaffolding is going to stay in place
for any future clock maintenance.
Next on the agenda was a quarterly
update from Heart IT. Feipel and Loveless stood up to speak. They
handed out a packet to the committee members, and then Loveless
spoke on some updates that Heart has been working on for the county
over the last few months. He said that the county had several
devices that were a bit older and needed to be replaced. He
explained that some of the Microsoft programs the county has been
using were either “end of life” or near it, meaning the company no
longer supports it. He stated that they would also want to look into
getting new programs to replace these.
Additionally, Loveless explained that Heart has a program that
monitors all “events,” or when someone on a supported device clicks
on something. This program monitored 338 million of these events,
and it looks for “malicious” things that could leave the county open
to viruses or other cyber related problems.
Before the end of Feipel and Loveless’s update, Chief Deputy Joshua
Pharis asked about emails that were no longer being used that his
department can still access. He stated that there are around 60
email addresses that should be turned off and wanted to know if the
county was still paying for them. Loveless asked Pharis to send him
an email with the details so he could investigate them.
The last two items on the agenda for new business were construction
quotes from Foster Construction. The first was in the amount of
$7,873.93 and was for restoring the men’s restroom in the
courthouse. It was decided that they would need to rent a
Port-O-John, which Conahan said they would get from Chicago Street
rentals in Lincoln. They also asked Walter if the contractors would
be able to get the work done before winter, which he said they
could. This item was approved unanimously. Since the amount was
$20,000 or less, the committee can approve it themselves without
having to take it to the full Board.
The second quote was for HVAC covers, Walter explained that, after
the HVAC system was installed, some of the piping was left exposed
and is not protected, as well as not looking good. He said that the
$20,000 cost would cover the 16 or 17 locations that needed covers
and would make them look better. This motion was also unanimously
approved.
The final agenda item was the approval of bills. Conahan made
mention of the previously mentioned park work, stating that one of
the bills was being paid to Wayne Alberts, as he did the work. It
was about this time that Conahan stated that there was a person
living in the roof of the grandstand. He and Wessbecher stated that
the area had been cleaned up, and it did not appear the person had
been back. Apparently, according to Wessbecher, they had been
climbing down at night to turn off the lights.
With that update given and the bills approved, the meeting was
adjourned.
[Matt Boutcher]
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