Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Decatur County Commissioners met for their final meeting of June last Tuesday evening. The first new item of business on the agenda was a development agreement with Decatur County Energy Storage LLC. According to County Administrator Alan Thomas, the company aims to build an anticipated $200 million battery energy storage system for the Climax solar facility. It will be built on a 20-acre piece of the solar facility’s property, and will be constructed by the same company.

“Basically what the agreement does, is it says that the company is going to follow the rules, they’re going to participate by our regulations, and confirms that they are going to adhere to those regulations,” Thomas explained, “and the county is basically saying that the project is consistent with our comprehensive plan, codes, and there’s no zoning that would prohibit the construction of the battery energy storage system.”

The commissioners voted to approve the agreement.

The next business item on the agenda was consideration of an intergovernmental agreement for planning services and code enforcement with the City of Bainbridge. The commissioners voted to approve the agreement.

Next, the commissioners heard a request from the City of Bainbridge for a transfer of parking lots. Specifically, the parking lot directly behind Susie and Sam’s, formerly the library, currently belongs to the county. The parking lot just to the north, bordered by Bruce Kirbo’s law office and across from the courthouse, is owned by the city. Both lots are almost identical in size. According to Thomas, both parties would benefit from switching ownership of the lots. There was some discussion about the current condition of the lots. Thomas said that he discussed the matter with the Bainbridge City Manager, and the two came to the agreement that, as the city was already planning on resurfacing their lot, they would pay to resurface the county’s lot, with the county paying for the materials. Ultimately, the commissioners voted to approve the transfer.

Following this, the commissioners voted to approve the errors and release report.

The final agenda item was an executive session to discuss property acquisition; no action was taken.

Following this, the meeting was adjourned.