Commission partners with city to improve downtown Ozark parking

More parking spaces available around the Dale County Courthouse in Ozark will soon be available.

The city of Ozark moved forward with plans to increase parking spaces downtown with the demolishing of the former AT&T building on North Merrick Avenue Feb. 23.

At the Dale County Commission meeting Feb. 23, commissioners unanimously approved giving $15,000 to the city of Ozark to be used towards the cost of demolishing the building and disposing of the debris.

“We were going to do the contract to tear the building down but we decided, with advice from Commissioner (Charles ‘Chic’) Gary, that we’re just going to make a donation to the city of Ozark for the cost of that demolition and then they will move forward with it,” said Dale County Commission Chairman Steve McKinnon. “It will be creating parking for the county employees. That is what we are asking for.

“It will be a $15,000 donation to the parking lot for the county employees and we won’t have any obligation towards the demolition or construction of the parking lot,” he said, adding that the county will not be responsible for the upkeep of the parking lot.

County Attorney Henry Steagall asked McKinnon to obtain a letter from the city of Ozark requesting the county’s financial assistance with the demolition. “We have a standing procedure when we are helping a municipality in the county that they write us a letter to put in our records,” he said. “That’s what we ask all these other municipalities to do.”

In unrelated business, the commission approved the reappointments of Gary and McKinnon to the Wiregrass Resource Conservation and Development Council.

In other business, McKinnon announced that from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. on March 9, the Life South Blood Mobile will be in the grassy field at the County Government Building located at the intersection of Highways 231 and 123.

The next meeting of the Dale County Commission is Tuesday, March 9, in the Dale County Government Building in Ozark. A work session begins at 10 a.m. and is followed immediately by a voting meeting. Both meetings are open to the public.