Crawford County Commissioners on May 19 appointed new members to the Steelville Library Board.

During the May 12 meeting, Crawford County Library District Director Amy England presented the applicants for the two open seats on the Steelville Library Board in order of board recommendation: Ellen Bowles, Ben Stemmler, Faith DeRennaux and Julie Jenson.

After receiving numerous calls, texts and emails from constituents, as well as Associate Commissioner of District 1 Mark Pfeiffer conducting an interview with each applicant, the commission went against the board’s recommendations.

Associate Commissioner of District 2 Jared Boast suggested that the next time the library board is taking applications, they don’t waste their time making recommendations; just bring in the list of names.

DeRennaux and Jenson were appointed to the Steelville Library Board with a 3-0 vote.

Presiding Commissioner Steve Black added that he has also received many complaints that the library tax is as high as their road tax.

England mentioned that the road district also receives sales tax on top of property tax, which means that they collect more than the library board does.

“I do want it to be clear that we are not getting the same amount of funding as the road districts,” England said.

The library district received $775,981.26 in local tax revenue, with $32,000 in state funding and $4,000 in donations.

Bridge bids to be reviewed

Black opened and read the bids for the John Coleman and Smith Road bridges. Three bids were submitted for each bridge.

Starting with the John Coleman Road bridge, BuildTec Construction LLC in St. James bid $650,024. SCE Incorporated in Villa Ridge bid $890,547.64 and Midwest Mechanical and Welding LLC in Davisville bid $707,736 in total.

Krysta Swartz, of Great River Engineering (GRE), said that the engineers’ estimate was $681,939.

“So for that one, looks like BuildTec is the apparent low bid with Midwest Mechanical as the apparent second low, so if you guys can submit any subcontractor forms…we’ll need those to review,” Swartz said.

For the Smith Road bridge, BuildTec Construction LLC bid $469,578. SCE Incorporated bid $538,707.03 and Don Schneiders Excavating Company Inc. in Jefferson City bid $590,096.20.

The engineers’ estimate was $537,579 with BuildTec being the lowest bid and SCE being the second lowest.

She said that GRE will review the bid packets, make recommendations for both, request for concurrence for MoDOT on Smith Road and draft a notice of award if the commissioners are still good with the John Coleman Road bridge bid.

There were some bookcases that used to sit in the commission meeting room that were put up for bid; there were three bids submitted.

Bob Bell bid $350 per legal stack. There were three sets of legal stacks, each having six shelves.

Seth Black bid $150 for the larger bookcase and $140 for the shorter one.

The last bid was from Kim Gibbs on three bookcases at $400 each for $1,200 in total. As the highest bidder, Gibbs’s bid was accepted with a 3-0 vote.

In other business, Sheriff Darin Layman announced that he will be bringing an agreement to the May 26 meeting for a new records management system.

“We’ve had some issues with our current provider, so we put that out to contract with other companies. This seems to be the best fit for what we have, and as we are growing,” Layman said. “It’ll save us about five to $10,000 a year on this new company.”

Jim Ealer, representative of the rally committee, wasn’t present, but Pfeiffer mentioned that another representative was on the agenda for the May 26 meeting.