The Marion County Board in a special meeting Tuesday night approved a contractor to re-roof the public service building.
The lowest of two bids was from ARS Construction of Murphysboro at a cost of $89,880.
County Board Chair Steve Whritenour says the company could also meet the requirement of finishing the work by November 15th to keep it in this fiscal year’s budget.
“The roof of the public service building was recently inspected and showed some very serious deficiencies,” Whritenour said. “It needed to be either repaired or just completely replaced. Speaking with several local people about the roof being 35 to 40 years old now, it has been repaired several times over the past decade. We had budgeted money in our building fund for 2025, and as long as bids came in under $100,000, we were going to be able to cover that.”
ARS Construction indicated in their bid work would start October 14th and be completed by October 31st. They were available so quickly because a job they were supposed to do has been delayed until next year.
The only other bid, from Lee Contracting, was much higher at $124,000.
The board also approved a liquor license for the current chef at Iron Saddle, Brian Balazi, who will take over the operation of the Iron Saddle restaurant on a leased basis.
