A temporary fix for an air conditioning problem at the Richland County Courthouse/Administration Building should be completed within about the next 10 days to two weeks. County commissioners Thursday finalized and approved contracts to rent and install a temporary air conditioning chiller unit in a parking lot off Diamond Street until controls for the permanent rooftop unit can be replaced.
The board approved a contract with United Mobile Heating and Cooling of Lombard, Illinois, to rent a mobile air chiller unit for $20,470 for the first month, including delivery and pickup charges, and $14,470 per month for rental after that. They also approved a contract with Standard Plumbing and heating of Mansfield not to exceed $20,000 for a lift and to install and later take down piping to the rooftop unit and a contract with Lake Erie Electric of Westlake not to exceed $2,800 to make electrical connections and later remove them.
It was incorrectly reported that commissioners approved a contract on Tuesday with Mobile Air & Power Rentals of Cleveland. Commissioners did not take a formal vote and said only that they received a $44,129 quote from Mobile Air and also were having discussions with a second firm.
The cooling system for the building has not been working for about two weeks because the computerized controls on the 10-year-old system failed and are out-of-date. Commissioners approved a $19,984 contract with SMARDT Incorporated of Ontario, Canada, for parts and labor for new controls but had to look for a temporary fix after SMARDT said the company could not be on-site to make the repairs until at least June 10 because of parts supply issues.
County Maintenance Superintendent Josh Hicks told the board the rental contract is effective Monday and that the company has indicated the chiller should be on site a day or two after that. He said he expects it will take the local companies about one week to make the connections to the cooling system.
“Our maintenance superintendent and Commissioner Vero have scrambled to solicit these quotes and it’s been a fast-paced couple of weeks in order to get this done as quickly as possible,” said County Administrator Andrew Keller. “We had to upgrade the pump size even during our negotiations over the last 24 hours because we intend to locate the rental chiller at the ground level off of Diamond Street and then pipe it up to the roof on the third floor so it’s going to require additional pressure.”
Contracts OK'd for youth and family programs
Commissioners also met with Youth and Family Council Director Michelle Miller to approve contracts worth $102,707 with four local agencies to provide services to children and families in Richland County. The programs and dollar amounts include:
- $9,953 to The Young Leaders Institute for 45 youth to participate in a sophomore leadership program.
- $8,000 to Community Action for Capable Youth (CACY) for a suicide prevention program that will involve 300 participants.
- $75,454 to Richland Public Health to continue the agency’s long-time newborn visiting program.
- $9,300 to the Mansfield YWCA resource and referrals to help set up “parent cafés” for parent education and support to 120 at-risk families.
Miller said all funding will come from unrestricted pool funds from agencies that put in money to help the YFC operate.
Miller noted that the Richland Public Health program promotes healthy behaviors for mothers, provides “cribettes” for safe sleeping and helps eliminate sudden infant death syndrome.
Regarding the YWCA program, she told the board, “We felt this is necessary because we’ve also been, as a council, looking at different parent education programs in the hope that some of our parents who just need the extra support can be reached.”
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