The Clinton County Commissioners are moving closer to purchasing the former Region Bank building in downtown Frankfort.
“We got a formal response from the owner and the owner also signed the letter of intent (to purchase the building),” said Clinton County Commissioners President Josh Uitts. “Per the owner’s request, we’re going to try and get this closed by June 15.”
Uitts said the purchase price is $500,000.
“Moving forward, we’ll have some information on what it’s going to take to renovate and we’ll get some kind of an idea what it’s going to cost totally,” said Uitts. “It’ll afford some opportunities for us that we may not have had.”
The building comes with the parking lot in back being included which is huge for the county.
Another big discussion item revolved around the work that is currently being done on the water tower on State Road 28 near Castle Auto Parts. The tower is currently being renovated as it is getting a new paint job.
However, an antenna that was on the tower had to be removed per a previous agreement.
“If they ever decided to renovate, we would have the antenna taken down,” said Uitts. “We have a second antenna here in Clinton County at Geetingsville. We all anticipated that once this tower came down in Frankfort that everyone’s radio would just automatically go to Geetingsville. What we found out if that’s not necessarily the case. If you’re on the east side of the county, everybody is okay. Everybody’s radio is hitting the Geetingsville tower. But like here in Frankfort, for some reason, we’re trying to hit Boone County’s tower.”
Uitts said that is causing problems, especially for law enforcement agencies such as the Clinton County Sheriff’s Department, Frankfort Police Department and Frankfort Fire Department.
“It’s created a very hazardous situation for interior firefighting operations where there is some radio difficulties,” said Uitts.