The Dallas County Board of Supervisors convened Tuesday morning for their first regular session of 2018.

The first resolution of the new year was to appoint a new Board Chairman, with Brad Golightly to serve in the post for the rest of the year. However, 2017 Board Chair Kim Chapman conducted the remainder of the meeting. The next action items were the approval of the County’s insurance renewal, several Board appointments, and a construction evaluation resolution. At 9:30 a.m., the Supervisors held a public hearing for the first reading of an ordinance establishing the countywide local option sales and services tax. No one spoke against the ordinance, so the Board approved the first reading and set the time and date for the second reading as January 9th and 9:30.

Next on the agenda was further action on the bid packets for the new law enforcement center. Samuels Group President Sid Samuels said they needed to rescind the bid awards for the roofing and laundry and food service packages. The previous bidders were deemed non-responsive, so the Supervisors awarded the bids to the next-lowest contractors. The Board then approved contracts for each of the low bidders. The combined cost for all the bid packages is now $16,822,208, considerably under the original engineer’s estimate.