News

In split vote, county OKs EMS project

By Bill Moss, Published: January 21, 2016

The Henderson County Board of Commissioners in a split vote gave the OK on Wednesday to a new emergency services headquarters at the Balfour School property.

Commissioners have talked for more than a year about the consolidated headquarters for the county ambulance service, emergency management office and county rescue squad. The new EMS headquarters is one of many projects the commissioners are taking up as part of their 2016-17 budget review and four-year capital plan.

Chad Roberson, of the ClarkNexsen architectural and engineering firm, presented a construction scheduled that would start immediately with design work. The project would be bid a year from now and complete by August 2018. It would be built on the property that contains the Balfour Education Center on Asheville Highway.

Commissioner Bill Lapsley said he was not convinced that the Balfour property was the best choice.

"I do not support further action on this project until more reviews of other sites are available," he said.

Chairman Tommy Thompson responded: "This board has already concluded that Balfour is the best property we have." He added that the board would give Lapsley 30 days to find another piece of property that was workable.

The county had projected that the headquarters would cost $10 million. It would include administrative offices, a combined EMS and rescue squad headquarters and training facilities.