The Warren County Board of Supervisors approved an order of 10,000 disposable masks that may soon be made available to the public.

According to County Purchasing Agent Tonga Vinson, an order for the masks was placed Tuesday with a California-based company and those masks should be delivered between five and 10 days.

The masks, which were purchased at a price of $0.49 each, will be distributed through the Warren County Emergency Management Agency and available to those seeking to do business at the Warren County Courthouse but do not have a mask.

Supervisors and county leaders, in restricting access to the courthouse in recent weeks to appointments, have also urged residents visiting the courthouse and other county buildings to wear masks or other face coverings.

Once the masks arrive, a system of distributing those masks and making them available to the public will be announced by the Warren County Emergency Management Agency.

Two weeks ago, supervisors had discussed the idea — even as going as far as entertaining the idea of purchasing 50,000 masks — before giving Vinson the authority to move ahead with ordering just 10,000 masks last week. At that time, Vinson said the best price on the disposable masks she could find was $0.89, but Monday she updated supervisors saying she had found other vendors with better pricing.

Vinson Tuesday said the order was placed with MRO Supply in Los Angeles.

 

Good terms on new road graders

In continuing the practice of using lease-purchase agreements to keep relatively new road equipment in the county’s road department arsenal, supervisors Monday approved the lease-purchase agreement on three new road graders at a price of $252,995 each.

The road graders will be purchased through an agreement with Trustmark Bank, which provided the best financing terms with 1.6 percent financing.

The monthly payments on the road graders will be $2,509.78 each.

As with the other graders, once the terms of the agreement reach the balloon payment of $117,000 each, they will be sold back for that amount, giving the county the flexibility to then go out and purchase new equipment.