The Liberty County commissioners and their engineer, Trent Long, are working on more Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant funding that could bring safety improvements to the county’s roads.

Pavement marking, sidewalks, striping, guardrails, rumble strips and signs would be covered by the Georgia Department of Transportation LMIG program. The GDOT’s District Five has about $1.5 million to spend on safety work in the 24-county area including Liberty, Long told the commissioners.

The commissioners discussed areas needing safety improvements, particularly sidewalks and rumble strips. Liberty County’s seven municipalities are also eligible for the second round of LMIG funds and the commissioners are interested in partnering with them on projects.

While considering if their nuisance ordinance needed to be rewritten, the commission voted to send to magistrate’s court a case under the existing the measure. A home on Brigantine Dunmore Road in the Sunbury area has been the subject of the commissioners’ attention for months.

The home is in poor repair and has suffered storm and weather damage, but County Administrator Joey Brown told the commissioners that they did not have the authority to order the home razed.The current nuisance ordinance provides for violations to be tried in magistrate’s court.

Commission Chairman Donald Lovette said the court seemed their only option and the commissioners voted to take that step.

Brown told the commissioners of a previous case in which a violator of the junk ordinance had been jailed for

for two weeks: "But after he got out the junk was still there."

He said an improved ordinance might provide for trials in state court. Commissioner Marion Stevens said, "Our (current) ordinance has no teeth."

Commissioner Eddie Walden pointed out that they had received only one complaint about the house on Brigantine Dunmore. "It’s a shame folks can’t get together with the property owners Association and solve this."

In other business at the brief meeting Thursday the commission accepted a recommendation from Long to reject all the bids for improvements at Gill Park in Fleming.

Long said he would rewrite the bid requests to divide the project into three separate contracts.

The commissioners appointed Robert Tucker to the Coastal Workforce Investment Board and named Troy Cook to the Citizens Advisory Committee of the Hinesville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The commissioners will take up plans for countywide fire protection, including paid professional firefighters, at their March 7 meeting.