County continues ‘due diligence’ with soil sampling

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The Perry County Board of Commissioners limited the list of sites for its joint justice center with the city of Perryville to a final three in early September.
Since that time, the commission has continued seeking information about the possible locations.
Discussion at the bi-weekly commission meetings about the property site selection has been relegated to closed session due to the involvement of real estate matters, according to Perry County Clerk Jared Kutz.
Presiding commissioner Mike Sauer said the county is taking the proper steps to ensure it knows everything it can about the possible locations for the justice center.
“We are doing our due diligence to try to make sure that every piece of property that we have (under consideration) is a good piece of property, and we know there were buildings on that property in the past, so we’ve made arrangements to get on that property and do some test holes and make sure there are no surprises under the ground for us from those old buildings and then we’ll go on from there and make a decision on which property we’re going to go with,” Sauer said. “We’re just trying to make sure we cover all our bases.”
Kutz had similar thoughts about the situation.
“The county continues to perform its due diligence in the process of the site selection for the joint justice center,” Kutz said. “The present activities on Site E are part of that process.”

The county is working with Sitex and Interek PSI, both of St. Louis, as well as Zahner & Associates of Perryville on various parts of a geotechnical and subsurface exploration and testing of the site, according to Kutz.
“We aniticpate results of the bests being performed will take several weeks,” Kutz said.
The sites which were determined as “finalists” by the commission Sept. 2 included:
Site B — Highway 51 bypass across from the ank of Missouri soccer complex (commonly referred to as the Rozier’s property), four to six acres;
Site E — North of St. Joseph Street, west of Church Street (Old St. Boniface), 6.65 acres; and,
Site G — Highway 51 bypass across from the Elks Lodge (commonly referred to as the Pfaff property), 5.81 acres.
A public hearing regarding those three locations was held at the Perry County Courthouse Sept. 9.