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PANAMA CITY Bay County has almost zero maintenance employees, and if several aren t hired soon, needed work could fall behind, such as cutting grass along roads. Keith Bryant, chief of infrastructure for Bay County, said he has never seen a situation in which there are no maintenance workers. He has worked for the county for decades and soon the issue could become a serious problem. In all the years I have worked for Bay County, we’ve never been in a situation where we had literally zero maintenance workers on staff,” Bryant said. We aren’t there quite yet, but if we don’t get some of these positions filled, the public may begin to notice things like the right of way grass being cut less often than normal.” ....
Commissioners said having contractors in place helped after Hurricane Michael. We were able to get everything lined up, it was very quick and it was very efficient, said Commissioner Doug Moore. It was an easy flip of the switch, bring out the contracts and from that we were able to keep our costs down as best as we could. Even though the process after Hurricane Michael was described as being efficient, there were some lessons learned from the experience. County officials said they tightened up the time between when the work was completed and invoice submission, better defined clawback provisions for inaccurate work or incomplete work, and added complete cycle pricing and regular updates. ....
For most of the 2021 seniors in the county, their only normal school year was their freshman year. The subsequent years were met dealing with rebuilding and recovery, followed by the longest spring break ever due to the shut down of schools because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then an entire school year with new rules and regulations to deal with the virus. Remembering the hurricane Rowan hasn t forgotten what it was like preparing for the storm just days leading up to the disaster. Oct. 8, I believe it was, when we got the call to get out of school and we were going to be out for a few days and everybody was thrilled because it was another hurricane day, Rowan said. Usually when we get a hurricane break, nothing ever happens. ....