The County Commission approved a remodeling project for the Assessor’s Office in the Cape Girardeau County Administrative Building. After the remodeling is complete, the pubic will be able to go to one window, whether they are dealing with real property or personal property.
Assessor Bob Adams said the remodeling will also allow the public-facing part of the office to become less cluttered, stop the need for staffing increases and allow his staff to be more knowledgable on both types of property assessments.
“By combining those two sides, I will have more people cross-trained and can handle it all,” Adams said. “I think from an efficiency standpoint, we are going to be better off.”
The changes are estimated to cost $34,000, with the two largest costs being new carpet and new cabinetry. The carpet will be bid out, and Missouri Vocational Enterprises (MVE) will construct the cabinets. The County’s building and grounds department will do the labor.
County Commissioner Paul Koeper said this is phase one of remodelings to the Administrative Building, with plans to move the County Collector’s Office to the main floor as phase two.
Koeper said they hope to have the assessor, collector and recorder on the same floor, as those offices are visited the most by the public. County Collector Barbara Gholson said she would be in favor of the move as long as her office didn’t lose any space as a result.
“I look at this building and I think it’s still a good building,” Koeper said. “We put a million dollars into this building two or three years ago for HVAC, and we put in a quarter-of-a-million dollars in the elevator remodeling. We just need to continue upkeep.”
In other action:
• The County approved adding a gravel parking lot on the properties the county purchased on Cherry Street and North Missouri Street. The gravel lot, a concrete entrance and a retaining wall on Cherry Street is estimated to cost $12,000. The County had previously cleared these lots for the parking lot.
• The Missouri Department of Conservation plans on building an addition to its regional office in the County’s North Park. The addition is to add space for staff who moved from a closed office.
• The County Commission approved a sign to be installed at the county’s satellite office at 2311 Bloomfield Road in Cape Girardeau. County officials said the satellite office continually received calls from people trying to find the office and reported that people were going into neighboring businesses trying to locate the office. The sign from Sign Master, LLC cost $1,820.
• The County approved the purchase of a generator from the Village of Glen Allen for $20,000. Koeper said the generator was rarely used in Glen Allen and will be used at the highway department shop during emergency situations.
