County to get newer jet fuel truck for Dublin airport

The Laurens County Board of Commissioners voted last week to replace its old jet fuel truck at the W.H. “Bud” Barron Airport with a newer one to keep pace with fuel sales.

“We’ve been very blessed out there. We do have a lot of fuel sales,” said County Administrator Bryan Rogers .

Both fuel trucks at the airport need replacing, but “our jet fuel truck is really giving us a lot of trouble,” Rogers said. 

“With Air Evac out there and the corporate traffic, the jet fuel truck gets used a lot.”

The county looked around and found used fuel trucks to be priced “extremely high,” according to Rogers. “Most of the ones we found were 25 to 30 years old and pushing $100,000,” he told the board.

He suggested leasing a 2007 truck, “in real good shape,” from the county’s supplier, Titan Fuels. The board approved the staff recommendation of a five-year lease for $800. After five years, the county has the option to buy the truck or lease it for another five years.

Also Tuesday, the board authorized spending $13,000 for a new wheelchair ramp and to “shore up” fencing at the Senior Citizens Center. Rogers described the needed repairs as an “immediate problem.”

“It’s something we need to do sooner, rather than later,” he told the commission.

In other business, the commissioners: 

•Voted to re-assign a resurfacing and widening project on Buckeye Road, moving it up on the scheduled list of regional road projects paid for by a regional transportation sales tax (SPLOST). The project was re-assigned to Band 1, the first in line, from Band 2. According to the SPLOST budget, the $3.6 million project will resurface 11.4 miles of Buckeye Road and resurface and widen another 3.8 miles.

• Approved an off-premise consumption beer-and-wine license for 2384 U.S. 80 West (Yogi’s Liquor Mart).

• Voted to continue as fiscal agent for Family Connection.

• Approved a pro-organ donor proclamation supporting the LifeLink Foundation and in observance of April being Donate Life Month. Chairman Trae Kemp read a statement from Commissioner Jeff Davis, who was unable to attend the meeting, praising LifeLink for its work after Davis’ brother died in a car accident in 2011. Davis shared that his family only learned after his death that his brother was an organ donor.

“Four other people were given the gift of new life, free of illness,” Davis wrote.

Kemp said the proclamation recognizes LifeLink while “encouraging folks to be an organ donor.”